Carolyn Mayling

Carolyn Keston-Bloom was born to Jewish parents in 1954, the eldest of four children. At ten she won a place to study at Arts Educational Schools focussing on performing arts.

Aged twelve she played Barry Humphries’s daughter Cathy in the Late show for BBC. She danced in the English National Ballet production of The Nutcracker at the Royal Festival Hall. At seventeen she played Therese Strauss in the TV series The Strauss Family.

Aged eighteen and fuelled by her passion for coaching young performers, she began teaching at Redroofs School For The Performing Arts, which her mother June had founded in 1947.

After a short marriage to James Hall, Carolyn married David Mayling in 1987.

Together they had two daughters Eloise [Ellie] in 1988 and Rosanna [Rosie] in 1991. Both daughters shared Carolyn’s love of the arts and attended Redroofs.

Rosie was diagnosed with vasculitis, a rare auto- immune disease, and tragically died in 2003 aged just eleven.

Carolyn honoured Rosie’s wish to help sick children by founding the children’s charity Rosie’s Rainbow Fund.

In her grief Carolyn turned to spirituality, and her belief in the afterlife was confirmed through messages from Rosie.

In 2008, five years after the loss of her daughter, and with the help of IVF, Carolyn and David had a son Dominic. She was fifty-four years of age.

Carolyn was awarded a Point of Light in 2015 by former Prime Minister David Cameron for “outstanding volunteering in the service of others”.

After a diagnosis of breast cancer in 2016, Carolyn underwent radical surgery followed by successful treatment.

In 2017 Carolyn was invited to speak about her charity work at the Classic FM Live concert performed at the Royal Albert Hall.

Now divorced, Carolyn lives in Berkshire with her teenage son Dominic, Pollyanna her daft rescue dog and near to daughter Ellie, her husband and two grandchildren.

She continues to run Redroofs School for the Performing Arts and Rosie’s Rainbow Fund.

Her memoir The Future is Rosie is her first published work.

Listen to Carolyn Mayling’s podcast ‘Living with dying’ here!