Jamie Theakston: How a Cancer Diagnosis Made Me Live Life to the Fullest

0:00This episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. fiscally responsible financial geniuses monetary magicians these are things people say about drivers who switch their car insurance to progressive and save hundreds visit progressive.com to see if you could save progressive casualty insurance company and affiliates potential savings will vary not available in all states or situations i was traumatized the last time i saw you it was a lot of crying but i was so unbelievably happy to see you so i went to go and see a specialist and they said you've got cancer we're now dangerously close to you not being able to talk it came as such a huge shock to me i then had to go home and tell my wife and kids it was really hard early detection is so important our cancer outcomes at stage one are really good i'm a living example of that yes i got a call from my sister told me that my mum had died of cancer and then my dad was left on his own with alzheimer's i struggled to get through it i didn't want my kids to see me crying what are you looking forward to just the rest of my life these difficult times are what is making us appreciate the future so much i hope it'll make me be a better parent better broadcaster certainly feels like it makes me a better person well jamie i love you i love you too

1:34jamie davina for the purposes of the recording davina's clutching my ankle i am i just it's so nice to have you here with me and i know that you're actually quite a private person I know you don't talk to that many people and I sort of was wondering like why you said yes like why do you want to do it now what made you say yes um I I'm here because I love you and when you ask me to do anything I'll just say yes without even thinking about it so um that's why I'm here I listened to several episodes of your podcast on the plane yesterday and I realized how far I am out of my comfort zone I can't I really feel like you've chosen the wrong person are you aware of how difficult this the next two hours might be I listened to Patrick's episode I listened to Andy's episode and I was thinking and as I was listening I was thinking you've this is a bit like I've been chosen to I've been picked to play for Man United and you haven't actually ever seen me play football I feel like do you remember there's that story about that guy who was George Weyer who's a famous footballer rang up the Southampton manager and said oh I've got this my cousin's a really good footballer you should sign him and they signed him and he played for them without anyone realising he couldn't play football.

3:22No. And he lasted 20 minutes and then someone said, who's this guy? He's hopeless. So I feel a bit like that guy at the moment. I want to ask you why. Because I've never been someone who feels very confident talking about themselves and about their feelings and about their emotions. I've never had I've never been I've never done therapy or I've never sat down like we are talking about those kind of things and I've always been one of those people who's felt far more comfortable not ignoring them but just being able to get by without necessarily having to confront them I think so um yeah hold on tight folks the thing that I think is interesting about you is first off this sort of um this there's two images of Jamie that people people have well there's one image of Jamie that people have really and this is outgoing funny gregarious on the radio great at interviewing great with people and they don't know much about you yeah um and then I was so surprised to read that you were a shy kid yeah very shy um I was like really was he because I don't remember you like that I knew you before we were famous yeah and I never thought of you as shy how yeah so we just on that how long we've known each other because um I've never quite we've tried to work out when we first met before and my I might have got this wrong but my understanding was that I think I was I was involved in this clothes show model competition i think it was about 1987 yeah like that models one yeah and i was asked to go to on the back of that to go down to models one and meet the guys on the men's desk at omega house yes yes on the king's road oh my god good memory well i remember it really very We clearly, and I think that was when we first met.

5:47Yeah. So if that was 87, that means that's just shy of 40 years ago. That's amazing. And I think that might have been the first time. That's amazing. Otherwise, you know, we would see each other out and about. I mean, lots of social gatherings, lots of friends in common. Yes. lots of friends subterranean yeah oh god that was such a good club when you were working yeah working i think yeah so i used to run that with graham ball yeah jeremy healy and jeremy healy used to dj yeah i'm the same i'm the same yeah amazing um anyway so that so i think we've i think that we've known each other a long time and so and that was before before we were famous or before fame cast its fickle finger of fate in our direction.

6:43So in 87, you would have been what, 17? 17, yeah. Wow. And you, I think, are probably 90. 20. So we've known, what's interesting, I guess, about our relationship is that we have known each other before. Because then, obviously, we were cast into quite similar careers, really, at the time. You were doing MTV and I was doing music. I was doing shows at The Ozone and then other music shows at the time, kids TV, that kind of thing. Did you start on radio? I started in, yeah, I started doing radio at GLR, where I was a sports reporter. I mean, that's quite a mega job. Actually, no, that's not true.

7:22I started doing travel news. Oh, right. Okay. So I was, I used to, I lived in Labbrook Grove, and I was the manager that we played in the Sunday League football team. And one of our players, his girlfriend at the time was the secretary in the department and they were struck down with illness and they didn't have anyone to read the travel news. And they said, well, you've done like acting and stuff in the past. Why don't you come and read the travel? I love that. I love that kind of connection. You've done acting, like just speak. Yeah. So you're right. So that's how the radio started. and then I wanted to be a sports reporter because I was a big sports fan.

