“Everyone says, ‘Oh, you know, you'll be fine’ or ‘Oh, that's the good cancer. My dad had that, you die with it, not from it.’ But no, this is the bad kind. This is the kind that you die off.”

It was a terminal diagnosis, but on speaking with his oncologist they were hopeful that Ian will see his 70th birthday. He is soon to be 66. “It's been a weird kind of blessing. If this isn't the moment where you open up your heart, then when is? If this isn't the moment where you start to look around you and think this is great. If you don't think about how to spend more time with family and friends, then when? Of course, there are times I don't feel very well and there are times when I get upset. There's no doubt about that. But overall and by and large so far, I've been able to bear it and to take some interest in and to be aware of what's happening.”

Ian had been having a few symptoms which prompted him to visit his GP in December 2019. “I said to her, I'm not entirely sure things are right. She did the thing that doctors do to a gentleman with an enlarged prostate, and she said, ‘I'm not entirely sure that is right.’ They tested my PSA (prostate-specific antigen) which was 64. Even then I thought your PSA can be raised by riding a bicycle, and I rode a bicycle only last decade, so maybe it's that.” The PSA test is a blood test that measures levels of PSA protein in the blood and can be a sign of prostate cancer. After the GP visit things moved along with further appointments and tests before he got the cancer diagnosis.

It was approximately a four-month wait for the definitive diagnosis. Finally, Ian was given the results. “The Macmillan nurse sat me down and said ‘What you have is incurable, but we can treat it. You have prostate cancer. It's the most aggressive kind of cancer there is. It has become involved with your bones.’ I have hotspots in my right shoulder and my left hip. The severity of it was a surprise. I then had to tell Hilary, my wife.” The fact that he had cancer didn’t surprise him, as he knew things hadn’t been quite right “Very often, prostate cancer is symptomless, but I wasn't symptomless. I had very odd stuff going on, so by the time he told me, I'd guessed really.”

After his diagnosis during the lockdown period, a time in which some may have been feeling isolated, Ian had family at home which was the opposite adjustment for him. “By profession, I'm a writer. Literally the week before it was diagnosed, I'd signed a deal for a new book. It is therefore my way to sit on my own in a room. It was weird having everyone home with me when I was trying to write. It's sort of art, I had a deadline. I really can't muck about with the deadline. I was able to turn it to some advantage as well. It's like judo, isn't it? You've got to try and use what you have to turn it over and to make it your own.”

“I've got terminal life. I've known for some time now that I'm going to die. We're all going to die. Death is the thing that happens to everyone. Of all the things that I prayed for the most, is that I would die fairly slowly. My first wife dropped dead one night. It kind of ruined the life of me and my seven-year-old daughter. It has given me time to think, to prepare, think about what it means, think about mortality and to enjoy the process. It's interesting. It's the thing that happens to everyone. I've got a little bit of time to think it through and to think it over and read and talk.”

Ian’s faith has brought him comfort. It's not something he has just turned to after his diagnosis, as he was a member of the Church of England long before then. His faith certainly helps him. “I am a Christian. It's been important to me, increasingly, over the last five to six years after I decided to become confirmed in 2017. It's been a very useful thing. The idea that this isn't all there is, and most self-respecting Christians can't really say, what comes next. Of course, we could be entirely wrong and sort of deluding ourselves. It's not really about what comes next anyway, it's about how we try and live now. It's enabled me to talk about love in a much more open way. It's enabled me to think about suffering, in a very different way.”

“There are people about now who would like to live forever at whatever cost to themselves or others. Faith is another way of sort of thinking. I don't think that's right that people put themselves through these kinds of terrible treatments and stuff to live forever. They have missed the point, the people who were taking their children's blood plasma, in order that they might live forever. No, no, no! If we do not die, that is not life. That is the whole point of the Christian story. It's also the point of the Buddhists and the point of the Zen story. The world continues without you.”

