Chapter twenty-nine
PERSONAL ACCOUNTS OF ARTHRITIS
AND FAMOUS PEOPLE WITH ARTHRITIS
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Chapter twenty-ninePERSONAL ACCOUNTS OF ARTHRITIS
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Books — non-fiction
Books — fiction
Some famous people with arthritis
Books people
Sports people
Musical people
Artists
Parliamentary people
Other people
Several people have written about their experiences of living with rheumatoid arthritis, juvenile idiopathic arthritis (JIA), ankylosing spondylitis (AS) or another rheumatic disorder; all well worth reading. My own two favourite autobiographies are Marie Joseph's and Grace Stuart's, plus the uncannily perceptive fictional masterpiece by Adam Mars-Jones.
Here are some books to get your teeth into. Some are now out of print, but you can still find secondhand copies, see my tips in 'Buying and borrowing books and other publications', chapter 15. One of my favourite secondhand book sites is Abebooks — use the advanced search to input keywords and to narrow the search to find the cheapest available in this country. Or ask your library to borrow the book for you through the inter-library loan system.
A Will to Win, by Alice Peterson (Macmillan 2001, Pan paperback 2002)
Alice's autobiography tells how at the age of 18 she was awarded a tennis scholarship to America and was about to sign the contract when RA struck and ended all her tennis dreams. She describes the conflicts in wanting to be a teenager while suffering the ageing symptoms of a degenerative disease. She now writes novels, and is a Trustee of the National Rheumatoid Arthritis Society (NRAS).
www.alicepeterson.co.uk
Send Yourself Roses: Thoughts on my Life, Love, and Leading Roles, by Kathleen Turner (Headline, 2008, Warner paperback 2009)
Moving and perceptive autobiography of the husky-voiced American actress and film star (born 1954). Kathleen Turner first became famous in the 1980s, after roles in Hollywood films such as 'Body Heat', 'Romancing the Stone' and 'Prizzi's Honor'. She spoke the voice of sexy Jessica Rabbit in the toon-noir 'Who Framed Roger Rabbit' (1988). Before RA was finally diagnosed in 1992 she had been suffering unbearable pain for over a year. Her battles with steroids to control the RA were cruelly mistaken for alcoholism. She's continued to act, amid the ups and downs of RA, and in 2000 she broke box office records in London's West End playing Mrs Robinson in 'The Graduate'.
www.arc.org.uk/news/arthritistoday/110_1.asp
www.usatoday.com/news/health/spotlight/2001-06-01-turner-arthritis.htm
One Step at a Time. Living with Arthritis, by Marie Joseph (Heinemann 1976, Arrow paperback 1982)
Read this even if you don't read any of the others! Shows you can keep your sanity and sense of humour even after thirty-plus years of living with RA. Wonderfully lighthearted autobiography of the famous Lancashire romantic novelist.
Marie was a young Mum of 24, with her husband just back from the Royal Air Force, and a young baby to care for, when she was told she had RA. Her tales of family, hospital stays and other people's reactions and all the ups and downs sound so familiar, but refreshed with a highly entertaining sense of humour.
When she was 40, Marie wrote and sold her first story, about a mother going into hospital and leaving her children behind. She then went on to publish masses of books, short stories and humorous articles. Seven of her books were shortlisted for the Romantic Novelists' Association Award and she finally won it with A Better World Than This. Marie drew on her Lancashire background for her books and was acclaimed as the 'new Catherine Cookson.'
www.cottontown.org
Private World of Pain, by Grace Stuart (1953, George Allen & Unwin, later Unwin Hyman of HarperCollins)
Alas, long since out of print, but try to get hold of a copy. When Grace wrote the book, she'd lived with RA for 33 years, since the age of 19. I learned a tremendous amount from this thoughtful and sensitive lady, particularly about coping with the psychological ups and downs of RA.
It's a Lovely Day, Outside, by Pamela La Fane (Gollancz, 1981)
Moving and inspiring autobiography. Horribly depressing too in its picture of how a young girl with a chronic illness was treated in the past. In 1939 when she was 11, Pamela was evacuated to Oxfordshire, where pains in her legs and wrists heralded the arrival of RA. It worsened until she could do nothing for herself.