8:08So I was just knocking on doors and I managed to do, I was doing work experience at the local radio, football commentary, football. You know when they go around the grounds? Yes. And they can go, we can now go to Jamie, wherever I was. Yeah, 2-0 here, Blackburn. Is that your dream job? Yeah, absolutely, completely. And I adored it. And I travelled all around the country on the train with my Rothmans football yearbook. and an old plug-in telephone. And I thought, I've absolutely made it. And I was paid£30 a game to do, not including my train fare. So quite often I was out of pocket. And then I remember I then used to do games with Garth Crooks at GILA, who was their main football correspondent.

8:50And that was just heaven for me. I mean, you mentioned earlier acting. Yeah. You went to the National Youth Theatre. Yeah, yeah. Was that the first time you ever tried anything like that? Yeah, so I was probably about 14. I used to always love doing school plays and helping out. And I had a drama teacher and it was he who said, you could be better than this. You should go and audition for the National Youth Theatre. What did that feel like to a shy boy who? well I guess it was like what being on stage at the time and doing being able to express myself on stage felt very liberating so I think for someone who was as shy as I was doing that really felt very thrilling for me because it allowed me to I felt like wow look I can be on stage and do shows it just felt extra you know exhilarating what's quite interesting i wonder how why somebody who some people who are gregarious and outgoing it would be their worst nightmare going out there and being kind of judged in a way on your but for you you found it i found it liberating as a child i mean it probably just meant you know realistically it probably meant that i didn't have to go to lessons and I could meet girls that was probably the reality behind it because since then I then went on to do plays in like the West End and stuff and I was terrified properly terrified well that's kind of you'd say that um uh but the present learning lines I found difficult and press nights just would I was had crippling anxiety um but I think it felt like very liberating as a kid to be able to do that so I went to audition for the National Youth Theatre and unbelievably got in and I spent a few years there doing nothing doing nothing significant but being able to see other people who are really good at it Daniel Craig for instance was in my year amazing and if you know he went on to be Bond I never felt like I was particularly I felt I struggled a little bit I didn't feel as good as everyone else around me.

11:16Everyone else was going on to drama school and I had a bit of a crisis of confidence and thought, I can't do this. This is not for me. Why? I just wasn't sure that I would be able to make a living out of it. Right. I mean, that is... But interestingly, you went into entertainment, radio, TV. You'd think lots of people say the same thing about that. Yeah, I guess I sort of went back to it because then I, after that sort of slight confidence crisis, I then went and did, I worked for Christie's, the auctioneer. I mean, I did all sorts of other things that were completely unrelated. And it was only, I guess, sort of, I came back to it just on that opportune moment when someone happened to be sick and someone said, well, will you come and fill in?

