“No regrets. Enjoy life” - babe to the very end

Picture: The Times/www.bowelbabe.org

The Instagram post on 10 May was so typical of Dame Deborah James. For a start, it employed the very medium that exemplified her five-year battle with bowel cancer. Even when she was coping with gruelling chemotherapy sessions at London’s Royal Marsden Hospital, and later, a distended stomach, when being treated for a secondary liver condition, her posts were defiantly full of life, occasional black humour, but never self-pity. In fact, her very public battle with incurable canceer was never, once, about self-pity. For what was to be the unavoidable end of a life, James celebrated it to the end.

For the many who’ve followed her plight, James - @bowelbabe to the social media-savvy - was a source of enrichment for anyone dealing with their own health issues. Diagnosed with Stage 4 cancer in 2016 she was given just two years to live, but as she embarked on a new career in 2018 as a broadcaster, co-presenting You, Me And The Big C on BBC Radio 5 Live, the former deputy headteacher became a remarkable beacon of hope for others facing up to cancer themselves. 

Picture: Instagram/BowelBabe

As a campaigner and figurehead of the ‘No Butts’ initiative, she was a positive force of nature, encouraging people not to ignore the symptoms of bowel cancer (“Check your poo!”). Given us Brits' natural reluctance to talk about anything in the toilet department, James’ infectious personality, coupled with logic-defying TikTok videos of her dancing while hooked up to an array of intravenous drips, was nothing short of inspirational.

Her revelation in May that she had halted active treatment for the cancer and was receiving end-of-life hospice care, at her parents’ house in Woking, was, sadly inevitable. James’ near-half a million followers had grown increasingly concerned over recent months as a series of complications kept her off social media for lengthy periods, only appearing occasionally to post something atypically upbeat, but laced with peril.  

“The message I never wanted to write,” the mother of two began that post. “We have tried everything, but my body simply isn’t playing ball. My active care has stopped and I am now moved to hospice at home care, with my incredible family all around me and the focus is on making sure I’m not in pain and spending time with them.” 

“Nobody knows how long I’ve got left but I’m not able to walk, I’m sleeping most of the days, and most things I took for granted are pipe dreams. I know we have left no stone unturned. But even with all the innovative cancer drugs in the world or some magic new breakthrough, my body just can’t continue anymore.”

Stoically, she wrote of how she’d not expected to see Christmases, her 40th birthday or even her children going off to secondary school after her original diagnosis. She also hadn’t expected to still be able to write the word “goodbye” to her followers: “I think it’s been the rebellious hope in me,” she said, adding that she was establishing a fund to raise money and awareness for others like her going through the same experience with cancer. Within a couple of days it had reached almost £3 million - quite significantly more than the £250,000 James had initially intended to raise, fuelled, I suspect, but the sheer force of her infectious charisma as much as pity. Today it stands at over £6.8 million.

Picture: Instagram/BowelBabe

Since that May missive James continued to live her life to the full, or as fully as end-stage cancer would allow, seemingly right up against her death, announced yesterday. She received a damehood for her work, presented in person by Prince Wiliam; on a rainy day she posted an upbeat message about going outside, determined to enjoy the moment for fear of never feeling rain on her face again; she visited the Chelsea Flower Show, in part to see a rose named after her, and even late in her end-stage, went to see the racing at Ascot. In all of these very public activities it wouldn’t have been lost on anyone following her how thin and frail she looked, her body ravaged by disease but her spirit unbroken, still projecting the infectious personality that drew so many to her.   

That, then, has been the crux of these final years of James' life, lived partially in the intentional spotlight of social media, drawing attention with impossible bravery to her plight, but with humour and an absence of mawkishness. “All I ask if you ever read a column, followed my Instagram, listened to the podcast or saw me dressed as a poo for no reason,” she wrote. “Please buy me a drink to see me out [of] this world, by donating the cost to @bowelbabefund which will enable us to raise funds for further life saving research into cancer. To give more Deborahs more time!”. She signed off by saying that her whole family were around her, adding simply: “No regrets. Enjoy life X”.

