Stourton: Cancer means I don’t think I’ll see my 80th birthday

RADIO 4 presenter Edward Stourton has revealed that he will ‘probably not celebrate my 80th birthday’ because he is suffering from an incurable cancer.

Stourton, 65, who was diagnosed with prostate cancer seven years ago, said he was ‘living’ with the disease, and that it was important he did not let it define him.

The BBC journalist said he did ‘not particularly want to know’ his life expectancy.

‘i don’t think my doctor knows really,’ he told The daily Telegraph. ‘But what he has said is that each treatment will last two or three years so i’ve done a quick sum.

‘i shall probably not celebrate my 80th birthday. i doubt the treatments will be good to keep me to [a lifespan] i would otherwise have had, but they are keeping me alive at the moment, and probably will for quite a long time to come.’

Stourton had treatment after being diagnosed with cancer aged 58. But two years later a scan showed it had returned and had spread to other parts of his body. He has undergone chemotherapy and ‘a whizzy treatment where they inject you with nuclear fluid’. He is currently on hormone therapy.

Stourton, a former presenter of Radio 4’s Today programme and BBC1’s the one o’Clock News has continued working on Radio 4, fronting programmes including World at one, Sunday and analysis.