Trisha Goddard: Why I’m Doing Celebrity Big Brother While Living With a Life-Limiting Illness

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 yes i've got stage four metastatic breast cancer. Life is terminal. None of us getting out of here a lot. I want to deep dive a bit more into why you're here today because something big is happening. I have agreed to go into the Celebrity Big Brother house.

0:44It's a huge decision to do something like that. You're not doing it for the fame. You're not doing it for the money. You're doing it for a very different reason. Can you just tell me a bit about that. I would really like to talk to your daughter with you if that's all right.

1:05If you can please could you just click the like button and then subscribe to this podcast. It obviously doesn't cost any money to do that but it does mean we can deliver great guests to you and you get the episodes first. I'm so happy to be sat in front of you I can't tell you because as a TV presenter you know you were there shining a light way before me a woman in television doing being a boss journalistic intelligent forceful strong woman and it's an honor to interview you wow also a little bit scary but it's okay really i'll just i don't know i just um am i scary no not scary but because i i admire you and i think i want to do right by you like i feel you deserve the best interview ever wow um and i yeah i want to do you proud oh bless you yeah i think you're amazing oh god i'm listen after all the therapy I've had the one place that therapists have never been successful is um getting me to accept praise I can't I really um I really feel uncomfortable with praise Why do you think that is?

2:35Oh, I know why it is. Because I was brought up with the opposite. If I did anything good, I was and I was proud of it. I was either punished for being, yay, I did this. I was told not to be boastful. even if somebody praised me in front of my parents mom would be like oh my god you know my mom was always like oh tootsie tootsie you know and I got all my o levels and things you go tootsie run up the gun tootsie tootsie tootsie and I'd be really happy for a moment and then dad would be don't boast you know what have you and and so if somebody praised me like on teacher parents teachers night if a teacher said oh she's doing right mrs millard my heart my english teachers praise mrs millard ah praise mrs millard yeah would say you know oh you know she's done really well and blah blah blah and mama go like this and then dad would just sort of stand there and say well you've got a good brain you know i want to deep dive a bit more into your mom and dad but First of all, I really wanted to start by asking you about why you're here today, because something big is happening.

3:59I finally, after years of being asked, have agreed to go into the Celebrity Big Brother house. And you, of course, you are, you know, you are the Celebrity Big Brother. Well, we were, like you were. Yeah, I was with Ryland, you know, behind the scenes. And I'd see you do these live shows. And as my Australian side would say, not to piss in your pocket, but you, with live TV and a live audience, remain unsurpassed. No, really, your energy and how you read the audience, you know, because it's live. It's not easy. So exciting. Yes. And when people came out of the house or even going in the house, your sort of awareness of how they felt and taking that.

5:10and not losing the audience but still giving that person a sort of jolly up I just I think you're brilliant at that oh thanks but we're not here to talk about me I love you Trisha you're like interviewing me I hate stop it being interviewed so weird so freaking weird um but so I you're allowed to swear as much as you like we'll just beep it don't worry um I I was fascinated by that because obviously it's a huge decision to do something like that it's it's not like um you're not doing it for the fame and you're not doing it for the money um but you're doing it for a very different and valid reason can you just tell me a bit about that well like you say like every year you get asked to do a big brother and i'll be like nah because you've got to be kidding um and and let me be honest money wise um I've been asked a couple of times before when sort of public didn't know but I was really brassy you know you know divorce and having to pay people out and all that stuff um really I mean seriously like borrowing money of my kids for for a while and I still said no there's no way I'm going to do it so this why why had you said no before in the past why I had no reason to me I had no reason to do it I yeah the the money sounded good but I either wasn't in a place where I wanted to do it I it's quite hard it's quite hard I think yeah emotionally being cut off from the outside world It's a very intense ride.

7:03Well, that wasn't in those days, you know, when I was going through hard times, that wasn't even my consideration. My consideration was mentally going through a divorce or a separation or your relationship breaking down was not the time to, you know, to expose yourself for all the money in the world. And it just wasn't my thing. I mean, I trained producers in reality television, so I knew, you know, I knew the game. So I didn't want to do it. So this time I was asked and I said to my daughter, my older daughter, I said, oh, God, as usual. You know, they've asked me to go and do Big Brother. And she said, Mum, you know, while you're going through this whole cancer shenanigans, you have become passionate about the language around it.

