Clive James: 'I've lost my battle with cancer'

Australian broadcaster Clive James has admitted that he has finally lost his long-fought battle with leukaemia.

The 72-year-old told a BBC Radio 4 programme that he has "almost died four times" since being diagnosed with the disease two-and-a-half years ago.

The TV veteran, best known for shows such as Clive James on Television, reveals in the interview how he initially thought he could fight the disease:

I swore to myself if I can just get through this winter, I’d feel better.

And I got through the winter and here it is a lovely sunny day and guess what, I don’t feel better.

He continues:

I’ve been really ill for two-and-a-half years. I was diagnosed with leukaemia then I had COPD - which is a fancy name for emphysema - and my immune system packed up. And that’s just the start.

James was treated at Addenbrooke’s Hospital in Cambridge for chronic lymphocytic leukaemia, a form of the disease which progresses slowly, as well as chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, which makes it increasingly harder to breathe.

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James moved to England in 1962 and studied English at Pembroke College at Cambridge, where he became ­president of the Footlights drama club.

In the Radio 4 interview, due to be aired on Saturday at 8pm, Clive talks emotionally about the dad he never knew, who survived life as a Japanese prisoner during the Second World War, only to die on his way back home to Australia.

I never saw him, I think I was in his arms as a baby for about a day before he sailed off.

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 Read more at http://www.itv.com/news/2012-06-21/clive-james-has-lost-his-battle-with-cancer/