12:07And there's been quite a few of those kind of serendipitous moments in my life where you look back at it and go, I could quite easily have said no. And I could say, oh, I don't think I'd be too nervous to do that. Or I'm not sure I would have been good enough to do that. And yet for some ridiculous reason, I said yes. But you grew on radio, right, quite a lot. Like people loved you. you went from travel quite quickly to reporting for sport which was what your dream was yeah but how did telly happen so I didn't see a clear sort of career path for me I guess doing the sports report didn't I wasn't sure really what where I had needed to go with that but one of the things that doing working at Radio 5 doing the travel GLR what it gave me was a BBC pass and that was like a golden ticket for anyone that was interested in broadcasting so I remember going to I could go into television center and knock on people's doors and say hi I'm you know I'm available on cheap did you I did and that's what took me to children's telly I mean that's kind of an amazing thing to do from you know I'm still trying to marry up shy Jamie with the guy that will walk around the BBC and knock on people he doesn't know's doors yeah because that big but that felt like that felt like I like I sort of I needed to do that for you know work that felt like work rather than a sort of personality trait if that makes sense were you were you obviously you were ambitious and you wanted to get somewhere yeah I always think it's quite funny how ambitious is labeled as like an insult to people sometimes oh that's so ambitious I was thinking yeah it can be an unpleasant thing yeah I think it's certainly important to have an ambition um I was still unclear where that ambition was going to take me so I didn't really have any clear defined goals at all I mean I really genuinely didn't I wasn't sure necessarily what I was necessarily what I was good at what I was capable of doing and then um I was asked whether I would do if I was interested in doing a screen test for this for a music show um and that's kind of really where that where it started it was only through doing that show and being kind of a feature within that department was I then asked to audition for live and kicking which I guess in many ways was that my kind of big that Saturday morning so good show was what what what sort of did it for me I guess that was so much it was tell me about that time it was so far how old were you then i must have been about 22 maybe i mean what a great age to just yeah really exciting and live television was just was terrifying and exciting yeah measure i mean you know what it's like there's nothing quite amazing like it but what was interesting was that no one knew who I was and I was doing it with Zoe Ball who at that time had just come from the Big Breakfast so she'd been very used to doing live tv and was was and it was like she was just it was a complete natural like for her it just just made perfect sense but I was very different because I didn't feel like I had that natural innate ability to do it so I would spend my time talking to the sound guys or the lighting guys to understand what they were doing because I'd never really done that kind of tv before never been in a studio before and what did you want to hear from them like what I guess I wanted to feel if I felt like if I knew what how everything worked and what was going on then I might be become better at it if I could understand the craft of it I guess whereas Zoe was completely she would literally turn up like five minutes beforehand and she'd go as you do you want to look at the running glance at a running order and go yeah yeah i've got it no problem let's go and i was like my i'd spend like hours the night before pouring over the running order thinking and and yet she just just could do it like that it was it's extraordinary to watch and what i would do afterwards we would do the show and then i would go up to the next next door to us noel Edmonds would be doing house party and so I would watch him that I would sit at the back and watch him just to see how he did it through the rehearsal process and he was just unbelievable I mean he didn't have a no auto cue no running no scripts nothing and he'd do a whole hour he was absolutely the master for me and I just wanted to copy what he did because he was for me I just my goodness that's extraordinary you put so much effort and work into your craft only because I thought without it I would really be exposed to say well what's who what's this guy doing I think the thing I loved was your relationship with Zoe yeah was that easy to did it happen yeah just completely yeah I mean there was it it's funny how doing I mean I've had that quite often I've had partnerships or I've done shows with other people and it's like I find it very relying on that or not relying on the other person but work dovetailing with that other person I found really comforting um and she really sort of held my hand certainly in that the first series I think we did maybe three years of that show certainly for the first series she was you know i was kind of holding on to her and yeah um but the co-presenter thing is uh sometimes it works there are times it doesn't it rarely happens oddly i mean i can't i could probably there's been a couple of times we just haven't really clicked often that they often they get spotted in a sort of during a pilot or something and then they might try and change you out i think it's really funny when people are i often um get asked to do double headers and my my heart slightly sinks when i get asked because people it's a bit like going to a dating agency or something and people are going oh these two will get on really well yeah and then i sometimes i meet them and i think oh there's it's not that you don't like them yeah it's that the chemistry is not there and that chemistry is magic there's something as we all know in relationships it's so hard to meet somebody you have that being in a relationship yeah because you have to understand i mean i we got to the stage where i just knew what she was going to say she yeah and then you just you know when you see twins being interviewed it's that but you're right about that you never really know And it is like, it can be a bit like, you know, putting two giant pandas and trying to hope they mate.

19:29Yes. You know, and everyone's watching them. Go on, guys. And sometimes it just doesn't happen. Yeah. You can't make it happen. Yeah, it's quite interesting that. And then, so you did television and we loved you on that. The Priory. Oh, yeah. Oh, my God. I love the Priory. I think, thanks to you, I think I met Matthew McConaughey on the Priory. and I just want to thank you for that he's lovely yeah he's amazing but he like your green room was epic yeah it was a brilliant show how long did you do that for I think again I think we only did it for three years top that's interesting because they burn quite brightly some of those shows and you sort of remember interestingly so that show I wasn't meant to be Zoe's co-host on that show really and uh i got switched in pretty late on in the development stage of that show but again that again goes back to what we were talking about earlier about that kind of chemistry and i think it might well have been zoe saying we'll just get jamie to do it so and that was this and all that was really was a sort of i mean i'm loathed to say more grown-up show than live and kicking because a lot of the things we did similar he grown up yeah but that was what it was fun about it for i guess we sort of moved took our audience through into there but that was pretty that was a fun show i've do you know i have no memory of that show at all so good i loved it i mean what what i thought was interesting you had a hugely successful tv career and then pivoted to radio and I was like what what's he doing because that was like a when you did you go straight from tv to heart no I was at radio one for a radio one of course you were of course you were but but but I think the radio one when I was at radio one that was probably overlapping with tv anyway I was yes at the same time yeah so I think there was at the time I was sort of shuttling me to do and it didn't it felt entirely natural yes um and I can't really remember when that switch then happened to to heart it was a big one that yeah it was quite big um and I had quite I had a lot of reservations at the time I wasn't sure about whether it was the kind of thing I wanted to do why such a big job yeah I just felt like

22:05I just wasn't convinced that I was a good fit for that show at the time and then I think I did um I think I was meant to do three years and uh I think that's certainly what I'd signed up for originally and then I never left yeah well were you were you married to Sophie then no so that was 20 years ago how long have you been married to Sophie uh we've been married 17 years wow and I and I know that because my um eldest son just turned 17 was he in her tummy he was yeah it was quite a special moment because we had um when we were married just not long before we'd found out that Sophie was pregnant and no one knew.