Announcing her death yesterday evening, James’ family wrote: “We are deeply saddened to announce the death of Dame Deborah James; the most amazing wife, daughter, sister, mummy. Deborah passed away peacefully today, surrounded by her family. Deborah, who many of you will know as Bowelbabe, was an inspiration and we are incredibly proud of her and her work and commitment to charitable campaigning, fundraising and her endless efforts to raise awareness of cancer that touched so many lives.

“Deborah shared her experience with the world to raise awareness, break down barriers, challenge taboos and change the conversation around cancer. Even in her most challenging moments, her determination to raise money and awareness was inspiring. Thank you for playing your part in her journey, you are all incredible.”

James herself managed to have the final say, with a last message shared - as ever on Instagram: “Find a life worth enjoying; take risks; love deeply; have no regrets; and always, always have rebellious hope. And finally, check your poo – it could just save your life.”

Picture: Instagram/BowelBabe

Some might be uncomfortable with a glamorous, vivacious woman like James dying so publicly, not least of which for her children, 14-year-old Hugo and 12-year-old Eloise, who’ve all featured variously in her Instagram posts. Equally, it has required enormous strength for James’ banker husband Sebastien. 

“It’s been hideous telling my children,” the 40-year-old told The Times in May. “We have had a string of emotional conversations that have escalated very quickly from supportive care to end-of-life care. My husband Sebastien has been incredible, he has dropped everything and is with me 24/7. My first thought was [that] I don’t want my children to see me like this. I didn’t think I would be able to speak to them without crying, but I’d love one last cuddle with them.”

Just as following her struggle with cancer has been a strangely upbeat experience, her coping with the inevitability of her death has been equally inspiring. “I have moments when I just sob uncontrollably,” she told The Times, “but I can’t spend my last few days crying, it would be such a waste. So I’m trying to compartmentalise my death, otherwise how would I function?”

It’s a lesson for us all. “I’ve had some really hard conversations during the last week,” she said in an interview with BBC Breakfast. “You think, ‘Gosh, how can anyone have those conversations?’ and then you find yourself in the middle of them. And people are very nice, but you’re talking about your own death and I’ve had five years to prepare for my death. It’s really hard. The thing that I know, because I trust my husband - he’s just the most wonderful man and so is my family and I know that my kids are going to be more than looked after and surrounded by love.

In her interview with The Times James revealed that she had already planned her funeral, largely to avoid it being a burden for her family. She’s thought through every detail: “It sounds morbid, she said, “but I want a sombre funeral in black and white because I think people look good in black and white. There’s a big church in Barnes [where the family home is] and I’ll leave Seb to decide on the reception, as long as there is tequila.” How very Deborah. “I want to die listening to my family, I just want to hear their banter and the normal buzz of life as I go.”

Picture: Instagram/BowelBabe

“I just feel gutted, absolutely gutted, that the things I love — I love life — I won’t get to see, hear, taste or smell [any more],” she concluded. “I have so outlived my prognosis, it’s ridiculous. I want to thank everyone: the NHS, my doctors and nurses. I am now sounding like an Oscar winner except there are no medals for dying.” Maybe not, but Dame Deborah James deserves something more for the force of nature that she has demonstrated herself to be over these last five extraordinary and unexpected years.

Visit bowelbabe.org to donate

Park life: Rolling Stones & Eagles at British Summer Time

© Simon Poulter 2022

If there’s one thing about the Rolling Stones that remains unfathomable, it’s not that they’re still going after 60 years - there are plenty of “legacy” acts doing that - or that the loss of three original members hasn’t prevented them continuing. No, it’s that, simply, they can still put on a rock and roll show like nobody else. Literally, no one else.

That might sound hyperbolic (Mick Jagger told Rolling Stone magazine in 1995 that he found the “greatest rock and roll band in the world” epithet “stupid”). But the unassailable truth is that, simply, they still are. In Hyde Park on Saturday - two weeks shy of the 60th anniversary of their debut gig and almost exactly 53 years since they played the same park for free in front of half a million hippies) - the evidence was compelling, from start to flamboyantly pyrotechnic finish.