8:01The lack of joined up services. The way the press reports it. The misinformation. You're doing it on Instagram. You're supporting people. And they support me. on social media you're shouting you know you're shouting into this void even on like when i do cnn and i have to i had to cover um catherine coming out about it which is when i decided to come out about it you know my daughter said you've got all of these stuff you're passionate about um i've done local press in america about it and uh you know billy said mom this is your opportunity for people to see what you're talking about not just the words to actually see um what 3.4 million people according to the mcmillans by december 3.4 million people in the uk alone will be living are living with cancer six million people are living with a chronic illness now they're not all on benefits most of them are working a lot of them keep it secret because they think they won't get further work or they'll be fired and with very real that's a very real fear but all those millions of people who could benefit from better joined up services people using better language about around them all of those things you know but he said hello so I said yes and I'm flicking around a bit because I want to talk to you a bit more about your cancer later I'd quite like to go back to um you were talking about your your mum yeah at the beginning and Agnes um Agnes came to the UK in Windrush is that the Windrush generation as a nurse yeah and um and you were born in 57 yeah and you grew up thinking that somebody was your father how did that evolve um well mum came over yes you say did um nursing training and dad as i call him was another student um i later discovered they split up for a while and then mum came back to him and said i'm pregnant what are you going to do about it so they got married I'm just laughing about how I found out when they got married I needed a passport to go on a school cruise um that I worked for saved up for and uh I was about I know 14 15 and they had all the papers on the bed and I said oh what's this and it was um their wedding certificate and it said they were married in august 1957 and i sat there and i said you hang on 1957 august i was born in december 1957 hello and my mum did a rugby tackle that would have saved the sevens she she flew in a way that harry potter could only dream of across the room anyone she could be an american football grab the stick like this which is how i knew it was an issue but yeah that that she had the baby apparently and i found out later from a friend who came because it was the old days the man wasn't there um mom's friend came looked at me and said well it's not peter's aren't you my dad but he's not peter's are you going to tell him and mum said well I suppose not and apparently dad said that he kept asking her and he said don't make me ashamed if I have to have a blood test so like three months later um she said what I suppose it's not yours and according to dad she would never tell him who my father was um I was born in December 1957 and I say mum went on to nail dad's foot to the floor had three kids I mean my sisters are barely a year apart in fact one between two sisters there's a year and a day and um I said to dad you know he said what was I going to do we were already married and in those days you know you couldn't just get divorced and a black man and a white woman meanwhile in the states would have been illegal they got married um look you know people there were signs indoors saying no irish um no dogs no blacks um they had to move from where they lived in Hackney um you know we they moved to a caravan site um and yeah my mum had the sisters one after the other but he was always dad but I all Davina I knew I looked so different my sisters are lighter than my kids they had different hair and they were always the pretty one people always thought I was the boy always thought I was the boy um and I was really comfortable with that you know it's interesting that because I think um I feel a lot of similarities to you in my ambition I know you're ambitious and I love your drive and i love your hustle you hustle i love that about you and um i i feel like we both have because i was a real tomboy when i was younger yeah a masculine energy to us a lot a lot a lot you know um one of my kids said i'd make a good lesbian i could have been i could have been completely um you know I I've never been ashamed of that um I still to this day in fact even yesterday when I'm all done up I said oh I look like a girl and and that's quite funny right yeah oh look at me I look like a girl yeah I look like a girl um he gets it he The man I'm with gets it.

15:09Alan. We'll get to that, Alan. But, yeah, I've always not been ashamed of that. I never felt overtly feminine. I've never felt overtly masculine. I guess if I was a young person in this day and age, with what's floating around, I probably would be called non-binary. I don't label myself other than my name. You know, younger generation want to label themselves. But I get it. I absolutely get it, not on an intellectual level. And I know there's loads of people like us, Davina. There's loads of people like us who just fall this side of heterosexual, if you can put it that way. I mean, sorry, I'm probably labelling you.

16:03No, but I agree. And it's interesting you talked about your husband because my partner would probably say he's got lots of feminine energy. Yes, my husband's got lots of feminine energy. And that's what we find attractive in each other. Yes. I think that's what makes the world go round. You know, like we have a little quirk that somebody else finds attractive because they also have a little, you know, that's what's brilliant. um i'm fascinated about your relationship with your stepdad because you you did adore him when i was growing up yeah yeah when i was growing up it sounds like he was quite tough on you i used to when we sailed on the ship out to east africa because my parents relocated to east africa and i love my memories of east growing up in east africa tomboy land yeah um we sailed out to the ship i used to walk around holding his hands and i wanna be daddy's girl because that was yeah bobby's girl and he was my hero in east africa he was my hero i remember he my parents went out there because tanz uh tanganika had become tanzania and they needed medics and people to train and both my parents were nurses and so he worked at the hospital for the criminally insane he was all for giving the people we write off another chance there's a lot of that in you right like i mean when you think about your tv show about you your moral framework about helping people came from dad yeah came from dad mum taught me

