Sarah Harding, British actress and member of popular girl band 'Girls Aloud', passed away on 5 September after a year-long battle with breast cancer.

The singer's mother took to her daughter's Instagram late on Sunday evening to share the news saying, 'she fought so strongly from her diagnosis till her last day.'

Harding was only 39 years old.

Sarah Harding had announced last year that she had been diagnosed with breast cancer and that she was undergoing treatment.

In her Instagram post, Harding's mother thanks her fans for their "kind support over the past year". Adding that the singer died peacefully in the morning.

Speaking of her diagnosis last year, Harding had confided that her doctors had warned her she didn't have much time left.

"I'm at a stage now where I don't know how many months I have left. Who knows, maybe I'll surprise everyone, but that's how I'm looking at things," she had said.

Apart from her successful stint in the popular British girl group, 'Girls Aloud', Harding also appeared in several films and reality TV shows.

For this reason, doctors and experts advice routine yearly monograms after the age of 45.

The place to start, though, at any age, is self examinations.

Some early signs of breast cancer to look out for are,

• A new lump or mass in the breast, armpit or base of your neck which doesn’t move away from the wall of the chest. It does not always have to be painful

• Swelling

• Skin irritation or dimpling

• Breast or nipple pain

• Nipple retraction (turning inward)

• Redness, scaliness, or thickening of the nipple or breast skin

• Nipple discharge (other than breast milk)

• Swollen lymph nodes around the collar bone or under the arm