Picture: Twitter/Rolling Stones

Opening with Street Fighting Man, it was clear that Jagger, Keith Richards and Ronnie Wood - with a combined age of 231 - were still in the fight (despite the loss last year of drummer Charlie Watts, the band’s sheet anchor). This show, their first of two headline appearances at this year’s British Summer Time events, wasn’t going to be a gentle stroll through wistful recollections of their formative years, but a rollicking, two-hour romp through what the Stones do so well. 

For all their reputation as the ’70s’ louchest band, there was plenty of the intricate beat pop that evolved them from being a purely British blues boom outfit, with sprightly renditions of 19th Nervous Breakdown and She’s A Rainbow, Tumbling Dice and You Can’t Always Get What You Want harking back to their industrious origins, plying the music clubs of London, including that famous first gig at the Marquee on 12 July 1962 (an anniversary Jagger happily reminded Hyde Park of).

With an 80-year-old Paul McCartney headlining on the same evening down at Worthy Farm, Saturday provided a valiant night for the oldies. Twitter, inevitably and depressingly, erupted into a minor culture war, with the knuckleheads calling for a compulsory retirement age for rock stars, and those - like me - simply revelling in the joy of seeing proper legends like Macca and the Stones still able to give electrifying performances, the very thing that founded their existence to begin with.

There was no pretentious, sidelining to focus on obscure album tracks. This was the Rolling Stones everyone assembled wanted: a breathless Can’t You Hear Me Knocking?, Honky Tonk Women, Miss You and Midnight Rambler - one slammer after another. Even the 2020 lockdown single Living In A Ghost Town demonstrated that the Glimmer Twins still have a catchy bit of contemporary rock up their sleeves. But that song, and 1981’s Start Me Up aside, you could easily think that this was the Rolling Stones of 50 years ago, in their Nellcôte swagger, the Stones of Exile On Main Street and Let It Bleed, not a group with three elder gentlemen at their core (and the delightfully, bonkers cackling Richards having turned merrily into rock music’s own Rowley Birkin QC). 

And here is the remarkable thing: plenty of the negative comments about McCartney’s Glastonbury set reflected on his voice struggling a little (give the guy a break - he’s 80!), but Jagger, in particular, parades elastically about the stage no differently now at 78 than he did at 28. Nor has the voice suffered. In fact, musically, this Stones show was technically brilliant, the sound booming out crystal clear over Hyde Park. 

As they reached for the finale, with the obligatory Jumping Jack Flash, a mesmeric Sympathy For The Devil, and (I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction to end with, you were reminded - for the fifth time in my life - that you had just witnessed something that, as I stated in the opening of this post, literally no-one else can do.

To the following evening, then, and back to Hyde Park for a continuation of the heritage trail with a billing of Robert Plant (with Alison Krauss) opening for the Eagles. Plant has settled nicely into his groove as custodian of a form of Americana that is neither country or ‘world music’, but which evokes an Appalachian vibe log cabins in smokey remote valleys. Well, that’s at least what wafted across the vast open expanse of Hyde Park as Plant appropriately performed on the Great Oak Stage. 

In fact, the Midlander was the only Brit on stage, with a band exclusively drawn from the four corners of the US provinces, providing the early evening crowd with extracts from the Plant/Krauss albums Raising Sand and Raise The Roof (including the Plant/Jimmy Page composition Please Read The Letter and a couple of Everly Brothers covers), as well as richly devoured reinterpretations of Led Zeppelin’s Rock And Roll, When The Levee Breaks and The Battle Of Evermore.

In Plant was another reminder of an undisputed ’70s behemoth still making epic statements, though clearly without the gargantuan bombast of his once former band. His approach with Krauss these days is somewhat understated, that Valhalla scream of his lowered by an octave or two. But it’s worthy music, and in Hyde Park, providing an unspoken bridge to the main draw.