23:03Literally no one knew. And I think it was about the day before the wedding was the three months. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Going to the second trimester. It was an absolute gift for my wedding speech because right at the end I could say, and there's one final person I want to say, to talk about and that was a secret guest that was a secret guest yeah and everyone went what and I said yeah he's he's here with us but he hasn't he won't arrive for another six months and everyone went and there was this sort of moment everyone went quiet and then the sort of penny drops about people going what and then they looked over and then she hasn't been drinking at all and then that was it and it was just a wonderful end to her speech because then everyone just got up and went bananas they couldn't believe it well let's I'd like to talk about Sophie how did you meet her so we met in I was doing the Oscars coverage for Sky at the time so we would go out and do a big live show around the Oscars itself and at Elton John's party in fact we built a studio outside Elton John's party and I would do that we did it for about two or three years and I think it was the second year there was a Soho house pop up in LA in this amazing big house up in the hills and they ran it for like four weeks over the Oscars and the first year and she was running it and so I'd met her in the first year and I had a girlfriend she I think was about to get married or certainly had a proper boyfriend and so we just kind of you know we were sort of passing ships in the night really and then the next year um I saw her again I went no how did you get married she went no she goes how's your girlfriend said well we split up and then that was it and we sat down for dinner in uh in LA in the hills and I remember it quite clearly because Jamie Oliver was cooking Madonna on one side of me and I turned my back on Madonna and spoke to Sophie all night and that was how we met so that was pretty special 17 years married is a long time and obviously I know it's hard work to be in a long relationship you've got to put a lot of effort in and then you get the rewards back you know but I know that you two have really really been on a journey and especially in the last year or so with your illness and everything yeah yeah how's it been for you these last few months and navigating your relationship her the kids so when i when i got my cancer diagnosis it was it came as such a huge shock to me because it it was so surprising like there was no it just came as such a broadside because i so i had i had had this sore throat for a while and we were about to go on holiday we're gonna we're off to japan in fact i think we were meant to be flying to japan that the day and my wife said you should go and see someone before we go just to get some antibiotics so that you can you know to clear up your throat so and it was it was it true that listeners on heart radio had said two listeners had called yeah yeah people had mentioned the fact that my voice had sounded wasn't sounding right and I knew it was wasn't sounding right myself but I just thought well you you know you have a sore throat and you go you know your voice can get weak and you go through it you use it a lot yeah yeah and um and so people said but you should go and have it looked at and I hadn't really taken much notice of that but because we were going away and I wasn't getting a chance to do it and also at work they were saying you're we might have to take you off for a bit when we'll see you go away for i said i'm away for two weeks it'll be absolutely fine when i get back so i went to go and see my doctor my doctor said when anyone has a sore throat for more than two weeks we suggest you get it looked at properly and i hadn't even and i just thought well that's maybe you get a really bad sore throat so i went to go and see a specialist and um he was a lovely man literally the worst bedside manner of any doctor you'll ever meet so he looked at my throat and he said oh yeah that's um that probably cancer and i went and i said what do you mean and he said yeah you know i've seen i've looked at the the like an ulceration on your vocal cord and i've seen that many times and nine times out of ten it's cancer and we need to get you scanned and i said well i'm on i'm off to japan in like six hours and he went we need to get you scanned now you need to go and get we you need to have at least an mri scan a cat scan was and all of a sudden there was this rush to get it to get the scans done um and we got the scans done he then said look obviously it might not be cancer and in which case he put gave me some pills to take with me when i went away and i went on holiday with this in the back of my mind you didn't have the results didn't have anything so what by that what we were going to do we would see if there was going to be any change any development and then we would make a decision when we got back what we were going to do with it so i didn't at that stage i didn't have i didn't have cancer as far as i was concerned he said it might be cancer so we went away on holiday i had a fantastic time but obviously this is the back of my i didn't want to tell anyone i didn't want to tell did you tell so no i didn't tell anyone i didn't tell sophie no no and then when i got back just quickly interrupt there that's quite a lot to carry on your own on a two-week holiday with your family i would i thought at that stage I thought well it might not be cancer so there's no point really in saying saying you didn't want to share the burden that's a burden on you yeah I guess I just tried to suppress it and I didn't want to think about it and I all I could think well look it's probably not and we'll get it well we when when I was getting back we have to remove the ulcer the ulceration anyway has to be removed and then they'll biopsy it and then we'll see what it is so went back the scans came back and they said well if it is cancerous the good news is we don't we can't see any spread um but you do need we do need to have it removed had it removed biopsy came back and they said you've got cancer

30:50and I then had to go home and tell my wife and she was distraught and I said look I know it sounds bad and but we're pretty confident at this stage that you know it's uh it's going to be fine it's really early stages

31:16but and I don't want you to worry about it then we'll and everything will be fine and so uh the results came back it luck fortunate for me early stage stage one but it was quite an aggressive the cancer cells were pretty aggressive and so uh we were we had the surgery done told Sophie had to explain to the kids what was happening because that's a what was that like yeah it was really hard because I had to what I wanted to explain to them that I was going to be fine but they didn't they they were they're too young to understand when you say you've got cancer to a 14 year old well you're gonna die and so they go well are you gonna be okay and I said yeah yeah I'm gonna be fine um but my I my mum had died of cancer

32:23about a year before. And so my youngest son, who was with me when I was told my mum had died from cancer, knew how that you could die.