17:50she taught me i had to be twice as good to be half as good she taught me that i was an ambassador i might be the first as we called it then colored person somebody had ever met not to forget it that's good and bad yeah tell me about that um I went to I I won a place I'm we we were in Virginia water when we came back from Africa short time in Africa in Norfolk which I've had a lot of therapy to get over that was horrific horrific just quickly why was that horrific or do you mind me asking we went to a little local school in Norfolk remember this is 1968 Tom goes 60s never seen a black child before and my little sisters went to my auntie was teaching at another school kindergarten and we went to the school and um we were came with my cousin and as we walk up to school every day one kid will go they're coming they're coming and they go blackie blackie blackie blackie all the kids like oh my 10 20 kids blackie blackie the school gate it smackers blackie blackie like this and there was one blonde girl i i if my life's ambition is to find her i think her name was Julie she used to go I'll fight with you I'll fight with you protecting you she'd come and she'd be get off I'll fight with and I thought for a white kid to come and fight with us every day it's like why would you do that what did that mean to you though I mean that look for the allies yeah don't tar everyone with the same brush it's very easy when you get a barrage of racism to think all of them are racist and to think only the ones throwing the punches are racist they're not because the people standing at the back doing nothing the quiet racists are always the most difficult the I've got a black friend or I sat next to a gay person on a bus they're always the most difficult but there's when you meet those allies they are bloody heroes to vena they're the ones crossing the lines that they don't have to cross to stand shoulder to shoulder with you they are the saints of this world be amazing to find Julie.

20:39I would if Julie's We should start a campaign. Julie's around my age. We're going to talk about this after. Yeah. I'm going to help you do that. But Davina, that time at school, dad who I thought was my dad taught me you must never let them see you cry. I used to get hit if I cried when I got hit. I got hit a lot. So I didn't cry. Can I just quickly ask you something you just said i used to get cried when i got hit do you mean by your dad yeah yeah yeah so okay so you used to go get hit by really badly yeah really yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah wow yeah yeah but you really loved him up to a point yeah and then when i stopped davina i stopped completely and i was never stopped caring about him no because it was physical manipulation and then it was mental manipulation um but he's complicated he's not bad he wasn't a bad person um um he put a roof over my head when he later out I found out it wasn't his kid and he didn't think I looked anything like my mother I looked like him but you know this school anyway we used to have school we used to call it school dinners you know school lunches and you had to sit down at a table and they were black either you know anyway i went towards this table and a boy came and hit my tray and the food went everywhere and they were laughing blacky blacky like this i wasn't gonna cry he went back and i said big lump in my throat they knocked my tray down i think eight they knocked my tray down can I have some more food and this dinner lady looked at me she said you've had sight all of the truth she said you've had and everyone laughed so I ran outside burst into tears I'm sitting on the step I remember it like it was yesterday crying and crying and crying and a teacher came and sat down next to me and I I remember when he looked at blonde hair and he had goofy teeth.

23:12And he sat down next to me and he said, you've got to toughen up. You see, people in this country don't want you here. And you're going to get this all your life. Because they don't want coloured people. So you've got to, you know, this is how it's going to be. so you can't cry every time it happens because you know basically telling me that that's okay that's my life you've got to suck it up you've got to suck it up and and grow a pair because of that and I mean you were in Norfolk for a number of months what where did you move to after that London Virginia Water oh Virginia Water that was it heaven and so when you moved to Virginia Water Was it any better than Norfolk?

24:07Was it? Why? I guess because the common denominator was money. People suppose that if you were there. And also a lot of airline crews there. Very wealthy area. We were in hospital housing, housing that came with my dad's job. Our primary school was fantastic. St Anne's Heath. I believe Chesney Hawks I know Chesney Hawks Went to do some town That's quite funny Just saying Yeah No longer exists And Then I won a place to the posh school Which was my saviour Sir William Perkins I'm so proud of that school I remain I followed them on Instagram I'm so proud of what they do They were ahead of their game back then.

25:04In what way? All girls school and our then headmistress, Miss Sames, used to say, girls, you're top of the 5 % of this country. You're women and that doesn't diminish you. It was a real feminist school before. I started school in 1969 and it was a feminist school overtly, covertly in every way. My English teacher, Mrs Millard, she nurtured me. She nurtured me. My God, you know, she nurtured me. There was never any snobbery about the size of your house or anything. Looking back, we didn't have, but I never considered us poor. But I took my daughter, my older daughter back for a BBC segment. and it was so tiny.