Treatments have been good for Ian so far. He is fortunate that he can get over to Hereford and Cheltenham hospitals from Mid Wales as there are no local hospitals. Transport for other patients can be an issue, as for some, there is no way of getting to and from appointments. There is a transport service for eligible patients only via the Welsh Ambulance Service. They provide a Non-Emergency Patient Transport Service for patients, who for medical reasons can’t get to appointments on their own. This needs to be pre-booked and planned and certain criteria need to be fulfilled. This could be an issue for many.

Ian says his treatments and appointments have been going well and the support is good. Both Ian and his wife access support via the Bracken Trust Cancer Support Centre which has been a great help. “The centre, it's extraordinary. It's been able to offer me some support with pain, and it also offers my wife, counselling. A chance for her to talk.”

The treatment that he is on has some side effects but it’s a compromise that he is happy to live with. “I'm on this stuff called enzalutamide, because there isn't anything they can do. I don't have to have horrible operations. I've got pals who've been through sort of terrible operations because they've got cancer. I suppose the highest price I paid is a personal one, which is the complete ending of my sexuality. But essentially, when they give you the pill, they say, the choice is yours, my friend, you can keep your sexuality and die within a very short period of time, or you can kiss it off and live to be 70. So I was, you know, 63 it's quite an easy decision to make. But in terms of the treatment, I mean, that's, that's the biggest price I've had to pay. I spoke about it with my wife, it wasn't a very long conversation.”

Ian has discussed his cancer, treatment and end-of-life plans with his family. He is organising what he can, including re-homing of his extensive library. He has played the music and picked the readings he would like at his funeral when the time comes. “So I'm trying to make sure that it's kind of neat and tidy and stuff has gone and when they inherited. I do talk to them about it and of course, they don't always like it.”

“People don't always like it, because I think two things really. They don't wish to be confronted with their own mortality and they don't wish to think of their burden of grief. As you get older, the burden of grief you carry as a human being gets greater and greater.”

Importantly for Ian is raising awareness and that men take notice and get tested “Get your PSA tested! Get it tested once a year! The first time you think to yourself ‘I'm getting up in the night a bit or I'm a bit dribbly or my mojo’s gone a bit’ don't think it’ll probably be all right. It probably will be all right, but really get it tested. You know, get it caught early if you have it.”

Currently, he is enjoying living his life and spending time with the people he loves. “I'm still an absolute bloke. I'm a football fan, Brighton and Hove Albion. I'm from a working-class background. I love to go home to near Brighton and see my mates, go to the pub and drink fizzy water because I can't drink anymore.”

Showing his love is what matters most to him, for friends and family, being in the moment and spending time together. “Love is a verb. So, what you must do is to demonstrate that and not just tell people ‘Oh, I love you, man’ That's me, after two pints! You have to say ‘We're going to spend as much time together as we can, even though you think I'm really boring old bloke.’ You have got to try and do things about love, which is the most important thing! I do want to actively look after people because I love them.”

Cancer has brought the family closer together, it is an awful thing to be going through, for everyone, but it's time that is now spent on the important things, but Ian acknowledges it is not easy for anyone “I recognise the person it is hardest for is my 97-year-old stepdad. We're in a sort of terrible Death Race. I cannot die before him, right? I can't do that to him. It would kill him, so he has to die before me. He just has to. I can't do that to him. It's been awful for him. He finds it very difficult to cope with that we're sort of heading for the line. But overall, it has brought us close together. I'm fairly sure of that.”

After Ian has died his work will still provide a small income from copywriting “copyright in my work lasts for 70 years. I'm not a household name but I sell enough that royalties trickle in. So I wish to be remembered by my family by going for a slap-up feed. I'd like to be remembered as someone who made a difference in a good way. I want to confuse archaeologists of the future, so I want to be buried with grave goods to confuse them like stuffed animals, and bronze tools so they think it weird. I want the date of my gravestone to have a zero before it so archaeologists say, ‘This was the first grave ever with this date.’ I can't say I wish to be remembered as a fun guy to be with, but you know, I wish to leave people with happy memories.”