32:40And so I told him that it was going to be fine and that he had nothing to worry about. um and that was the hardest part and then uh so we had the surgery and uh we went back and the results came back and they said the surgery was successful but where because we were they worried about removing too much tissue from the vocal cord because obviously it's quite for what i do i mean the irony of getting cancer in your vocal cords and they were worried that so they didn't want to remove they wanted to leave as much tissue as they could to make sure that the voice wasn't going to be impaired and they came back and they said well we're worried actually that there might still be cancer around the periphery of where they've removed the can they can't be 100 sure so we're going to have to go again so we remove more tissue so that set my set my recovery back considerably because I would only expect it to be off work for a month or two what was the time difference between the first op and the second I think it was probably about four weeks five weeks maybe so you kind of were thinking oh this is good I'm recovering now and during that time I remember Amanda had given an interview where she had said yeah because by that stage I had to sort of make the announcement because obviously I wasn't on air and I needed to explain why and amanda had said oh i'd read an interview where she said yeah we're you know we're obviously we're all rooting for jamie and we're hoping you'll be back by christmas and this was like in september or something i was like well i'm gonna be way back before christmas so we had to do the second operation which set me back and then um we did the second operation when we then looked at the um how that had gone during the healing process it transpired that there was some tissue that was some of it as part of the healing process that was overlapping onto my vocal cord which meant that my voice was i've still struggling with my voice and we'd have to remove that in another operation in a third surgery wow god um now at this stage we're now getting dangerously close to removing so much of the vocal cord that I wouldn't be able to talk again.

35:13And so that had now gone from being, I've got cancer, but I should be able to live, to a situation where they've gone, well, we're now dangerously close to you not being able to talk. which is a new, I was like, wow, I hadn't really factored that into the whole equation. But anyway, we, fortunately, that third surgery was successful. And yeah, we're kind of here where we are today. I really want to talk to you about that third surgery. I think it's fascinating talking to people who have been through something potentially life-changing, and everybody's experiences is different but similar I think and where you have to go with your mind to get through something like that because I've never had thought processes like I had before my operation um and I was some people were like oh you know, God, you were quite extreme because I was like, I need to make sure that everybody's okay if I die.

36:40Like, will, letters, you know. What, you did that? Hmm? You did that? Yeah. But you told me, when you told me, you said that you were going to be absolutely fine. Yeah, I mean, I literally was telling everybody that. But I... Did you lie to me?

