![]() ![]() For the last four years I’ve been putting all of my experience, the good and the bad, to use as a strategic advisor to business leaders and I can tell you that the bad has been just as useful as the good. I’m Andy Coulson, a former newspaper editor, Downing Street Director of Communications and one time inmate of HMP Belmarsh. Whether it’s personal, professional or both, crisis is without doubt, the new shared experience. Hello and welcome to Crisis What Crisis? a new podcast designed to be a useful field guide as we all try to navigate and come to terms with a dramatically changed world. Some Velvet Morning Website: Photo credit – Paul Crowther Stream/Buy ‘Allies’ by Some Velvet Morning: But he’s also a man capable of the most breath-taking insight and it was a privilege to listen to his analysis of a truly unique crisis. I pitied everyone else walking around fearing death.” Wilko is a man who has lived a rocker’s life … full of the superficial ups and downs of what he calls ‘the biz’. For me, the question of mortality was answered. I just thought – Oh! This is how it ends. “Everyone imagines how they’ll react with a cancer diagnosis,” he told me. The insights that journey afforded Wilko left me mesmerised. So unbelievable were the chain of events that led him to losing and then regaining his life. Wilko Johnson’s incredible story would not, as he says himself, get past the scriptwriting stage of any drama. But this is the first conversation with someone who knew – with absolute certainty – that their death was imminent. I’ve talked on this podcast with a number of people who’ve faced the prospect of death either in an accident or through illness. It finishes with this long droning synthesizer note – you hear that and think everything’s going to be alright. Van Morrison: Almost Independence Day from the album Saint Dominic’s Preview. Moby Dick: I love to read and what a book!ģ. Not Drinking: Alcohol can turn depression into despair.Ģ. A year he describes as both vivid and profound.ġ. In this bonus episode, Wilko talks with clarity and power about the 12 months he spent believing his death was imminent. Wilko had been misdiagnosed and after an 11hour operation was saved. Towards the end of his last year a fan – who was also a cancer specialist – urged him to seek a second opinion. He rejected chemotherapy and set about saying goodbye to his fans around the world in the only way he knew how … with a farewell tour and hit album. After an astonishing career (that included a role in Game of Thrones) Wilko was told in 2013 that he had terminal pancreatic cancer and only months to live. He’s also a man with a unique perspective on mortality as well as music. One thing is sure – Wilko will be making some more music and hopefully putting in some appearances at The Railway Hotel in Southend where he is immortalised on the sign.Wilko Johnson is one of Britain’s most revered rock stars … the Dr Feelgood guitarist who inspired Paul Weller and Joe Strummer. I recall a similar situation with a school friend who has also cheated death. As a result Wilko is somewhat shell shocked by the news that he is not about to die and having to reconsider what he now does next. Wilko agreed to undergo an operation with an uncertain outcome to remove the tumour which by then weighed 3 kilos and declared himself cancer free in October 2014. He got in touch with Wilko, suggesting that he may have a more treatable form of the cancer. About a year later one of his fans who was also a cancer specialist heard a radio interview and thought that Wilko should indeed have been dead by this time. He refused to take any treatment for his condition and embarked on a final tour. In 2013, Wilko was diagnosed with terminal pancreatic cancer and given just 9 months to live. ![]() Death Eaters – Wilko Johnson in Game of Thrones and Richard Strange in Harry Potter
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