26:02And when we passed the spot where Dad used to hit me, I still couldn't go there. It was like... So there was a specific place that he would take you? No, that I'd get trapped into. Right. So there's a corner you can get out of? Literally, literally. Yeah, yeah. And when he used to just lose his temper and just, he'd always call me bloody bastard child, bastard child. Do you think he carried a fury about that? Yeah. If you weren't his biological child. Now I know, now I know he did. I know, I know he did. He pretty much admitted it. You know, he didn't, he admitted. he admitted and you know another reason I I'm very uncomfortable with with praise is my he I mean I knew it I was that dad wasn't my dad but I was always mad bad sad got an active imagination blah blah blah when I started doing DNA tests on my show, Mama said, they don't know anything.

27:20But, you know, it was always fobbed off. When Mum died, Dad told my then husband, I had great joy in telling me, that he'd always know and the whole story. And I asked him and I rang him up and I said, Dad, how do you feel? Because he'd had to keep that secret. and he tried to get mum to tell me all those years. My mum was best friend. So you didn't know for sure that he wasn't your father? No, I was always... It was only when your mum died that you... Wow. And when I phoned mum's best friend, she said, she didn't tell you, she told me she told you, you know. She clearly had great shame around it, whether it was because of her Catholic past or maybe I was the result of rape or sexual assault, But there was a lot of shame around it.

28:16But she had a lot of pride in what I did. Yes. What I did when I was successful. I was mum's child. And mum reinforced that literally to her dying breath. She said, thank you for my, you know, she died in my arms. She said, thank you, thank you, toots, for my grandchildren. thank you for my grandchildren I said well you've got other grandchildren no but these are just my grandchildren it feels like you are who you are because of it oh god yes good and bad you know I will never trash dad and I wrote something that my kids read at his funeral because I couldn't be there because um I've been noticed everyone I was having chemo every single I didn't tell dad about about the cancer.

29:09I didn't even tell him about it. And was that the first time you had cancer? No, the second time. I didn't tell him the second time. You didn't tell anybody, really, did you? I didn't tell anybody. I didn't tell him because it would have been used against me. But at his funeral, I was really real. You know, in a world where everything has to be good, bad, black, white, yes, no, you're this side, that side. And all of our truths are correct, but none of us have the whole picture. And that is at the core of who I am. I don't need, you know, coming back to why I'm in the Big Brother house, I don't need people to like me.

29:59I'm astounded and I'm suspicious if people like me.

30:07I don't need to have loads and loads of friends I'm very much like my older daughter like this

30:17I instinctively don't trust if I feel I don't trust people or I just get a feeling about them at this late age in my life I've learnt to go with that Starting something new can be a bit terrifying, can't it? Whether it's a business, a side hustle, or just finding the courage to share ideas online. The actual hardest part is often taking that first step. Our sponsor, Adobe Express, the quick and easy Create Anything app, turns Where Do I Begin into Look What I Just Did. With customisable templates and powerful features like generative AI, It makes creating everything from social posts to presentations feel so simple.

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32:01Coffee, tea, smoothies, even just water. But this is why I swear by it. Collagen levels naturally decline as we get older. I know, I know, it's so unfair. And that basically affects everything. Skin, hair, joints, muscles, you name it. But true collagen helps keep everything strong, supported and glowing. But what really sets them apart is that they're a B Corp and members of the 1 % for the planet, which means that 1%, actually now 2 % of all their sales goes directly to environmental causes that protect our planet. So if you fancy giving it a go, here's a little secret for you. Get 20 % off your first order at ancientandbrave.earth slash planet using my code begin again all in one word i think i think obviously the older i get the more i don't want to waste time doing anything i don't want with anybody i don't like i'm not gonna fake anything anymore it's like life's too short yeah you totally get that yeah it's like time's running out yeah time has turned over um and and can i just say this you with your you know brain um i don't know the correct word i'm sure it was it was a tumor removal all right you with that in those moments that you don't know what it is you don't know how bad it is in those moments when you're being wheeled into the operating theater and you don't know what who you will be on the other side something in you goes if I get out of this there's no more bullshit yeah well you know what was interesting was I let go of the outcome yeah I really did you have to and I was at peace with not coming out of it no I wasn't I wasn't because um it was a different scenario though I thought I'd just smash my hip I'd broken my hip in that fall um and I'd been hanging on upside down on the banisters for three hours so you'd fallen down the stairs I ran up the stairs oh you ran up and then tripped I don't know how I got there and I went through this thing in my head with my psychotherapist and I still crops up I don't know how I've been cleaning the stairs and sprain them and I've I used to always run up the stairs I know you I think it's like a sign I've still got it yeah yeah yeah yeah sprint up the stairs so I sprinted up the stairs so it wasn't just a slip so I don't know how I my foot I was barefoot I must have gone on one of the patches i don't know i flipped upside down and i ended face down the boom boom boom down the stairs i grabbed the banister i'm like my legs at a weird angle and it was pain like i've never felt before and it was all funny at funny angle and i thought can i let go and go to the bottom because I couldn't move my leg.