37:02It says you. Mr. I'm going to cope with everything. Be completely fine. Being on an operating table is a risk. Yeah. I mean, when I'd found... At our age. Yeah. I'd said to my doctor, I said, well, what are the chances of me dying? I actually said, what are the chances of me surviving? And he said, you've got 90 % survival rate. And I was like, I'll take that. that's fine that's like pick a number one between one and ten and i'm pretty confident that i'll be fine so i'd i'd always i've always analyzed the probability of risk i'm not a gambler never have been because i don't i always analyze the probability and i think well it's point why would you you know that seems pointless or i've never been driven by the adrenaline of of gambling and so I thought well 90 % I'll take but what's really extraordinary for me was that was because I got mine as stage one and I always had so many people get in touch with me you know when he goes to where we go to stage two and then that drops to 60 % and then stage three when you're in around the sort of 30 40 % and so and I was having people getting in touch with me at stage three saying you've got this and i'm thinking that's i felt i i never ever felt i was going to die and then i was thinking if i would put those people with stage three how tough that must be you know the what i was thinking about you was i had one operation and then i knew i was okay but each operation at our age carries a risk and you had three yeah i'd never really thought about it in that all i wanted all i wanted to do was i kept thinking to myself i'll do that and i'll be better right but you weren't but then i'd had that what i termed scansiety yeah when i mean how many scans have we had i mean i never have another scan do you know what i mean tell me what that's like uh well it's it's you you're just each time you have a scan you're thinking it's just the results it's okay it hasn't spread one of the things that's quite i mean well it's quite good good's an odd word but one of the things you have about vocal core cancer is it's very difficult for it to spread because of the the no i'm not not a real expert but it's a difficult one to spread and also it presents itself very early on because you literally lose your voice we've got oh that doesn't sound right you know if you've got prostate cancer or it doesn't it's a coward that hides in the shadows you know and no and you just don't know and when you do know often it's too late so thankfully for me that wasn't the case i mean i'm i'm always gobsmacked that there are people who can get to stage three vocal core cancer without doing anything about it and then i became quite evangelical and have been to this day about getting checked and making sure that because actual our cancer outcomes at stage one are really good you know i'm a living example of that once you get to stage three and beyond it's it's really not good and it doesn't have to be like that you know we should have i know there's a lot of talk at the moment about a national screening program for prostate cancer as in the same way that women have for breast cancer no brainer should absolutely have you know a test is not a particularly strong you know the the failure level of psa is quite high we should be having screening we should be screening all the time i know it's money i think in the long run wouldn't it you'd have thought so yeah um so early detection is is just is so important and i think you had quite a big impact on people screening for well i hope so i mean it was interesting i didn't know i mean the my the cancer that i had is really rare it's a it's a you know laryngeal cancer is a very unique not many people get it a lot of the doctors i spoke to had never even seen a case of it throat and neck cancers are far more common but laryngeal cancer is a very rare cancer um and as i said it because it presents itself through your voice we're quite lucky because you can diagnose it early um and that's you know why i'm still here and as far as that third surgery went i think for me i i don't know about you but if somebody said to me there is a chance of you not being able to speak uh that that would have a massive impact on me what yeah i mean it was uh excuse the pun it was unspoken at the time because i hadn't really i was still thinking about if i don't i need to be able to survive this i hadn't really thought about the possibility there might be that i might be losing my voice i hadn't really considered that because often that you hear about those cases where they go good news you're going to live but unfortunately this is you know you're going to you see people in car accidents I'm you know I've got great news you're going to live but unfortunately you're going to lose a leg and you just think amazing I'm going to live but you don't think of the the sort of what the other ramifications of what might or might not happen so i'd never really factored in losing my voice entirely um and it is a muscle and it will and it's improving even now it it's not as strong as it should be um i find that if i've because i've been away for the last couple of weeks i haven't been doing my radio show and so i did my radio show this morning and now I can hear my voice is quite weak.

43:43But that's fine because I'm on the mend and it's all good and I have to get checked every month. I've got one tomorrow where I have to have a laryngoscopy. Does that make you nervous? Not anymore because I sort of feel like we're on a journey out of it now. You know, it'll be a year in, what was it, probably about eight months now. so my monthly checks and I feel like now the likelihood of return I've probably I think we're out of the woods I mean it's a you're never out of the woods when it comes to cancer it's a nasty business but I don't feel as anxious as I used to and the voice is getting stronger and I feel in a much better place not only physically, but also mentally, because I've learnt so much about myself and about how strong you can be.

44:55I've learnt about other people, about friends and family, about how important they can be. In what way? Supporting, being there, not taking them for granted. has that been nice yeah it's been it has been a real gift often when bad things happen to us we can we can get in the aftermath of that there are good things to be to take from it and I think that I really do feel that I am a better person because of what I've been through than what I was before. In what way? Well, I can look back and about what things are important and I'm much more relaxed about work and about life. And I see now when, if you're in that position, when you tell your children you've got cancer and what that might mean to then telling your children that you don't have cancer anymore and what that might mean and all of a sudden you see your future ahead of you and it's like that's pretty cool um one of the things that i've done and if you were the same when i came when i got through it i became an all i did was plan ahead months years in ahead because I've got my future.

46:31So all I wanted to do was plan. So I would often, before I got cancer, I was very analog and I had a file of fax and everyone would take the piss out of me because I still had a file of fax. And I never embraced a digital because it just didn't make any sense to me. Now I love it. And in actual fact, when I'm on my phone now, I'm not on Instagram or I'm not, I don't know. You're in calendars. I'm on calendar putting stuff in. And so people will go, I'll go, hey, should we go away on a golf weekend in 2027? And they're going, what? I don't even know what I'm doing next week. I'll go, yeah, but you've got to get it in.

47:11I can put it in my calendar. It's great. And so if I were to show you my calendar, it's just packed for weeks and weeks ahead. Because I can. And I can put fun things in. and I'll arrange you know dinners with friends for like two months time they're like when have you ever planned two weeks ahead normally ring up on the morning go should we go and have lunch and now I think you know I can plan it it's great um there's there's a feeling of privilege in that isn't there when you've when you've had a frightening time in your life yeah there is a feeling of i i had a i had a sensation i was on the tube and i had the joys of life yeah and i was sat on the tube and i was looking at everybody and this was post-operation yeah and everybody looked a bit you know meh and i was like we're alive that's what i wanted to do but i just i thought like god i am weird but i thought you'd be great if everybody could have the joys of life or would that be really irritating but you've always been like that you've always had this extraordinary extraordinarily rosy outlook ever since I've known you you've always been one of those people who you want to be near because you're hoping that some of that might rub off on you and being with you is such a life enriching experience Jamie and you've always been like that net more so since you've had the operation yeah when you become really annoying golden retriever Really annoying.