Horrifically, from the age of 16, she was kept in a geriatric hospital and in bed, condemned to a régime where a clear locker top was thought more important than the books and writing materials she fought for to keep herself mentally active. It "would not have disgraced a Dickens pamphlet, with the lingering atmosphere of its former workhouse days … I was informed quite unemotionally, 'you won't get treatment. No one gets better here.' I was kept in bed. The little mobility I had went altogether."
Eventually Pamela taught herself to type (tapping on the keys with a stick), enrolled in a correspondence course in journalism, and through articles and a TV programme made contacts whose help at long last enabled her to leave hospital and move to an adapted council flat.
No Going Back, by Pamela La Fane (1998, Ulverscroft large print 2001)
Sequel to It's a Lovely Day, Outside. Tells how in 1968 29 year old Pamela at last managed to escape the geriatric institution, to start a new life in the 'outside world'. Far from easy, but the rewards made the battles worthwhile.
Blue Remembered Hills - A Recollection, by Rosemary Sutcliff (Bodley Head 1983, Oxford University Press paperback 1984)
Autobiography of the acclaimed writer (1920 - 1992), who received first the OBE then in 1992 the CBE for services to children's literature (mainly historical fiction). Many of her novels are set in Roman Britain and the Dark Ages (with at least two disabled heroes, in Warrior Scarlet and The Witches' Brat — a nice change!). She developed Still's disease (JIA) when she was two and a half. She describes how it affected her physically and emotionally as she grew up, her studies to become a painter, her writing, and the love affair which left a lasting impression. Blue Remembered Hills ends in her late 2Os, but two items in Michael Leitch's Living with Arthritis (see below) tell us about her later years, how she lived in Sussex, and always wrote using a fountain pen, despite the arthritis.
www.historicalnovelsociety.org/solander%20files/rosemary_sutcliff.htm
A Disjointed Life, by Corbet Woodall (Heinemann 1980)
Autobiography of the TV newsreader and broadcaster (1929 - 1982), who developed RA at the age of 38, while on the honeymoon of his second marriage. Refreshing to read a male account of RA's physical and emotional impact on life, marriage and career. It's a very honest, often self-critical account of his struggle to adapt, and many people will identify with his experiences and reflections. He was a BBC newsreader until the late 1960s, before acting the role of a newsreader in several British comedies including eleven episodes of 'The Goodies'.
www.goodiesruleok.com
Anatomy of an Illness, by Norman Cousins (Norton NY 1979, Bantam paperback 1981)
Fascinating. He knew that negative emotions could have a negative effect on body chemistry, and when he developed severe ankylosing spondylitis (AS) he wondered if the opposite might be true. Could positive emotions, like love, hope, faith, laughter, confidence and the will to live, produce beneficial effects? With his doctor's support, he tried 'laughter therapy' (see chapter 14, 'Laughter and smile therapy'), with excellent results. As Adjunct Professor of Medical Humanities at UCLA (University of California, Los Angles) he founded what was later named the Cousins Center for Psychoneuroimmunology, to investigate the relationship between patient psychology, biology and health.
When the Box Doesn't Fit, by Roger Glanville
(one essay in a collection called Stigma - the Experience of Disability, edited by Paul Hunt, publisher Geoffrey Chapman, 1966)
Roger was born in 1935, and developed RA at the age of 15. He went to the local grammar school, then after a year in hospital, to Bristol University where he edited the students' newspaper and was Vice-President and Honorary Secretary of the Union. He became a teacher, and taught in Nigeria, before returning to Britain to teach Liberal Studies at Slough College, when he "acquired a wife, two children and a mortgage".
Roger describes particularly well the psychological and practical aspects of RA. He talks too about maddening tussles with unreasonable insurance companies. Fortunately medical exams for jobs went much better: "It is very encouraging to be given the benefit of the doubt when doubt exists; each doctor understood my physical difficulties and understood the need for me to be allowed to try to do my work".
Also in Stigma are Judith Thunem's essay 'The Invalid Mind', and Margaret Mayson's inspiring 'Mind Over Matter?'. Judith was born in Norway in 1918 and developed RA when she was 17. Margaret became aware of her RA on her son's fifth birthday. Other essays in Stigma are by people with different disorders, eg polio, cerebral palsy.