35:28And it's marble at the bottom and there's a door. And I thought, I was up near the top. I thought, if I let go, I'm dead. I tried and I went so fast and I put my arm down again. I knew if I let go, I was dead. I had no phone. And I kept moving and honestly, Davina, apparently my hip had not just broken, it had shattered so they had shards of bone floating about and no connection no connection internally apart from muscle and vein anyway I thought I'll shout for Alexa so I said Alexa can I just say what a great idea yeah that is so clever Alexa saved my life seriously oh my god seriously so Alexa heard you in the kitchen all over screamed so she would that be Alan office and a business wow so she called um Alan and he's like to clarify Alan Alan's my husband yeah he was working in the city he was taking clients out to dinner right so he's at a business meeting dinner and he said hi darling can't talk it's so busy in here all right i'll call you later i'm like and he hung up no no no alexa call alan again so calls alan again the reason i just went i just screamed like this just screamed and screamed and he said christ he said don't worry don't worry so he called our neighbors they got our spare key out of the garage they came in and one of my native their husband wife and Sharon is a physiotherapist so I told her and she was so good she cried with me and finally when the medics came um she could tell them don't exactly put anything in right they kept putting morphine morphine into me and everything and i heard them say they had to keep pumping up the drugs and i heard them say we're scared she's going to she's going into shock and that she'll she's on the verge of cardiac arrest and they finally managed i'm screaming and screaming my leg is just a pukey pukey angle and finally they get me on to probably end into the ambulance so we get into hospital alan is on the train because car would have taken to you on your own at this point or you were still my neighbor no they weren't allowed in the ambulance they followed me um and then alan got the train because it was the fastest way it's 45 minute yeah new york yeah where we are car would have been forever he didn't know what was he was going to find he met me at the hospital in emergency and we're there and i'm so drugged off my ketamine every drug known to man and um this intern walks in and he said um oh oh i heard by the way i heard them talking about you um it's your leg shattered you've um because of the cancerous tumor that's the first time since 2000 i i was given the old clay clear in 2008 anybody mentioned cancer and he and that's how i found out and i said am i going to die and he said oh oh i don't know they'll come and see you wow and you were on you were on your own at that point with alan alan was there i mean it's both of us so what what went through your mind then well so i was dead because i didn't even think of i'd had what i called up you know people say what your normal is I'd I was a cross-country runner weight trainer ice skating you know I had what I thought was a pulled um groin groin muscle and I was having physio for it I didn't know that it was a sign that my cancer had come back in my hip because it wasn't didn't feel it in my hip I felt and originally it was breast cancer yeah originally it was breast cancer so it had metastasized yeah so they gave me um an oncologist that specializes in bone and then he handed me over to the best oncologist in the world but yeah so I had to heal from that and do physio I had my operation at 10 o 'clock at night seven o 'clock in the morning I was in physio right let's go you know I'm gonna walk um they said we can't discharge you until you've gone up these steps and down got up them bloody steps and down yeah um i mean this is where your your stamina and your drive from your childhood helps right that like i'm working out davina

40:47whatever you go through the more physically fit you are however you achieve that the better the outcome you know um yeah that's not just me saying it you know and if you can maintain that through your treatment the better your results and that's not just that's in your blood you see it I see it in my in you know I have full blood tests every three weeks when I have my a little chemo and special you know hormone therapy thing um infusion so yeah that started it we didn't tell anybody so what what were you told your prognosis was at that point did you want to know yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah no one i do i want i'm one of those people i have to have all the facts um that it was um you know metastatic that meant it was was stage four um I had all my scans um I had to kind of freeze my brain we had our wedding coming up so I told we I had a physio coming to the house and I was kind of more concentrated on getting mobile and my hip so do you had a hip replacement did they have to they had to whole thing no it's partial they got a lot of the the the where the cancel was just basically it had exploded on that hit i remember when i flipped over that thud you know it was like makes me puke to think of it but they um i was concentrating on walking again the lady who came to my house um twice a week so what you know have you got it's always good to have a goal I said I've got a goal I'm ain't walking up the aisle when I get married with a walking frame um you know and I will be wearing my rock studs um and I did I walked up the aisle um my youngest who came out and sang beautifully at the wedding put flowers around it and I had a McCain you know um and all 99 % of the guests knew was that I'd had a form oh all my um team my production team because I was doing a week six out you know Friday Saturday uh live show um all my team knew was that I'd broken my leg and you know where I said um this show comes to courtesy of OxyContin they got it you know but um why didn't you want to tell anyone