49:01Calm down. For goodness sake. I was traumatized the last time I saw you. Sorry. I came into heart and I'm really sorry about that. What are you talking about? I felt like it was a lot of crying and emotion, And emotion, but I was so unbelievably happy to see you. Like, well, God, just like, I thought about you so much.

49:40Yeah, it was amazing. Well, we'd both been told that we might not have tomorrow. And so... And I know this is ridiculous, but I had thought I'd hurt you that day when I got you on that death-like grip. Okay. Just so we're really clear on this. Yes. Okay. Yes. So basically, Davina had come on and very kindly agreed to co-host on my show, which you were amazing, by the way. And during that period, you had given me one of your big hugs, which was great. Anyway, during that hug, I know that sort of throat throttle. And I'm going to think, oh, God, that was painful. But you then had decided, after then, obviously, it was discovered that we had cancer.

50:34And your first thought was that you were somehow responsible. No, no. I mean, that wasn't quite it. quite it i i had spent all the time between the throttle and the cancer feeling like i'd injured you in some way like i really felt bad about that and then when i heard you had cancer i was like god maybe i like made it worse or something you know that that he was vulnerable there and i was thinking anyway so knowing that you'd got help and everything and then you were okay was like but if you what that had what you did was alerted me to the fact there might be something wrong so actually in fact rather than you thinking i've done something bad it's the opposite that you actually were part of the process that enabled me to get better because in hospital I thought about you a lot.

51:37I thought about you as well. You know, it's funny, isn't it? I mean, we were messaging and stuff, but I was just like, I don't know. It was a – so – We were playing cancer top trump. Yeah. Who had the worst – who – I didn't have cancer. That was the amazing thing for me. I was very – I was – you know, we talk about lucky. You feel you were stage one. You caught it early enough. I was like you know benign isn't always fine and mine carried risks of death but in a different way that when mine was done when mine was out excuse me and gone you know I knew I was done your the danger for you was your procedure but also it carried the cyst if it grew at all would give me hydrocephalus which can put you in a coma and cause death and we never knew if it was going to grow or it might never grow and it might grow on a plane it could grow anytime anywhere so was there ever a time when you thought you might not get the surgery done oh i asked yes i asked lots of people i got i got opinions and then you had to weigh up the risk benefit factor it's very hard to get that properly from a brain surgeon because of litigation so if they operate on you and they've told you it might be okay you're fine and it's not fine so you can't get a kind of so i actually paid a brain surgeon with the actual promise that you will never operate on me but i need a really honest opinion and they were in america that's a good way of doing or you could have asked me i could have asked you for my expert yes for your expert opinion and you'd have said i'd have said you're fine you're gonna be fine you know what i'd have said you what you need an early night impossible a cup of aspirin and a good night's sleep to what you need um i mean the other thing that was annoying about it was that it had a chance of spontaneous death and that was like a horrible idea.

53:54What does that even mean? So there's a 1 % chance of you spontaneously dying so you don't wake up. But what's the difference between spontaneous dying and just dying? Well, dying generally happens for a reason. Like your heart stops, you have a, you know, there's a heart attack. Yeah, but the reason is someone's in your brain. Yes, I guess so. But it's not that it's done anything to your body. Your body shuts down and they can't. It's killed you. And it's like literally on the operating table and they suddenly go, and you level and they go, shit, what the fuck? Yeah. And then. But not even on an operating table.

54:42It could be in bed. It could be standing on the back of. Oh, HP. So it's not during the procedure. No, it's just every day. Yeah, that's not true. So I think that's why I just thought I can't live with the doubt. But that's why I feel very lucky, a bit like you feel very lucky. It's quite mad that. But my luck was, your luck was because you had a fantastic surgery. And that it was accessible. And it was accessible. My luck came from the fact that I was diagnosed early. Early. Because in actual fact, the procedure, apart from the possible damage to the vocal cords, is a relatively straightforward one.

55:19I mean it's a weird so it's like a robot laser I mean I because obviously we're not aware of what they're doing we wake up and go we've got a bit of a sore throat what happened but there's very the chances of anything going wrong in that procedure are quite low but like as you say you say that to your doctor and you're like come on guys can we lighten up a bit and they have to give you the risks before the operation so you know you might not make it And you're going, has anyone got any fucking good news? Do you know what I mean? Can we not get someone in who can just lighten the mood a bit? You know, in children's wards when they have clowns come round.