Living with Arthritis, by Michael Leitch (Collins paperback 1987)
Collection of accounts by 27 people with arthritis, talking about different day-to-day aspects. The foreword's by Terry Wogan, whose mother had RA.
Lupus in the Family, by Cheryl Marcus
One of the accounts in Michael Leitch's book. Cheryl's the founder of the Lupus Group, now Lupus UK. She was 21, and newly married, when she was diagnosed as having lupus (SLE). This was before the better diagnosis and treatment available today and the physical and emotional impact on Cheryl was shattering. Fortunately her husband and parents were very supportive, and later she went on to produce two sons.
No Leg to Stand On, by Alice Pearl
Alice lived with RA for over 40 years, since she was 18. Her sensitive autobiography describes how she married, had a daughter, became a lay preacher, British Red Cross Commandant, Transport Officer for the local branch of what's now called Arthritis Care, and later faced widowhood. She has an inspiringly positive philosophy of life, despite many setbacks. There's a contribution from her too in Michael Leitch's Living with Arthritis.
Pools of Fresh Water. A Story of Healing, by Frances Parsons (Triangle Books paperback 1987)
Frances developed RA in her 2Os. She's a past winner of the Dista Award for young people with arthritis (YPAs). The book's a moving account of her life from its early days through school and marriage to Stephen, a vicar. A story of sadness, happiness, trauma and triumph. Other YPAs will understand many of the feelings and experiences she describes, especially young Mums with young children, like herself. She and her husband exercise a healing ministry together.
Living a full life with Rheumatoid Arthritis, by Jasmine Jenkins (How To Books 2005)
Janice is an Occupational Therapist with RA, and writes from the perspective of both practitioner and patient.
Pilcrow, by Adam Mars-Jones (Faber and Faber, 2006)
Fascinating to find a modern novel where the central character has juvenile arthritis! And written by such a talented writer and critic. Adam Mars-Jones (born 1954) was selected by Granta as one of its 20 'Best of British Young Novelists' in both 1983 and 1993. Although fiction, it's uncannily perceptive for a reader like me with JIA, but with plenty of stimulating wit, wordplay, and insight for any reader.
John Cromer, the adult narrator, leads us through his 1950s childhood when at the age of three his Still’s disease (JIA, juvenile arthritis) is misdiagnosed as rheumatic fever and treated, in completely the wrong way, with years of bed rest. "There were squatters in my knees wrecking the premises, and they showed no sign of moving on. In fact somehow they were inviting their cronies to join the party, to occupy my hips and elbows, ankles, wrists and shoulders, until there was a general involvement of the joints in misery, pain and swelling." John’s body is left stiffened, distorted and bowed by pain (he is a 'Stradivarius of pain').
Ex-Taplow people will recognise where John's experiences of disability, sexuality and growing up take place. But the physical world and John's physical limitations are only a starting point. As critic Kasia Boddy says: "Mars-Jones uses severe illness the way other writers use war or prison: as an extreme environment within which people behave in fresh and revealing ways". John is not a victim, but an explorer. "I had to move something, and if it wasn't my body then it would have to be my mind." John's mind is never still; it ponders every sight, and relishes every fleeing scent or touch: "small events resounded with more significance than I knew what to do with".
Daily Telegraph book review
New Statesman book review
The View from the Window, by Cordelia Jones (Andre Deutsch, 1978)
Cordelia Jones didn't herself have RA. She was an artist, and learned about RA while helping in the art room in a local hospital where she got to know one of the patients very well.
Her thoughtful and perceptive book describes 18-year old Irene. Irene has had RA for six years, and is now, in the late 1960s, in hospital for a long rest. Most of the other patients are over 60. She vividly describes her loneliness at being cut off from ordinary everyday life and how her RA creates misunderstandings with other people. She feels like the Lady of Shalott in Tennyson's poem, who is 'half sick of shadows' and sees the real world reflected only in a mirror. An unexpected outing brings a friendship which helps her analyse her attitudes towards other people and towards her RA.
Books people (besides those already mentioned)
Sue Heap, children's author and illustrator (born in the 1950s), and former winner of the Smarties Books prize, has had RA since she was 37."I couldn't drive and, even if I made it to the cinema, I couldn't get up afterwards without holding someone's hand. I remember going out for dinner and having to use one hand to move the other to pick up a glass." Anti-TNF drugs now help control Sue Heap's RA. Sue's works include Fabulous Fairy Feast (Egmont Press). Danny's Drawing Book, and How To Be a Baby, by Sally Lloyd-Jones and Sue Heap (Walker Books).