43:37well my kids obviously my kids knew and my husband's kids knew

43:45um i didn't want them looking at me at my wedding going oh does she look nice considering um i didn't want it to be that uh and also the first time i'd gone through breast cancer I had no control about the news I mean I went for my first test before my operation literally I I I I don't think I had my operation or maybe I had and I got a phone call saying we heard you're in hot you were you dying of cancer and if you don't tell us the story we're going to print it anyway I hadn't no it must have been earlier than that because I hadn't told daddy I hadn't told my sisters I told my kids I hadn't told anybody and here was a newspaper going to out me and from then on it was a bloody nightmare which traumatized my kids to this day and traumatized me in a large part of why I live in America like my kids had to go through to security to come and see me you know the first time around I thought oh you know when you feel somebody's looking at you and they would be they were paying people within the hospital one person the hospital was fantastic by the way but they were paying people to get pictures of me when I went to the supermarket people go there's two boys right oh there's the one with oh there's the one with cancer we can get 50 quid if you get a picture of her I had paparazzi hassling my housekeepers my darling housekeepers Bev and I going to their house and I had you know everywhere I had to be moved my hospital room had to be moved so there wasn't a window that they could use long lenses with Interflora wasn't Interflora it was some freelancer trying to get into my room you know and my my kids suddenly developed lots and lots of friends at school and teachers had never spoken to them you know it was it was bleep nightmare so the second time around I had control over it yeah and I wasn't going to tell anybody until I was ready and that meant those people at the wedding only knew after the wedding and nobody knew until you know Princess Catherine came out about hers I had a wig made exactly like my hair my colleagues at CNN they didn't know I was having chemo every bloody week wow and literally one time I got off the table from radiation treatment went straight to work yeah my god they thought I was mad I had a limo outside the radiation thing with all my stuff i'm going going to cnn um but i was really really ill through the four and a half months yeah chemo but i don't know i mean i didn't have a day off work not a single day and nobody knew for 19 months nobody knew and you know why that was important to me when i first came out on cnn i knew it'd get to the english press so i rang up a friend at um you know who does things at hello magazine i said i've got an exclusive and this is why i'm doing it i i have to control you've got to control it yeah so they i did a photo shoot in um uh a friend a colleague of alan's house in and hair and makeup came and everything i was very nervous doing it um Alan came along with me and uh when it came out um people were shocked and it was like my producers were saying oh my god oh my god I'm just thinking two six months ago I took a day off because I had a headache or oh I had a hangover oh my god and all that time and I said I'm the same person I was for those 19 months and for four and a half of those months I was going through hell I am the same person you now know I have cancer there is no reason why you wouldn't treat me in exactly the same way that you treated me for that 19 months and the 30 something years before I've been in the media.

48:22You know, people go, oh. The limp neck. I hate the limp neck. Oh, and I'd be like, I'm the saint. You didn't know. Why now you know? Yeah. We had a little chat before, and I told you about my sister, Caroline, who died of cancer. and it's really helpful of you talking about the language because everyone's different, aren't they? And everybody wants a different approach. It depends on your personality. My sister didn't want to talk about it at all. It was like, ignore, ignore. But then that was very difficult. I totally wanted to respect her wishes. But I didn't know what kind of funeral she wanted, what she, and she'd never done a will, but she had nothing really to give away.

49:25She wasn't great with money. But then her office had given her back. She'd been put back on full salary. She'd been fired because she'd made mistakes. But she had brain tumours. She had lung cancer and secondary brain meds. Mum, that's mum. Mum was there. Mum never smoked a cigarette in her life, but I suspect working on wards as a nurse back in the day. Mum had lung cancer that went to her brain. Same thing. Same thing. And so she just, she was then put back. I called her job and I said, look, she wasn't getting bad at her job. She had brain tumours and she's life limited. and they said we'll reinstate her in her job.

