BBC political editor on 'best' cancer advice he received from unexpected source at No 10 Source: BBC Radio 4 Today
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00:00 Did it change you, carpe diem and all that, seize the day?
00:03 I was having chemotherapy, everybody said you should just be off work,
00:06 because it does make you feel pretty terrible actually, and very tired as well.
00:11 But I thought, sod this, I want to be at work.
00:13 And I was asked to go and see the Prime Minister for a chat, David Cameron as it was then,
00:18 because as a political editor that's what you do a couple of times a year, have a background chat.
00:23 And I was greeted at the door by his top official,
00:28 a lovely man called Chris Martin, sadly no longer with us, his Principal Private Secretary,
00:32 who said, look I'm sorry, we're going to have to put back the meeting.
00:36 So I said, he's the Prime Minister, you know, no problem.
00:38 He said, no, no, no, I asked to put back the meeting.
00:41 So I said, why Chris?
00:44 I want to talk to you about cancer, he said, because he had it.
00:47 And he took me into the garden on a beautiful day in Downing Street and said,
00:51 I'm just going to guess, he said, but I think everybody thinks you're mad
00:57 to work through cancer and work through chemotherapy.
01:00 I said, how do you know?
01:02 He said, because that's what they said of me.
01:04 And he was at the Prime Minister's side, doing that job as an official,
01:09 with a much more serious condition than I had.
01:13 And he said, that's what works for you.
01:15 Tragically, Chris, no longer with us.
01:18 But he was right.
01:20 And you have to work out what is right.
01:23 For some people, it's to curl up in a ball and disappear.
01:25 For others, it's just to get on.
01:27 And that's what worked for me.
01:29 [BLANK_AUDIO]