NICK ROBINSON MY DIAGNOSIS ADVICE

Soon after I got my cancer diagnosis in early 2015, I went to Downing Street for a meeting with the prime minister, in my old job as political editor at the BBC. When I arrived at the door, I was surprised to be greeted by one of David Cameron’s top officials, his principal private secretary Chris Martin. I asked him if there was a problem. He said: “No, Nick, I just really want to have a chat with you before you see the PM.”

He took me out into the garden in Downing Street on a beautiful sunny day for what was to become the most important conversation I had when I was ill. He talked to me about how to live with cancer and to work through it. “No one really understands why you want to go back to work, do they? But I do,” he said. He explained that work gave you a sense of purpose, a distraction, and something with which to fill the days even when you were feeling dreadful. Chris’s cancer was much more serious than mine and months later, just a few days before he died, I visited him in hospital. He was still replying to emails from the Prime Minister – not because he was expected to, but because that’s what he wanted to do.

The option of working when you’re ill isn’t right for everyone, and it isn’t possible for many because their work is not that flexible, their employer is not that understanding or the illness and the sideeffects of their treatment does not allow them to do it. However, I would say to anybody who wants to and can: do work. It kept me sane.

In recent months, Chris’s boss – Britain’s top civil servant, Sir Jeremy Heywood, the Cabinet Secretary, – revealed he’d been having treatment for cancer even while doing one of the most highly pressured and important jobs in the country.

The late Chris Martin was my inspiration. I know his memory has given strength to Sir Jeremy, too. Now Nicola Mendelsohn will, I hope, make many realise that work is one of the best therapies.