Get out of the house while you can

Dear Ant So you’ve had your first chemotherapy treatment. That first night, when you came home and carried the sick … More

All you have is now

Dear Ant Isn’t it strange, how quickly you notice your passing from one world into the next? One minute … More

We walked into the brunt light, towards the hospital. The air was dry, February-cold. Traffic was going about its … More

Riddance has been reviewed by cancer patients, and former patients, under the aegis of Macmillan Cancer Support. You can find out … More

One year go I celebrated with friends the publication of Love for Now, my journal-memoir of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, a cancer of … More

My memoir of cancer, Love for Now, has been reviewed by cancer patients, and former patients, under the aegis of Macmillan … More

An old friend of mine wrote to me the other day, out of the blue, to tell me about … More

This is the recording of my reading ‘Life Begins With Cancer’, recorded at the Greenbelt Festival on Sunday 25th August, … More

I’m grateful to you, you see. I wanted to tell you. –Raymond Carver (‘For Tess’) A kind, wise man once … More

A year ago I published Riddance, a book of poems, with Worple Press. It concerns my diagnosis and experience of cancer … More

Love for Now did not begin with an idea but an illness. As I have written elsewhere, there wasn’t a plan. I … More

Towards the end of my treatment for cancer in 2006 I had one of the most profound conversations of my … More

It was great to hear the BBC’s Deputy Political Editor James Landale’s interview about his experience of treatment for cancer … More

I wrote recently about poets who disappear from view, specifically Susannah Amoore, from Faber’s Poetry Introduction 6. My point is far … More

I wrote here a couple of days ago about my aversion to using war metaphor to describe cancer. Judging from … More

Nine days after I was told that my chemotherapy treatment was not working in April 2006 the doctors discovered the … More

Seven years ago this is what happened halfway through my treatment for non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma. I went for a midway scan … More

Today is the seventh anniversary of my diagnosis with non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma (NHL), an aggressive cancer of the lymphatic system. I … More