Sitting on the seesaw with my friend, Hope…….

I’ve been a little subdued on the blog front for the last few months – a source, no doubt, of some consolation and relief to many of you. One of the reasons for that has been that I rather felt like I’d told my story, and since then things have been somewhat quiet and uneventful, for which of course I remain enormously grateful. Quiet and uneventful are good.

I think it’s fair to say that one of my motivations in writing the first few of these blogs was a (possibly unconscious) response to realising that, with Stage IVb prostate cancer, I was never going to get better, barring any unanticipated breakthrough in treatment. We’ll return to that topic in due course, and before you think this has all turned terribly dark, it will be ok. I promise.

I’d wondered for a couple of months, about writing a blog post about the intersection of leadership and love, an intriguing proposition, and one in which I fervently believe after all my years knocking about this planet of ours. Maybe I will, once I’ve gathered my thoughts.

However, a number of things have happened which have reignited a need in me to tell you some more stories, in which I hope you’ll indulge me.

Some memories of tragic events resurfacing, and some, much more recent, of the most life-affirming joy for which anyone could wish. It will be a topsy-turvy ride, this one, for which I make only partial apologies. We shall talk of dear friends, of neo-fascist murderers, the potential of AI in medicine and Google DeepMind, what stage IV cancer does to one’s resilience and lastly, of the avalanche of happiness that descended on my family in February. And how those topics are all connected…..

So if I may, perhaps I can begin……..

I was an undergraduate at Birmingham University, starting out on my BSc Geography course in October 1977, barely turned 18. I was not like some of the other students, who couldn’t have waited to get away from their home lives – I missed home terribly. However, on our first evening in Birmingham, I met a guy on the same course and we became instant and firm friends.

John Kolpinski was the son of Polish parents, whose pride in their lad getting to university was openly apparent. John was possessed of the fruitiest of Bristolian accents, and a keen sense of self-deprecation that meant he didn’t mind people pulling his leg about it. Linking up with other friends, we shared flats in our second and third years – accommodation that was, shall we say, character-building.

Both John and I met girlfriends on our course – in my case, Christine, and in John’s, Cathy Mitchell, whose rich Bath accent, freckled nose and sparkling eyes really belonged in one of Thomas Hardy’s Wessex novels, rather than poring over geomorphology and economics textbooks.

We had wonderful times together, and our little community grew close over those years. I look back fondly to Sunday lunches cooked up by four of the girls in our rather grotty but bijou-esque little flat (I and the four young men with whom I shared were, unsurprisingly, utterly imbecilic in the kitchen (and most places, actually – it was the 1970s…) That’s not an excuse, but a flimsy explanation, at least).

However, at the end of October 1979, tragedy struck. One of our flatmates, Peter Shaw, a farmer’s son from Newark, and a keen caver, was killed in a road traffic accident, driving up to a weekend’s caving in the Peak District. It was the first experience any of us had had of the death of a contemporary and a good friend. We had heard the news from the university authorities during the day, and, that evening, numbed by shock, all curled up together in Pete’s room in our flat, listening with tear-filled eyes to Fleetwood Mac’s “Tusk” which Pete had played constantly in the preceding weeks.

“Sara” is still a song that I find too emotional to hear, to this day.

But we recovered, as the young tend to do.

After graduation in summer 1980, Christine and I had a holiday in the Greek Islands and John and Cathy set off, inter-railing around Europe, with a carefully laid plan that we would meet in Brindisi in Italy on August 4^th, and wander slowly back to the UK together.

It was by sheer chance that I rang my parents two days before we were due to meet John and Cathy, to be told that a massive explosion had happened in Bologna station – most likely a bomb. We had had no idea – there were no mobiles or smartphones. Although the massacre was appalling, we hadn’t connected it with John and Cathy since we had expected them to be further south by then. But the next day, when I called my Dad, he told me the news that they were almost certain to have been there, and had very likely been killed. The bomb, hidden in a suitcase, had been left in the air conditioned waiting room at the station, by members of Nuclei Armati Rivoluzionari (NAR), a neo-fascist organisation whose aim was seemingly to keep the Italian Communists from power by sowing chaos and fear, keeping the army and police on high alert. The fact that 85 people died, mostly tourists, was, to NAR, incidental and of no interest. Collateral damage. Neither John nor Cathy were ever found – Cathy was identified by her signet ring and the watch that her dad Harry had given to her for her trip. John’s passport was recovered, but there was no trace of him left, both having been standing right next to the bomb.

Cathy and John in one of their last photos

Their funerals were held together in Bath, and that day still bring tears to my eyes. The wailing despair of John’s father Michael as he collapsed on his beloved son’s all but empty coffin reached searingly into the hearts of everyone who witnessed it – I shall never forget it, even after all these years.

Why tell you all this? It’s so tragic, but what has it to do with cancer and resilience and hope?

I shall try to explain.

