I didn’t have a cough and could walk for miles. I had none of the signs

In the late 1970s, Jim Hendry gave an unknown band some of their first gigs at the pub he ran.

Fifty years later, Simple Minds are, in the words of one of their hits, still alive and kicking and so is Jim, thanks to the lung cancer research trial he joined.

Back then, he smoked 60 cigarettes a day, several cigars and inhaled everyone else’s smoke at the Mars Bar music venue.

Jim had no signs of cancer when he volunteered for the Oncimmune blood test. The test showed he had the early stages of the disease.

The grandfather, 72, from Pollok, Glasgow, said: “I’d smoked since I was a child and worked in smoke-ridden pubs all my days. Everyone around me smoked, and everyone around me ended up with lung cancer.

“I’m the only one to have escaped thanks to that test.”

Jim said that when the drive launched to find 12,500

Scots at risk, he signed up. He added: “I didn’t have a cough. I could walk for miles. I had none of the signs. The test showed I had cancer and I was offered an operation. They removed the cancer and a bit of my left lung. It saved my life.

“Since then, my sister has died from lung cancer aged 72, and my youngest brother who is 63 has it too. Better to catch it early and treat it before it gets you, because undetected, it will get you.”