A poignant anecdote involving a local newspaper photographer from Sir David Steel in Scotland on Sunday’s Spectrum magazine – in an interview on his battle and successful recovery from prostate cancer.
Sir David explains to writer, Ruth Walker, that it is practical advice on the disease that is most helpful to sufferers, explaining:”Initially, I found it difficult to talk about because I was so ignorant but I find it much easier now.”
Walker goes on: “Personally, the most helpful advice for him came from an unexpected source – a gentleman of the press.”
Sir David recalls: “One of the photographers on the local paper rang me up and said: ‘Look I’ve had exactly the same thing and I’ve been through it just a month ahead of you. Would you find it helpful if I came and talked to you and told you what it’s like’? I said: ‘Absolutely.'
“That was, in a sense, more helpful than all the medical talk because, as the recipient of the treatment, he was able to warn me, for example, the most difficult bit would be the last week and the week the treatment stopped, and he was absolutely right. So I was able to pre-plan the time I would be away on the basis on what he told me.”
Walker goes on: ”’The sad thing’, he (Sir David) adds quietly, ‘is that he was caught rather late and he died later of the disease.’”