Times article
Dennis Potter (1935 - 1994), the late TV playwright ('Pennies from Heaven', 'The Singing Detective', etc) developed severe psoriatic arthropathy when he was 26 and newly married. His hands became badly crippled and clawed, but he still wrote his work, in printed letters, rather than dictating it. "It was a crisis point, an either or situation: either you give in, or you survive and create something out of this bomb-site which you've become — you put up a new building. That's what it amounted to."
www.bmj.com (You can access this even if you're not a BMA member.)
John Updike (1932 - 2009) devoted the chapter 'At war with my skin' to psoriasis in his 'Self-consciousness — memoirs (Deutsch 1989). He argues that psoriasis keeps you thinking: "Strategies of concealment ramify, and self-examination is endless." The patient constantly invents new ways of hiding the symptoms. After an attack of measles in 1938 psoriasis paraded "in all its flaming scabbiness from head to toe." Psoriasis isolates the patient from the "happy herds of the healthy."
Scotland's Mollie Hunter (Maureen Mollie Hunter McIlwraith, born 1922) has RA and writes award-winning fantasy books for the younger reader, historical novels for those in their early teens, and realistic novels for young adults. They include You Never Knew Her As I Did, a riveting tale about Mary, Queen of Scots, and her Carnegie Medal winner in 1975, The Stronghold. Her autobiographical novel, A Sound Of Chariots (Trophy Press 1994, Fontana paperback 1987), won the 1991 Phoenix Award from the Children's Literature Association.
Sports people
Alice Peterson was a rising tennis star in her teens when her RA was diagnosed. See the note above about her autobiography.
International cricket umpire and New Zealander, Billie Bowden's RA was diagnosed when he was a 23 year old cricket player (born 1963). He's known for his trademark crooked-finger dismissal when umpiring, which is due to the RA in his hands. To help him cope with aching joints he moves around a lot, and to avoid soreness in his arms, tucks under his coat any jumpers or hats which players ask him to hold.
Billie's now in his 40s, "I didn't want to let arthritis beat me and today I can say I am beating arthritis. I've still got it of course and I will always have it but that doesn't mean I take pity on myself." His RA is in remission, but he knows how bad it can get: "People need to be aware that it's not a death sentence like some diseases are but it's a full-time pain sentence, a prison sentence of suffering in a way. "The scary thing about it, is that it can come any time, any place, anywhere."
www.nzherald.co.nz (2006)
Nicknamed The Mighty Quinn, Welsh rugby legend Scott Quinnell (born 1972), Llanelli and British Lions No 8, has had RA since he was 25. For seven years he played on through the pain barrier, but retired from playing professional rugby in 2005. He's also battled with dyslexia. His worst sporting moment, he said, was "Injury. The fact you know you can't put your boots on and play again. I had rheumatoid arthritis in my knee from the age of 25 and my greatest problem was carrying injuries."
www.telegraph.co.uk/sport
Arsenal legend George Graham (born 1944), ex football player and manager, was hospitalised with RA towards the end of his tenure at Tottenham in the late 1990s.
Michael Atherton (born 1968), former England cricket captain, has ankylosing spondylitis, as did his footballer father. He retired at the end of the 2001 Ashes, and since then has worked in the media, becoming cricket correspondent for The Times and commentating on TV. His autobiography, Opening Up, was published in 2001.
AS put paid to a physically active career in rugby and cricket for Peter West (1920 - 2003), but he became a talented and versatile TV sports commentator instead, and was presenter of 'Come Dancing' for many years.
Obituary in the Independent
Welshman Ian Woosnam (born 1958) was diagnosed with ankylosing spondylitis back in 1987. He hasn't let it stop him having a dazzling career as a professional golfer. In 2006 he was Ryder Cup captain for the first time, and led Europe to a famous victory over the USA in Ireland. He's had to take time out now and again, but recently anti-TNFs have helped control his AS.
RA has interrupted the career of another golfer, Spanish golf champion José Maria Olazabal off and on since an 18-month break in the 1990s.