55:58Yes, you need some of that in the adult world, right? Yeah, put a smile on our face. But I think there are other things that happen when you go through an experience like this. And we talked about it earlier, about you talking about the synchronicity of things that happened like how weird it is and how and I've been talking to a couple of other people about brain surgeries and them looking back after the surgery and going wow when you look at the sliding doors moments in your life when things could have gone a certain way do you think that because of what you've been through you are more aware of those moments I wouldn't say that I mean I tend to have quite a scientific approach to these things so for me it's that it's coincidence isn't odd doesn't seem weird to me so when it never felt no not really so I don't have that when a coincidence happens it's not like oh it's that's kind of some higher process that's happening for me it's just good well if you were to wear up and look at the odd chances are that might happen anyway so it's not a significant it doesn't seem to be statistically significant um but then what that of course ignores is a lot of the emotion that can be involved in those things anyway and i don't you know i don't i see the world as being an unbelievably beautiful extraordinary place anyway without feeling that there is something else going on because it is i mean it really is i mean i think that you know we one of the things that when i've just got back from southeast asia yesterday and it's been a what i love to be able is to be able to take my show my kid how travel for me is the most important thing you can ever do in terms of having a greater understanding of where we are placed on this planet politically environmentally and have it being lucky enough to be able to explore the world and to be able to take my for me is the greatest education you can ever give your kids and they're now interested in other places and other people and they want to become adventure more adventurous and i think what that does is it just expands your world view on things like our parents were our parents and your parents maybe your your mom was slightly different we didn't they never my parents didn't travel they didn't go anywhere really they certainly didn't go long haul no mine didn't so it just was it just wasn't a it was a thing that we were the sort of first generation that really had that ability where it became cheap enough for us to be able to explore the world and what that did for me what I was my desire to travel was ignited at around about nine when I left school 19 I think I went to Thailand and it just blew my mind and I just all I wanted to do was explore the world um and I think you know that that for me has given me so much in you know culturally and as I say politically and and that's it's been great to be I've been able to do that with my kids and able to share my enthusiasm and hopefully pass it on to them and also you know that's since um my cancer it's only fired that more like I now want to do really I want to cross the arctic or i want to do things that i've never done before adventurous things because we can because we have a tomorrow um and that's really exciting for me anyway i can't remember why i've gone to that chain of thought that's a change like to do the really big things yeah because you know that you can we can and you know it it might seem sort of before I got ill, it was quite trite to think of it in that way.

1:00:24But in actual fact, you know, being able to do those things and have an opportunity to do those things is such a gift. And when you realize that, it makes today a much better place than what yesterday was. Because for many people, they have a today, but they might not have a tomorrow. and the fact that we both of us have gone through what we've been through and to have a tomorrow is the greatest gift of all

1:01:00because and just on that because i think i sort of mentioned this earlier when my my mum died of cancer and so i first had when i got told i had cancer all i could think about was my mum and I was so pleased that she

1:01:26had died before I got cancer because I would hate for her to have learned that I had cancer because I'm not sure what that would have done to her because she's she was a survived she'd lived with cancer for years had got the all clear came back she had several different forms of cancer that in the end just took she couldn't wasn't strong enough to deal with and i can't i don't think i'm not even sure i could have ever have told her because i don't know what that would have done to her.

1:02:05And it was easy with my dad in a way because my dad's been left behind. He struggles a bit with his memory and he doesn't have that much clarity in the way that my mum did. And so in a way I could just tell him I was unwell. And I'm not sure how much he knew or does know now about how unwell I was but I feel I don't mind that because I don't want to burden him with it I often think that Alzheimer's in many ways it is a it's the way it's a very cruel disease but in many ways it means they don't have to really be fully aware of some of the difficult things that they might have to face at that age.

1:02:57So it wasn't difficult, it was easier broaching it with him, but I think it would have been very difficult to tell my mum.

1:03:08And as I touched upon earlier, my kids were really affected when my mum died. I got a call from my sister. we'd been on one of our adventures and we'd been up to see the northern lights in up in the north of Finland I didn't want to go too far because I knew my mum was pretty ill and I didn't want to go too far I wanted to make sure I was back by Christmas to see her and it was my birthday on the 21st of December and on the 22nd as I was getting on the plane to come home my sister rang me and told me that my mum had died and I sat next to my youngest son on the plane and I had to explain to him and he cried I told him it was fine

1:04:06and so that was when I had to tell him that I had cancer I didn't want him to think I was gonna die

1:04:18and then the funerals are just a word i can't i hate funerals hate funerals why do you hate funerals i just find them just uncut just difficult and uncomfortable and i had to i knew that i had to give a had to do a took eulogy at my mum's funeral and it was really one of the hardest things i've had to do I struggled to get through it I didn't want my kids to see me crying Why not?