In the last five years of her life, Deborah James, who has died at the age of 40 from cancer, has not stopped talking about life as being worth living. She co-hosted the animated and award-winning BBC Radio 5 Live podcast on living with cancer, You, Me and the Big C, originally alongside broadcast journalist Rachael Bland, who died in 2018, and the founder of Girl Vs Cancer. and activist Lauren Mahon.
Since its first episode in March 2018, frankness, honesty and humor were the show’s unique selling points, and Deborah, diagnosed with stage 4 bowel cancer in December 2016, went be his indignant heart. He said he had “glam cancer” and spoke in detail about his experiences and symptoms, such as “blood poop,” because “one of the biggest problems is that people aren’t frank enough.”
A month later, he asked Olympic athlete Steve Parry, who had a testicle removed as part of his treatment, if he “gets twice or half of it” when he had sex, which he laughs at in the studio. . “There’s always one, and it’s always Deb,” Mahon said. “She says what everyone is thinking,” Bland added. Deborah came to another initial episode with “a poop emoji dress designed for a six-year-old,” bought while delirious after an operation, to promote bowel cancer awareness month. A few weeks later, she was dancing on her Instagram account, to the sound of Right To Say Fred’s I’m Too Sexy. He took her often afterwards.
Deborah James, on the right, with her fellow BBC Radio 5 podcast presenters You, Me and the Big C, Rachael Bland, on the left, and Lauren Mahon. Photography: Mark Waugh
I experienced Deborah’s energy first hand at the 5 Live recording studio in Salford in 2018, while interviewing her, Bland and Mahon for the Observer. His curiosity and commitment to finding solutions to living with cancer, as well as surviving it, were remarkable. That day he spoke about advances in surgical techniques such as ablation, which surgeons had used to remove seven tumors from his lung after his cancer had spread, and about his visit to cancer research laboratories. Imperial College London, praising the “incredibly passionate people” he met. there. She also spoke to her oncologist during the same recording, who applauded her “tremendous strength of mind,” making her cry.
In later years, Deborah recorded episodes in medical settings around her many treatments and operations. An episode in February 2022 was structured around voice notes recorded at Royal Marsden Hospital after a period in critical care, following a collapse at home that left her on the verge of death. He warned listeners about the heartbreaking details carefully. While she was brutally honest about the extent of NHS resources, her approach was nonetheless sensitive, helpful and warm. The episode was mounted, he said, “in the hopes of being able to give hope to others.”
Remembering Dame Deborah James and her Bowel Cancer Awareness Campaign: Obituary Video
Born in London to Heather, a preschool gymnastics coach who has her own Instagram account as @bowelgran, and Alistair James, Deborah studied economics at the University of Exeter.
In 2005 she met Sebastien Bowen, an investment banker, whom she married three years later, and they had two children, Hugo and Eloise. The couple separated in 2014, living in different homes, but reconciled in 2016 after counseling sessions during the divorce process reunited them. Deborah was diagnosed with cancer a month later. “You may find, as I did, that cancer is the wake-up call to realize you have something pretty good,” he wrote in his Sun column.
Deborah started this column in June 2017, five months after starting her @bowelbabe blog and her Instagram account. Prior to her cancer diagnosis, she worked as an assistant principal at the Salesian School, Chertsey, then at the Matthew Arnold School in Staines, and led national research on growth mindsets in schools, a job that reported her 2018 book, F *** You Cancer. : How to face the big C, live your life and remain yourself. The following year he was awarded an honorary doctorate from the University of East Anglia and the Royal Marsden School.
Among cancer treatments, she also ran charity marathons, organized charity dances, and participated in numerous fundraising challenges. He continued to campaign actively during the Covid-19 pandemic and did a podcast with his children, The Good Stuff, between May and August 2020, promoting positive thinking and ways to find happiness. In April 2021, she launched the annual #NoButts Bowel Cancer Awareness Campaign on Lorraine Kelly’s ITV program, Lorraine, which ran again in April 2022.
As her health declined, she spent time with her family and worked on her latest book, How to Live When You Could Be Dead, which would be published in August.
In her latest podcast You, Me and the Big C, with the show’s producer, Mike Holt, aired on May 10, Deborah talked about how the lack of community attention made her deprived of three of her last weeks at home, but also about how the podcast had given it purpose and strength. His last words to his devoted audience said a lot about his approach and concern: “Check your poop.” After finally getting hospital care, he spent his last days at his parents ’home in Surrey, to make sure his family home in London could continue to be a happy place for his children.
Deborah’s ultimate desire was a fund in her name to raise money for projects close to her heart, including clinical trials, personalized medicine and awareness campaigns, with links to charities such as Cancer Research UK, Bowel Cancer UK and Royal Marsden. Cancer Charity. “Before I died, the only thing I knew I wanted to do was create a fund that I could continue working on things that gave me life,” he said. He hoped the Bowelbabe Fund, set up on May 9, would raise £ 250,000. It has raised more than 6 million euros.
On May 12 she was appointed lady; the Duke of Cambridge visited her the next day at her parents’ house to present the prize in person. He made more charitable links with a supermarket, a fashion company and a flower company, all to raise money for the Bowelbabe Fund. He also attended Glyndebourne, about which he posted on Instagram. “Don’t get excited! I’m shattered!” she wrote. “But then the feeling of coming up with something you don’t think is possible … well, it’s worth it. It’s kind of cheeky” still living while dying “two fingers for everything.”
Sebastien, his children and his parents survive him.
Deborah Anne James, teacher, activist, broadcaster, and writer, born October 1, 1981; died June 28, 2022