Former golfer Michael King (born 1950) has had AS since 1974. The highlight of his career was playing in the Ryder Cup in 1979, but had to retire in 1987. Michael now works in sponsorship and golf course design for the company European Golf Design.
Musical people
Candida Doyle (born 1963), keyboard player for Pulp, has had RA since she was 16. From an earlier era, sixties pop legend Freddie Garrity (1936 - 2006), battled in his later years with scleroderma. His songs included 'If You Gotta Make a Fool of Somebody', and 'You Were Made for Me', sung with his band 'Freddie and the Dreamers'.
Obituary in the Independent
Pop DJ, the late Alan 'Fluff' Freeman (1927 - 2006), developed RA in his mid 60s. His catchphrases included
'Greetings, pop pickers', 'Alright? Stay bright!' and 'Not 'arf!', and he was the model for Harry Enfield's character 'Dave Nice'. Alan carried on working well into his 70s: "Even with this arthritis I still won't be beaten. I've got a chauffeur and I get driven into the studios. I use the Zimmer frame to get out of the car and when I get to the BBC or Unique I use it to get to the lift and then I do the nonsense and the carrying on and the 'not 'arfs'."
BBC item, 2000
BBC Obituary, 2000
Mezzo-soprano Sally Burgess's (born 1953) numerous roles with English National Opera have included the title role in 'Carmen', and she was nominated for Olivier Award 'Best Actress in a Musical' for her performance in the RSC / Opera North co-production of 'Showboat' in London’s West End. Besides operas, her dazzling international career has included works by Paul McCartney and Philip Glass, musicals by Leonard Bernstein and Jerome Kern, and jazz recitals with her husband, Neal Thornton. Hard to believe she has RA, but she does, and has had hip replacement operations.
Classics on Line biography
In her early 40s, international violinist Fenella Barton (born 1960s) developed RA: "her hands were so crippled with arthritis that she sometimes could not lift her bow to play…" Fortunately she's since much improved, thanks to a combination of cutting-edge and complementary treatments, and is delighted she can now play again.
www.fenellabarton.com
'I couldn't pick up my bow to play', by Jane Elliott, Health reporter, BBC News.
Australian Craig Revel Horwood, best known as a 'Strictly Come Dancing' judge, knows all about RA, as his Mum developed RA when she was 30. Craig is a choreographer by profession. He's involved with the National Osteoporosis Society, and has produced a dance video 'Boogie For Your Bones' to encourage people to build up bone strength by dancing.
Daily Mail article
According to consultant rheumatologist Dr Tom Palferman, a rare rheumatic disorder, sarcoidosis, may have caused Ludwig van Beethoven's deafness, joint pains, and other health problems (1770 - 1827).
Artists
Did you know that Auguste Renoir (1841 - 1919), the famous French painter, whose pictures are so full of the joy of living, had RA? It developed after a bicycle accident, in his 50s. That was at the turn of the century, when little could be done to treat it, sadly.
His son Jean Renoir's biography, Renoir - My Father (Collins, 1962) describes how the RA's severity eventually confined Auguste to a wheelchair. He resolutely carried on painting, producing such masterpieces as 'Les Grandes Baigneuses'. His fingers curled inwards and he could no longer pick anything up, but his family would fasten the brush into his fingers for him. He couldn't hold his palette, so had to balance it on his knees and on the easel. When asked how he could continue to paint while in such agony, he replied "The pain passes, but the beauty remains".
No way did the quality of his work lessen. "Unless you look at Renoir's painting with X-rays and 3-dimensional cuts, it's very hard to tell that there's any difference between the work he completed before RA and the work he did after he got the disease. It really illustrates the point that patients with RA can do many things but they just need the time to do it," said Dr James S Louie, chief of rheumatology at Harbor-University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) Medical Center in Torrance.
On the internet there's a fascinating medical account, with many photos: 'How Renoir coped with rheumatoid arthritis' [BMJ 1997;315:1704-1708], by Annelies Boonen, rheumatologist; Jan van de Rest, president, 13th European congress of rheumatology; Jan Dequeker, rheumatologist; Sjef van der Linden, rheumatologist.
