A former regional daily journalist has written a moving blog post about his battle with cancer after being given just 12 months to live.
John Slim, left, a reporter for the Birmingham Post and Mail for many years, was told by a doctor in September that the cancer he had been diagnosed with earlier that month was terminal.
Following the news, he penned a blog post on theatre website Behind the Arras, which he co-founded with another former Post and Mail journalist Roger Clarke, which has since been republished by the Birmingham Mail.
In his blog, headlined “Dead reckoning”, the 82-year-old said that he found it easier to write about his diagnosis rather than telling people face-to-face.
John was told at Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham that he only had 12 months to live, after being told earlier in September that he had cancer of the gut and spots on his lungs.
He wrote: “These were tidings that stopped me in my tracks – admittedly, not quite as decisively as my own personal Mr Big C, with whom there can be no useful argument, is going to do. Nevertheless, they gave rise to what is technically called Pause for Thought.
“So I paused – and I still, to veer into the vernacular, can’t quite get my head round it. Much scratching of the occiput has yielded roughly as much light as a wartime blackout curtain.
“After all, here I am, as has always been my wont or will, striding about with an impressive tan and looking quite unreasonably healthy, but suddenly aware that I’m about to come to a halt. Not to put too fine a point on it, it’s a bit of a shock.
“Cancer of the gut and unwonted spots on the lungs. Mr Big C has caught up with me. It’s taken him 82 years, but he’s done it. Good on ‘im! I’m sure he’s extraordinarily pleased with himself.
“But I don’t understand why 82 years of not a single cigarette have earned me his attention. My father chain-smoked for 60 years and got away with a heart attack.”
John wrote that he had started to think about his funeral, deciding he did not want a Requiem Mass but just a quick service at a crematorium so his family, including four children and nine grandchildren, only had to say goodbye to him once.
He added: “I’m finding this easy to write, incidentally – far easier than I have found the business of telling people face-to-face that it’s nearly goodbye time. That’s because I’m not getting any reaction, whereas on the couple of times I have tried the face-to-face approach I have welled up on the instant.
“It’s not that I am afraid to go. I’m 82 and I’ve had a good run, a lot of jolly, happy decades in which I have deployed my insistence on failing to understand any given situation in the knowledge that if everything is not quite hunky-dory it will eventually go away.
“No, it’s just that the face-to-face business evokes shock, consternation and a sort of stuttering sympathy – which in turn renews in me the realisation that another dear friend is suddenly not much happier than I am, which hurts.
“Life goes on. Until eventually it doesn’t. And that, I think, is all I wanted to say. It’s goodbye from me.”
During John’s time at the newspapers, he interviewed people from Muhammad Ali to Enoch Powell and became known for his love of theatre.
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I am so shocked and saddened that John Slim a long standing friend and former colleague, John Slim , is suffering in this way. As you will see from the blog he has a great sense of humour as instanced by his long line of successful Limerick books.
i learned so much from John and another doyen of regional journalism, Arthur Sutton, who referred to me as his bastard son! When the Birmingham Post was the biggest regional morning John constant willingness to help and advise new interns was just tremendous. He will long be remembered for his happy-go-lucky look at life. With affection, Ken Jackson
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It may be “goodbye from me”, as John eloquently puts it, but he certainly won’t be forgotten by the very many people who know him.
John is one of life’s true gentlemen who always had a smile and a kind word for those he came into contact with.
Without wishing to go into journalistic cliché, the world will be a sadder place …….
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“Life goes on. Until eventually it doesn’t. And that, I think, is all I wanted to say. It’s goodbye from me.” These words are both brutal and beautiful in their honesty. I don’t know John but I wish him, his family and his friends much joy in the months ahead.
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I second that.
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That is a desperately sad news.
I always used to get teased when i was at secondary school whenever one of Johns reports had appeared in the Mail.
I happened to speak to him purely by chance a few years ago when he rang into our offices for editorial and got misdirected to advertising! Imagine the shock at finding John Slim on the phone!
We shared a few minutes of unexpected reminiscing about the fact that somewhere along the generations we were very likely connected before i passed him on to the correct person.
I feel very priviliged to have briefly encountered John in this way!
Regards.
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I concur with what long-standing friend and former colleague Ken Jackson has said about John. He has an infectious sense of humour, a lovely smile and an enthusiastic outlook on life. I can’t recall in the four-plus decades I have known John having ever seen him look sad or depressed. His article will be an inspiration to many, I’m sure. Very best wishes John.
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How sad but how eloquently worded. As a reporter on the Birmingham Mail in the 70s, I remember John as a real gentleman, helpful, good- natured and with a softly-spoken humour. Fond thoughts
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