50:15Wow. Until she goes and then she'll get her life insurance, which for her gave her dignity because she got four times her salary. She had four godchildren. Wow. And they were all very good friends of hers, kids. None of them were particularly well off and it would have made, well, I know it made a big difference to all of those kids' lives. Wow, what a job. Yeah. That's unusual. Right? I went back to her job. and had a very emotional cuddle with her CEO. Wow. It was AMV. They were amazing. And that gave her dignity and death. But it also meant for me, I'm sorry, I'm talking to you now, but it also meant for me that she needed a will to make those wishes clear.

50:59Yeah. So I could get a lawyer. Yeah. I spoke to the lawyer before, and I said, please, can you ask a lawyer? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. So it's always important, I think, as a lay person well for me I learned from my sister to ask how do you want me to handle this with you is that what you'd like or what well let me go back to um you using the words life limiting it was all I could do not to jump out of my seat and throw my arms around you when you use that word um we all have different experiences of uh let's talk just singularly about cancer now although i tend to talk about chronic illness as a thing because if you've got motor neuron disease or parkinson's they're all life limiting um we all have a different approach in this day and age every one of us knows somebody who has had cancer so if you haven't had cancer it's very natural to approach someone with in the back of your head your experience of a loved one maybe passing away and it could be that 20 years ago 30 years ago and when the days when chemo was horrific and this year but it still sticks in your brain now the treatment i had in 2008 was out of date when my sister got breast cancer my half sister got breast cancer in 2013 i started having my treatment in 2022 since then i've been swapped onto a drug that wasn't right there they're always changing since then there's since then um when i swapped over to that drug a year ago there's another one wow right so but people and chemo is different and my radio radiation therapy was completely different from the old days and each person now has a personalized it depends on that's why i get ticked off when people say oh have you tried balm of eye of newt or i can do nutrition blah blah blah, blah, because they don't know what meds you're on.

53:25There are 47, 48 different breast cancers, all different. Then there's your ethnicity. So now it's to the person. However, when someone approaches you, they have this vision of maybe hell. And sadly, the first thing, and I appreciate, I really appreciate the way you told me about your sister, but often someone will greet you right off the bat who you never you have no rapport with you've met with with this gruesome death of agony and hell and then packed your hand and and um i now know how to handle that i say and you're telling me this why you know your greeting is this story why um but you're right the language like terminal it's wonderful clickbait for the newspaper nobody in medical calls it terminal it's as you said life limiting as is parkinson's motor neurone disease at all of those things there's yes i've got stage four metastatic breast cancer but there's stage four and stage four there can be a few step even if a few cells so you know hiding in your body make their way into your bone you can have six cells and it's metastatic you can also have cancer like mommy and and your sister did in your brain in your liver in your kidney whatever and that could be that's often that is metastatic it could have started somewhere else so what i'm saying is you could be at as my oncologist calls it entry level he says to me oh your entry level and your cancer count can be down here because a few damn cells or it was lucky they caught mine luckily you know out here or you could be sadly only have a few weeks to live all of that is metastatic all of that is stage four all of that at some stage is terminal life is terminal none of us getting out of here alive so life limiting it's life limiting might mean that nor without the cancer you live till 87 but with it you'll hit 80.

56:08My oncologist is treating people with metastatic breast cancer who are 20 years out. I've been contacting people with 20 years out because theirs was caught relatively early. So but the press yeah that's not clickbait it's not clickbait that's what they want right stage four you're dying it's metastatic it's she's poor child at the end of her life and every time they do that it doesn't just affect everybody who's living with cancer the 3.4 million people living with cancer it affects their families and their loved ones but we we don't matter we don't matter because it's better to put these headlines and then all of the guessing games around the king's cancer and katherine's cancer totally get why they don't say exactly what cancer is totally bloody get it yeah um i also was um really interested in the the language specifically around dealing with your cancer um and how annoying that is my my sister again had the same thing oh did she think the same thing yeah oh everybody does it's battling yes all right Let's do this.

57:36Let's do it. Battling. She's battling cancer. Oh, win the battle. You'll win the battle. I hate that phrase. There are very few people going through treatment who like it because then there's the language, they won the battle or they lost the battle. And it always losing the battle. It makes you feel weak. and that you didn't personally do something enough. You are responsible for the cancer. And by the way, people, there are enough people telling you that. You know, I had a woman who used to tell me, I'm not surprised that you had, this was before I got, before it came back. I'm not surprised you got cancer back in 2008.

58:28We never have desserts. When we go out and you always have a dessert, because I always skip the start and have a dessert, right? I'm not surprised. I never have sugar. I don't even have a slice of my, I've never had a slice of my children's birthday cake. But you got cancer because of that. It's funny how people just want to have an opinion about something. Yeah, but they tell you. Yeah. They tell you. What to do. To eat, what to eat. I've had somebody say to me, I love you dearly. You're a really bright woman, which I can't explain the stupidity of you having chemo. Why put yourself through it?

