Suffolk’s Bill Turnbull opens up about cancer battle on Celebrity Bake Off
Bill Turnbull. Picture: PA - Credit: PA
Radio presenter Bill Turnbull has credited support from loved ones with getting him through the “worst days of my life” after being diagnosed with cancer.
Former BBC Breakfast star Mr Turnbull opened up about his illness on a celebrity edition of the Great British Bake Off tonight, which was supporting charity Stand Up To Cancer.
The 62-year-old revealed this week that he was diagnosed with prostate cancer at the end of last year and it had spread to the bone.
Speaking at the end of the Channel 4 episode tonight, Mr Turnbull said: “I prided myself on the fact I had not been to see my GP for four years.
“I was not aware that something in fact was going rather wrong inside me.
“I was getting pains in my legs and my hips particularly, and they would come and go and I thought this is old age.
“Eventually the pains got so bad I thought I better go and see my GP.
“He said, ‘I’ll just give you a blood test, just an MOT to check a few things out’.
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“The next morning he called me and asked me to come in pretty quickly, the doctor said, ‘It’s fairly clear from this that you have advanced prostate cancer and it has spread to the bone’.
“I thought now I have got to deal with the future or having much less of a future than I thought I had, and then it’s dark, it was like a dark curtain, a dark cloud comes down.
“So it’s a very difficult moment and those first few days after diagnosis are really horrible, probably the worst days of my life, but if you are lucky like I am you have friends who show you great love and warmth and support and that love has really kept us afloat.”
Classic FM host Mr Turnbull, who lives in Suffolk, said he was on a course of chemotherapy.
He added: “If it was all to end tomorrow I would not feel hard done by. I’ve had an amazing life, I’m incredibly lucky and if one thing comes out of this is that if you know your time is limited you appreciate the world around you so much more and particularly the love of my family.”
Earlier in the show, Mr Turnbull spoke about his beloved apiary in Suffolk where he keeps 150,000 bees.
The journalist was pitted against comedians Harry Hill and Roisin Conaty, and musician Martin Kemp.
Hill took home the Star Baker prize after an interesting plate of biscuits featuring Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall sunbathing and a surfing horse.