The senseless murder of two wonderful friends (along with the other 83 souls whose lives were taken that day) left me feeling very bitter, and without much hope or optimism about the world. I’d already been accepted into the Royal Marines for officer training in the September of that year, (the Greek Islands trip had been our post-university, pre-proper work holiday) and I had a somewhat naïve faith that in that soldiering capacity, I might be able to do something in some small way, to prevent such cruel, untrammelled evil being inflicted on others. It is, of course, as we can all increasingly see as we age, rather more complicated than that.

But the Royal Marines did teach me never to give up, never to stop hoping and working to make hope a reality, and my short career in a green suit helped me at least to come to terms with the fact, that not everyone in the world is nice. And that we can do something, and we can try to set an example for others in how we behave in the face of evil.

That giving up hope thing – and overcoming it….. that’s on my mind, quite a lot.

I recently watched a recording of a presentation given by Demis Hassabis, CEO of Google DeepMind. His talk was about the potential of artificial intelligence to cure disease. His premise was that proteins are the building blocks of life, and not much happens in our bodies – neurons firing, muscle fibres contracting and relaxing and so on – without it being mediated by proteins. However, 3D protein structures have historically been devilishly difficult to map and model, and mapping just one took years of painstaking research.

Google DeepMind, in one year alone, did 200 million.

And this plays forward into drug development, which will be massively accelerated. His conclusion, needless to say sensationalised in numerous articles and videos subsequently, was that AI had the potential to cure all known diseases within 10 years. Actually, if you want something to be sensational about, all diseases being cured within a decade would be a pretty good contender.

When I read about Demis’ prediction, I was so excited and filled with the earnest hope that it could be true, and even more wonderfully, could be true within my lifetime. But despite now seeing the world through a different and more benign lens than before all this cancer stuff happened, I still regrettably retain something of the cynic about my character. And that cynic can’t help thinking that there is a huge international pharma industry whose revenue streams depend on diseases NOT being cured. Will they co-operate? I’ve also asked a few doctors what they thought – every one of them didn’t believe it. There’s too many other variables beyond protein modelling that will also dictate how diseases behave and respond.

I hope Demis is right. But I doubt it.

Hopes raised, and then not so much dashed, as disappointingly and slowly deflated. This, I have to say, happens quite a lot. And it takes a bit of a toll, picking yourself up, brushing yourself down, attaching the smile and carrying on. But is there a choice? I can’t see one, so we make the most of it, find the joy in the day and those around us and we get going.

And here’s another ingredient in this story – believe me, there is a point.

A few weeks ago, there was a post on LinkedIn about prostate cancer (I have an interest, you’ll understand). In fact there are hundreds every week, and good for the people doing it, trying to raise awareness and encourage early testing. But the response to a post from one particular person shocked me. A long time hormone therapy recipient (I do struggle to find the right nouns in these cases), same as me, he described his stage IV incurable cancer as terminal. Only briefly and probably didn’t even realise he’d done it. But that distinction is critical. I have said this before, but I think it bears repeating.

Incurable and terminal are not the same thing. We are all terminally diagnosed. Life will end. We will pop off, and in the words of John Cleese, we will join the choir invisible. But in the meantime, until someone eminent who looks at charts and scans and interprets them cleverly tells me, I am no different to anyone.

My life is effectively limitless, with no finite date for its conclusion. The same as yours. The same as anyone who hasn’t been told, with stone cold conviction and compassion, by someone who absolutely knows, that the finish line is approaching within a short and specified period.

Don’t wish it away.

That is where hope stems from. My friend, hope. There might yet be something – a cure – that arrives, from left field, from space, from a previously undiscovered and untapped tree in the Amazon, from a brilliant young research team in Lithuania or Glasgow or Cancun…. Something that means cancer won’t get me.

It’s not there yet. But it could be. And is that what keeps me going? That hope? Definitely maybe (thanks, Noel and Liam and enjoy your reunion gigs).

In February this year, however, my hopes received a massive and unprecedented boost. My beautiful granddaughter Annie Fern arrived on Earth. I felt like Handel, Mozart and Bach were all elbowing each other out of the way to greet her arrival with the most beautiful exuberant music.

Our first grandchild. She changed everything. She brought with her unconditional love, breathtaking beauty, and the power to supercharge everyone she encountered. My strength, up to that point had come from Sue, from Emily and Charlie and their partners, my wider family, and so many wonderful friends – and continues to do so. They have been everything to me. But Annie has brought life-affirming and overwhelming love and joy with her. If ever there was a reason to hope, she is it.

But Annie’s birth also brought me full circle.

I began writing these blogs because, at least in part, I was coming to terms with the fact I was not going to get better.

And that’s where I was so wrong. I have got better.

Sue and the family may disagree, and I retain all my human frailties and weaknesses, displayed daily. But what does better mean? It means seeing the beauty in the world, seeing the best in people, cutting away the façade, realising what is truly important. It means telling people what they mean to you, and greeting each morning with optimism and an open heart, and living every hour for the present and the difference you can make.

You know, the things we should all do, if we could hold the world and all its cares and troubles at bay. ‘Being better’ is not about being judged so by others – it’s about how you see the world and what you do to bring your best to the world, in whatever time you have remaining.

In that sense, I believe I truly am better. Do you think you might like to be, too? Why not give it a try?

Thank you for reading.