59:09And then a loved one of hers got cancer. They were like, went to chemo like a rat cup of bloody drain pine. You know, I'm like, I wish I could say to those people, well, God forbid when you get cancer, you try that out. Because they never do. The other thing, battling, winning, losing the battle. that's one giving people unsolicited advice about what food you eat you don't know what meds i'm on i feel like saying wow and i've had people doing that i've lost a friend from me snapping back at that i feel like saying wow you you're an expert on nutrition from dr google from the university of google you're an expert in nutrition um for breast cancer which one of them they go what well there's 47 48 which one of them and and and what's the difference in ethnicities and and which chemo will you be doing this nutrition for because my nutrition nutritionist has my bloods my ethnicity my chemo levels my blood levels everything and if they give any advice it's specifically for me they never give it to somebody else because we can all have the same cancer and it's different um and then as I said greeting someone with cancer with the story of how you know all about it because you saw your loved one go through that um you don't know all about it and as you say the best way sometimes is to say I don't know what to say yes I mean I think the other thing that um i i see sometimes is that people feel so bad and don't know what to say they just sort of cut contact in a weird kind of way have you had that yeah yeah that hurts right my sister was devastated completely completely um it really does hurt and with my husband he went through it I'm very aware that he went through it with his beloved wife the mother of his children Will you just tell the story of what happened to Alan?

1:01:36He nursed and stayed with his first wife Why do I say stayed with? Because I think it's 70 something percent of men leave their wives or have an affair when they're ill when they're ill wow is that is that a stat i'm in that bracket wow that's all i'm going to say i'm in that bracket wow they either leave their wives or have an affair while their wives are going through cancer right as i know anyway um can i do you mind me just asking quickly so one of your husbands left um not left but they all i'm going to say i'm not going to give details i'm going to read the stats to you 70 something percent of them either leave or have an affair okay and then eventually leave right put it that way but um alan stayed with his wife nursed her um and had two children nine and 11 uh stayed a single dad until they were in college wow right um they give him mother's day and father's day cards and that's the other thing we bonded don't we've both been single parents you know um but i'm very aware he's gone through the trauma and i keep every so often i say I'm so sorry I'm so sorry he you know tells me i look he's told me i look beautiful when i probably look like gollum my precious

1:03:37um we laugh we've got i've got a very dark humor in that like we'll have a very dark humor that is that been since it's come back you've cultivated a really dark sense of humor yeah yeah but i have lost friends i've lost friends and what makes me more enraged is that alan some of alan's friends a few of alan's friends um when he needed them because they knew what he would either knew him when he went through it the first time there were kind of remarks oh you've been through this before you'll handle it but one friend just has disappeared and it's funny I'm a tiger for that I would throttle that guy but not the the the woman they're a couple but yeah nothing because i batted back help about help i can do your diet blah blah blah and i i not even horribly um yeah they disappeared yeah and it does hurt but then there are strangers who step into your life yes you know my skating coach um because i was coming up from my first skating kind of skating exam because i that's why dancing on ice i wanted to learn to skate my half sisters did skating classes but i was the brainy one so you know so i always wanted to skate so i did skate dancing on ice and then i wanted to learn technically how to say some rose my skating coach uh um works with older people and disabled people it's brilliant and when i shattered my hip she would race from the rink you know an hour before the you know uh between teaching kids race from the rink come and walk with me sit and talk with me race back when a couple of occasions when alan had to go overseas for i said oh god no poor alan we're freaking out i've got chemo you can't tell me i'll take you race drive race back and then with skating because i'm officially i don't think of it disabled because i have no feeling from my knees down because of the chemo so i had to learn to walk again

1:06:18she when we skate I have to learn because I can't feel my feet now I am taking up my oncologist when I said I want to skate he went oh god don't tell me I wear padded trousers I've got a special crash band it's it took a lot when i came back to the rink my rink they all cheered and clapped but because i was like with a group of adult skaters and we had our skating class which was a hoot now i'm coming back like a baby and sometimes i get really frustrated and say i'm shit i could skate before and i'm excuse my friend and and then rose will fill me and say you go girl oh my god and and and when i manage to do something suddenly i'll get from the um other ice skaters who i think are just minding their business yeah good job good job and um i i'm gonna guess i'm pretty much like you in that we find it very hard to ask for help oh my god trisha don't even get started on that for hell now if i had to because when i'm skating my adult skater group they come to my rink and I've had to ask them because they're practicing for each I have something can you skate with me can you hold my hand