Telling your children you have cancer is the hardest thing you’ll ever have to do
Like the Princess of Wales, TV star Julia Bradbury had to tell her three small children she had cancer when she was diagnosed with the disease in 2021. Now in remission, she’s planning a series of UK walking retreats to inspire us all to get moving outdoo
AS HER broad smile shows, Julia Bradbury is in a good place right now. A very good place. Her cup runneth over, you might say.The television presenter and writer’s book, Walk Yourself Happy: Finding Your Path to Health and Healing in Nature was such a runway success following its publication last year that she’s launched a number of wellbeing retreats in idyllic countryside on the back of it, more of which soon.
She’s also writing a sequel volume, is making an as-yet untitled new TV series and enjoys an exceedingly happy home life with her businessman partner Gerard Cunningham, and their three kids: son Zephyr, 12, and nine-year-old twin daughters Xanthe and Zena.
Yet three years ago, it was a very different story. Like the Princess of Wales, Julia had received a shock cancer diagnosis.
Two separate mammograms failed to pick up the malignant tumour in her left breast due to the density of tissue.
After revealing her diagnosis in September 2021, she had to undergo a single mastectomy to remove a 6cm tumour. But first of all, she had to break the news to her three young children.
“Telling your children you have cancer is the hardest thing you’ll ever have to do in your life,” says Julia, 53. “You also don’t quite know how much to tell them to be realistic and how much you need to protect them as well.
“It is a very tricky balance. I don’t think any parent really knows exactly what to do.”
Little wonder then that Julia can truly empathise with what the Princess has been going through in recent weeks.
“It’s impossible not to be triggered and moved by the news,” she says.
“Speculation has escalated this story to fever pitch, but for me it so resonates. Going ‘public’ with something you’d perhaps rather handle privately, and having to tell your children… Cancer is scary, there are no certain outcomes, and you are tested mentally, physically and emotionally like never before. “I wish Kate Middleton and her family all the love through this scary, difficult time.” Should Kate need a positive example to help see her through the challenging days ahead, she might do well to look to Julia.
“Cancer profoundly changed my life,” she admits. “You never forget but you can try to convert the experience into something else and that’s what I’ve tried to do – convert it into something positive. “It has made me a kinder, more understanding and more patient human being.
“It might sound like a weird thing to say but I’m actually grateful for my diagnosis because it made me re-examine my life. It has revolutionised my approach to health and life.” Which is how she came to
write Walk Yourself Happy and create a series of two-day, one-night retreats inspired by the enthusiastic queues of readers who came to her nationwide book tours.
“It was wonderful how so many people wanted to talk and ask questions, and share their own experiences about walking, being out in nature, sleep, eating healthily… everything really,” she says.
“I realized there was a real appetite for growing a community where people could come together on a short retreat and immerse themselves in everything I had written about.”
Julia really means it, too.
She won’t merely be pitching up to say a quick, showbiz hello before disappearing. She will be present at each of the retreats, the first two of which are already organised in Shropshire and Sussex.
“There will be invigorating walks with me!” she beams. “I’m going to be doing my walking routine! I always start by shaking my limbs, bouncing up and down to get the blood flowing. I then do a little bit of I-Gong, an ancient Chinese practice, which gets the energy flowing.We’ll do some forest bathing together, some chanting under the trees together. . . We’re going to revel in the green and really walk ourselves happy.”
Julia has hand-picked experts in their chosen fields to deliver workshops on nature movement, breathwork, nutrition and gentle yoga session incorporating aromatherapy and sound healing.
There will be a maximum of 25 participants at each retreat held in a boutique-style accommodation. “I like that there won’t be loads of us,” smiles Julia. “It means we’ll all really get to know each other.”
SHE may be a city girl by birth – Dublin, as it happens – but nature and the great outdoors have always been important to Julia. After four years on consumer affairs show Watchdog, she found her stride in 2009 when she co-hosted the relaunch of Countryfile with Matt Baker on primetime Sunday nights.
She presented several, successful TV shows in which she hiked parts of Britain, Iceland and South Africa, becoming known as “that woman who walks off the telly”.
Julia says her illness has made her appreciate the natural world more than ever and believes being outside is fundamental to everyone’s health and wellbeing.
“Spending time in nature is incredibly important to all of us. Many of us have lost sight of this,” she says. “You know what it’s like – you go from home into a car or onto public transport, into an office where you spend all day, a repeat journey home and that’s the day gone.You’re inside with indoor lighting, not moving very much and barely spending any time outside.
“We have become an indoor generation in a very short period of time. This is not how we’ve evolved as human beings and it isn’t good for our health – mental nor physical.
“I obviously try and get out for a walk every day. No wonder I’m called the ‘Walking Evangelist!’
“Need motivation? Well, I truly believe that going for a walk wards off sugar cravings! This theory may not stand up to scientific rigour but there have been small surveys done and people have said that they want to eat less chocolate after they’ve taken a walk. I know I do.”
Don’t panic if you’re too busy for regular rambles. Julia says just 10 minutes a day communing with nature in the open air will do us the power of good.
“That’s non-negotiable for me now. I made a promise to myself when I came back from my mastectomy and sat in my little garden,” she smiles.
“The sky was blue and the sun was shining as I was waiting for my little girls to come home from school – it was the first time I’d seen them since my operation. I vowed to spend some time outdoors every single day of my life from that day forward – no matter how brief the encounter.”
And that rule sticks even if she has to get up extra early to fit in the time.
“Or I’ll build a 10-minute break into a meeting or cut short a lunch by 10 minutes,” Julia continues. “It is, in my opinion, one of the most powerful things we can do. Spending quiet time outdoors – looking at a tree, rubbing your hand across some moss, listening to some bird-song, watching the clouds scud across the sky… “You can do that in the middle of a town or city. It’s a vow I made to myself, one I’m proud to have kept and I’ve never regretted it.”
‘I vowed to spend some time outdoors every single day of my life... no matter how brief’