Picture: Twitter/British Summer Time

When they emerged from the LA canyon scene in the early 1970s, the Eagles were part of that city’s  wider collage as rock central. Down on the Sunset Strip, where Zeppelin’s John Bonham rode motorbikes up and down corridors of the ‘Riot House’ hotel (the Hyatt), you had the Troubadour, where future Eagles Glenn Frey, Don Henley and their friend Jackson Brown hung out with The Byrds and Linda Ronstadt, and worked their way into a scene that was, to quote Donny Osmond, a little bit country, a little bit rock and roll. But it was London where it all came together: Frey had wanted their debut album to be recorded by Glyn Johns, who’d produced albums for the Rolling Stones, The Who and Led Zeppelin, so in the freezing cold of February 1972, the perennial West Coasters set up shop at Olympic Studios in Barnes. It wasn’t, by all accounts, a happy experience, with Johns having one view of the band’s direction, and Frey and Henley having another. And, as Henley will recount to the Hyde Park crowd, Britain was in the midst of a coal strike, so the power to the studio would frequently cut out.

51 years later and the Eagles have been through countless changes of personnel, and have broken up and reformed. Six years ago they lost Frey, leaving the idea of any sort of continuation a little bit moot (rock’s legacy circus is now full of bands missing their original members, to such extent that some resemble Trigger’s Broom). Smartly, though, the Eagles brought in American country legend Vince Gill, who on last night’s evidence, has slotted perfectly into the vocal space vacated by Frey’s tragic death at the age of 67. The core line-up continues to be staffed by Henley, bassist Timothy B. Schmitt and the livewire guitarist Joe Walsh, along with a phalanx of supporting musicians, who last night blew through a 23-song set of their five decades, spanning the countryfied, harmonised vocals of that first album, through to the edgier, bluesy rock hinged on Walsh’s slide guitar.

I saw the Eagles a few years ago at Madison Square Garden in what was a clear attempt to tell the story of their career through each song. There was even a little gentle engagement with the audience. But not here. Instead, it was businesslike, with brief pauses between songs only occasionally broken by one of Henley, Schmitt or Walsh (in his slightly incomprehensible drawl) making proclamations to the crowd. “So, this is British Summer Time,” Henley said at one point. “In case we don’t pass this way again, I want to thank you all for embracing these songs, taking them into your hearts and your homes – we appreciate it,”. Woah - “in case we don’t pass this way again”…?

Picture: Twitter/British Summer Time

If this was, then, to be the last time a British audience experienced this most storied of American megabands, then it certainly got its money’s worth. One Of These Nights, New Kid In Town, Witchy Woman, Take It To The Limit, Lyin’ Eyes, Tequila Sunrise, Best Of My Love, Peaceful Easy Feeling, Take It Easy - they kept on coming. As did the solo hits - Henley’s Boys Of Summer and Walsh’s autobiographical and highly ironic Life’s Been Good. There were more Eagles live highlights - the James Gang cover Funk #49, Heartache Tonight, Life In The Fast Lane, Walsh’s Rocky Mountain Way and Desperado. And, of course, the song probably 90% of the crowd had come for, Hotel California.

Just like the Rolling Stones the night before, it was all technically pristine. Sometimes when you write that about a live performance you make it sound sterile, but while personality-wise the Eagles come across as a little cold, the music was anything but. They can rock out, but it’s with a sense of arch control. Perhaps the one wild card of the night came at the end, with a performance of Already Gone, at which they were joined on stage - bizarrely, now I think of it - by one John McEnroe. Obviously in town for Wimbledon (and to visit his mate Boris Becker in pokey), it was hard to tell what contribution the once Superbrat of tennis made to proceedings, other than to render the audience slightly agog at the somewhat random sight of him mingling with one of rock’s most carefully considered supergroups.

This had been the weekend that sparked the perennial debate over ‘how old is too old’?. As someone nearing his 56th year, I’m of the “age is just a number” fraternity. Yes, it’s sad to see your musical heroes getting old (my review of Phil Collins’ last hurrah with Genesis back in February will serve testament to that), but I can genuinely say that between the Rolling Stones (and Macca at Glasto) on Saturday night, and Robert Plant and the Eagles last night, the law of diminishing returns was proven wrong. My motivation for buying the Stones tickets to begin with was that no one can tell how long they’ll go on for (age and diminishing health didn’t defeat the blues greats like BB King and John Lee Hooker towards their ends). And as Don Henley appeared to confirm, there was every chance that this would be the last time the Eagles would play the very city where their recorded career began. Take It To The Limit (one last time) may have been the most fitting sentiment of the entire weekend.