I felt like failure after stroke, says BBC radio’s Zeb Soanes

BBC broadcaster Zeb Soanes has revealed that he hid the fact he had a stroke from his colleagues after feeling “shame” for suffering one so young.

Mr Soanes, a Radio 4 newsreader and voice of the Shipping Forecast, said he felt as if he was “failing at living” by having a stroke aged 44.

He was unloading the dishwasher at his east London flat in April this year when he began feeling dizzy and his left arm went completely numb.

His speech became slurred and, realising what was happening, he rang his partner, Christophe, who immediately called an ambulance.

Mr Soanes was asked if he felt “shame” for suffering a stroke while still in his forties.

Speaking on BBC Radio 4’s Broadcasting House, he said: “Yes. I didn’t want to tell anyone for some time.

“My colleagues didn’t know for weeks, they either just decided I had decided to leave or ... there was just this shroud of mystery around it.

“It was because I felt that somehow having had this happen to me at a young age I was somehow failing at living.”

Mr Soanes, who admitted he became depressed after the episode, is still unclear why he had a stroke. He was slim, fit and a keen cyclist, and he now wants to raise awareness of the risk for younger people.

The average age for strokes across the UK is 77 but a quarter of all strokes occur in people of working age.

Experts predict the number of 45-year-olds and above being affected by stroke will increase by 59 per cent by 2035, partly as a result of obesity, sedentary lifestyles and unhealthy diets.

Although Mr Soanes has recovered well, he said he still suffers from migraines and in the first few months after the stroke he struggled to even “walk and talk on the phone” at the same time.

He described the stroke itself as a “vertiginous” feeling” of “plummeting inside himself ”.

Last month, he told The Daily Telegraph that while he was waiting for the ambulance to arrive he had three “extraordinarily clear thoughts”.

He said: “The first was that I’ve had a wonderful life. I have wonderful friends who I love very much.

“The second was I wasn’t ready to leave the party yet, and the third was ‘gosh I haven’t made a will’.”

Alongside his BBC work, Mr Soanes continues to write children’s books and works as a concert narrator, with a Christmas afternoon concert booked at St Martins-in-the-fields in London’s Trafalgar Square.