This will probably get me in the end but I feel lucky for the life I have had
Newsreader opens up about cancer
GEORGE Alagiah has said he feels “lucky” for the life he has lived, even though he feels cancer will “probably get me in the end”.
The BBC newsreader, 66, is currently taking a break from work to deal with another spread of the disease.
He was first diagnosed with stage four bowel cancer in April 2014 and discovered it had moved to his lungs and lymph nodes in 2020.
Chatting to former Downing Street director of communications Craig Oliver, George discussed living with the disease.
He said: “I don’t think I’m going to be able to get rid of this thing.
“My doctor’s very good at every now and again hitting me with a big red bus full of drugs, because the whole point about cancer is it bloody finds a way through and it gets you in the end.
“Probably… it will get me in the end. I’m hoping it’s a long time from now but I’m very lucky.”
George has been married to wife
Frances Robathan for 38 years and the couple have two grown-up sons, Adam and Matt.
Speaking on Craig’s podcast Desperately Seeking Wisdom, George added that when he was first diagnosed with cancer, it took him a while to understand what he “needed to do”.
He said: “I had to stop and say, ‘Hang on a minute. If the full stop came now, would my life have been a failure?’
“And actually, when I look back… the family I had, the opportunities my family had, the great good fortune to bump into Frances, who’s now been my wife and lover for all these years, the kids that we brought up… it didn’t feel like a failure.”
The Sri Lanka-born journalist underwent a gruelling 17 rounds of chemotherapy to treat his advanced bowel cancer in 2014.
He returned to work in 2015 and took another break in 2017 for further treatment.
In 2020 he tested positive for coronavirus despite following advice and not appearing in the studio.
George has had an illustrious career as a BBC journalist.
As a foreign correspondent, he reported on events including the Rwandan genocide and interviewed Nelson Mandela and Desmond Tutu in his role as a specialist on Africa and the developing world.
The whole point about cancer is it bloody finds a way through GEORGE ALAGIAH ON HIS BATTLE WITH THE DISEASE
Asked what piece of wisdom he would give, he said: “I think it would be to constantly ask the question, ‘What is it we can do together?’
“I spent a lot of my time in Africa, and in South Africa they have a word: ubuntu. It’s the idea that I’m only human if I recognise the humanity in you.
“There’s this collective notion of life which I think we have lost.”