Dame Deborah James’ brother Benjamin welcomes first child with wife Ashley Hall as couple name their newborn daughter after late cancer campaigner

Dame Deborah James’ younger brother Benjamin has named his first child after the late cancer campaigner, their mother revealed recently.

On Sunday, Heather James greeted her ‘beautiful new granddaughter’ Coralie Susan Deborah James on Instagram, while also congratulating her son and wife Ashley Hall.

Alongside an adorable photo of baby Coralie snuggled up in a blanket, Heather wrote: ‘So excited to welcome our beautiful new grandchild! Coralie Susan Deborah James.

‘Congratulations to me and Ashley, I know how loved Cora will be.’

Ashley also documented “Cora’s two weeks” on the social media platform, sharing a photo of the newborn in her car seat as fans gushed over Cora’s “stunning” name in the comments section.

Scottish singer Natalie Rushdie also wished the couple well, writing: ‘Congratulations and I love his name.’

British presenter Gaby Roslin added: ‘Huge congratulations she is so beautiful and [I had] ‘I get goosebumps when I read his wonderful names.’

One fan wrote that Cora’s “aunt would look down and be so proud” after former assistant manager Cora died at the age of 40 on June 28, 2022, following a five-year battle with bowel cancer.

Their mother, Heather James, recently revealed on Instagram that Ben and his wife, Ashley Hall, named their daughter Coralie Susan Deborah James.

This comes after Benjamin and Ashley tied the knot in an intimate ceremony in Barbados on April 7, 2024.

He had proposed to his long-term girlfriend weeks before Deborah’s tragic death in 2022; The late activist shared the joyful news of the engagement at the time.

In a post on her Instagram page, Deborah revealed that even Prince William asked Benjamin “why he hasn’t (suggested) doing this yet.”

‘Ashley Hall and Benjamin James finally ‘put a ring on it’. “I cried and cried… Even Prince William asked my brother why he hadn’t done this yet,” she wrote.

Sharing a photo gallery online, the woman’s caption reads: ‘Finally he put a ring on her! Congratulations to @benjaminrjames and @ashleyclairehall on finally getting engaged after 11 years!

‘If you’ve been following my podcasts, there’s a lot of my brother’s banter and even Prince William got in on the action recently!

After raising millions for Cancer Research UK through the BowelBabe fund, the Crown visited the mother-of-two and her family in May that year and crowned her a dame.

comes later Heather posted a heartbreaking message to her daughter on the third anniversary of his death last June.

Heather’s post included photos of Deborah with her family at Wimbledon last year.

Starting the tribute post, the mother wrote: ‘It’s hard to believe it’s been 3 years since we held Deborah’s hand as she took her last breath today.

‘We think of you every day and remember your enthusiasm, your joy of life, your wicked sense of humour, your love of family and of course that smile!’

In an interview on ‘The Life of Bryony’ podcast around the same time, Dame Deborah’s siblings Ben and Sarah Wieczorek explained how they were coping with the pain of losing their sister to bowel cancer.

His sister Sarah told Mail writer Bryony Gordon: ‘It’s terrible that her children have to grow up without a mother.

‘I hope the fund will support groundbreaking research that will give people like him more time; people should not lose their mothers, daughters, sisters and friends.

I don’t let myself think about the fact that he’s not here. I don’t want to go there… I miss his energy and his ability to get everything back to normal. Not only is it normal, it’s also fun.

‘The part that makes it easier is that he made a statement like that and we’re lucky enough to still talk about it.

‘We do a lot of charity work through him: his memory is still alive. Even if it isn’t, it feels like it’s still alive.’

Ben added that despite the pain of losing his sister, “it’s hard to look at a lot of it negatively.”

Ben said of his pain: ‘Frankly, this is a situation no one wants to be in. But honestly, it’s hard to look at most of this negatively.

Benjamin married his partner of more than a decade, Ashley Hall, in Barbados on April 7, 2024.

While sharing the joyful news of her engagement in 2022 on her Instagram page, Deborah revealed that even Prince William asked Benjamin ‘why he hasn’t (suggested) doing this yet’.

‘The last six to eight weeks have been a huge distraction: Debs said it’s been some of the best times we’ve ever had as a family.

‘I live close to where Debs lives and I often run past the house and think ‘I can’t believe he’s not there’; This affects me a lot.

‘Getting over cancer is a process, and you grieve to some degree before it happens. He was quite ill at the end and you see it was a salvation.

‘We continue to move forward; I think everyone deals with it in their own way.’

After she was diagnosed with stage four bowel cancer in 2016 at the age of 35, Deborah became a viral sensation on social media content; This content showed how she danced with chemotherapy and lived with ‘rebellious hope’.

Channeling her inner Celine Dion, she started a TikTok movement miming It’s All Coming Back to Me Now, encouraging others undergoing cancer treatment to join in and dress brightly while in the hospital.

As well as her campaign, she co-hosted the BBC’s You, Me & The Big C podcast with Lauren Mahon and Rachel Bland, who died of breast cancer in 2018. Following her death, her husband Steve took over as host.

In the final months of her life, mother-of-two Deborah set up the Gut Baby Fund, which has raised more than £11 million for cancer charities.

While she spent her final days at her parents’ home in Woking, Surrey, Heather and her father Alistair helped care for their daughter, as well as Deborah’s own children, Hugo and Eloise, and husband Sebastien.

In her final days, Dame Deborah released a clothing collection featuring InTheStyle based on her ‘Rebel Hope’ mantra.

She also received the Damehood, which was personally delivered by Prince William, who came to Woking for afternoon tea in Heather and Alistair’s garden.

When Deborah passed away, Heather posted a touching tribute to her daughter on Instagram.

She shared the post announcing the cancer advocate’s death on her story and wrote: ‘I’m heartbroken.’ In another story she said: ‘I will love you forever.’