The Queen's Funeral.

With the benefit of hindsight, this is when it started.

I arranged to meet a good friend for a couple of beers, close to where we both lived, on Sunday 7th September 2002, the day before the Queen's funeral.

The shops and pubs were shutting early and we just wanted a couple of beers, a quick catch up, then home.

It was great to see him and we each had a couple of cans of Camden Ale. We finished, I had a wee, and we went our separate ways. Him home to his wife and two children, me to get a couple of items of food, then home.

On the 10 min walk home, I realised I needed another wee. Odd after only two small cans of Camden.

Then, I realised I urgently needed to wee. In fact, I couldn't make the remaining 5 mins walk home without a wee.

It was dusk, in a respectable, west end, residential area. Audis and other expensive cars in the drives. I felt embarrassed and ashamed. Wasn't as if I had been drinking heavily or extensively. Just a couple of small cans of lager. Why did I need to wee again? I looked for a quiet and discreet location to wee. Panic rose as I was close to wetting myself.

Fortunately, on the edge of a small estate of 5 bedroomed, £750,000 houses, there were a couple of bushes. They were 50 metres from the nearest house, and no one was around, so I relived myself behind the bushes. Even though I was only a 3 mins walk from my apartment, had I not found that spot I would have wet myself.

51 weeks later, I was at a large teaching hospital, undergoing a diagnostic test. At the conclusion, unexpectedly, the nurses informed me the consultant wished to see me.

The consultant sat behind her desk. She had a presence of deep professional competence and was friendly but slightly distant. It felt like being taken to see the headmistress although I knew I had done nothing wrong.

"Do you know why you are here?". "No", I replied innocently and truthfully. "I will get straight to the point, I am sorry to have to tell you we are 95% certain you have prostrate cancer".

She could have hit me hard over the head with a mallet and it would have hurt less. My life had irrevocably and permanently changed.