Three other famous artists also developed rheumatic disorders: Peter Paul Rubens and Raoul Dufy had RA, while Paul Klee suffered from scleroderma. An article in The Lancet in 1987 compared the pigments all four artists used with those used by their contemporaries, and found that the four with rheumatic disorders tended to use much bolder colours. Researchers concluded that the four were slowly poisoning themselves with poisons like mercury, lead and arsenic, contained in the pigments.
In 2005, Dr Thierry Appelboom (Erasmus Hospital, Brussels, Belgium) described how Flemish painter Peter Paul Rubens (1577 - 1640) told of his suffering from a "gouty rheumatism that affected several joints chronically, chiefly his hands, feet, and knees, and was sometimes so disabling that it prevented him from accomplishing certain commissions." (Rheumatology, May 2005). Dr Appelboom believes that Rubens used his own rheumatoid hands and feet as models for the abnormal joints depicted in some of his paintings, for instance 'The Three Graces', painted in 1638.
Medscape news, 2005
Raoul Dufy (1877 - 1953) began to suffer attacks of rheumatoid arthritis in 1938. In 1950 he went to the USA to be one of the first patients to be treated with cortisone. He recovered the use of his hands and did the scenic decor for Jean Anouilh’s play 'Ring around the Moon'.
Paul Klee (1879 - 1940) was diagnosed with systemic sclerosis in 1936. As his life became disrupted, light and delicate paintings gave way to darker, stronger colours and crude shapes painted with thick black lines. Titles such as 'Gate to the depth' (1936), 'Death and fire' (1940) and 'Broken key' (1938) are representative of his prolific output at the time. "Plagued by stomach problems, Klee suffered from weight loss and hardening of the skin. Towards the end of his life, he had difficulty swallowing and was incontinent."
Swiss News, 2003
Sclero.org
Parliamentary people
Linda Riordan, Labour MP for Halifax (born 1953), has RA. She had symptoms in her 20s but RA wasn't diagnosed until she was 32. She felt exhausted, was in agonising pain, and had to give up her job as a bank worker. "Trying to get a pair of tights on was just an impossibility and you can't get in or out of the bath".
Linda fought back, and took on the heavy demands of working as an MP. She co-chairs the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Inflammatory Arthritis. She has good days and bad days, but is determined not to let it get her down: "I have a very busy job and it helps to concentrate on that rather than the illness. I try to stay positive and just get on with it."
The late Labour MP for Barking, Jo Richardson (1923 - 1994), had RA for over 30 years. She described her experiences in Michael Leitch's Living with Arthritis. Former PM Tony Blair's sister Sarah was diagnosed with Still's Disease (now called JIA), when she was 10. She's now in her 50s, and was for some years head of publishing at ASLIB (Association for Information Management).
Paul Flynn (born 1935), Labour MP for Newport West, has had RA since childhood. He worked for 27 years as an industrial chemist in the South Wales steel industry before having to change jobs "because my hands were not obeying the messages from my brain".
article in the Independent
The late Lord David Ennals (1922 -1995), 'demonically energetic' member of the House of Lords, had AS.
Tam Dalyell's Obituary in The Independent, 1995
Other people
Jimi, five-year old son of UK actress Lysette Anthony, has juvenile arthritis (JIA). It took nearly two years to get a proper diagnosis. It started with a swollen ankle. He always wanted to be carried, and people thought he was just being lazy. "He would limp as if he had a sore foot," said Lysette. "He'd get tired and cry. And he lost his appetite, which is another symptom of his illness. Of course, I was worried. But the pain was sporadic and doctors couldn't find anything wrong." Daily Mail article, 2009 Fortunately eventually he was correctly diagnosed, and has been helped by methotrexate, and by steroids, injected deep into his joints under anaesthetic. He's become much stronger and livelier, and has even started school.
Great Ormond Street
Louise Clifford, daughter of publicist Max Clifford, was diagnosed with juvenile idiopathic arthritis (JIA) when she was six, and is now in her 30s. She describes the impact of JIA on her early years in a sensitive article on the NRAS website, and explains how she wasn't able to take her 'O' level exams until she was 20. She went on to get her BA (Hons) in media communications. She works for Max Clifford Associates.
Max Clifford Associates staff
TV presenter Jenni Falconer has had primary Raynaud's since she was 16. "I was at school and my finger went so numb I couldn’t control my pen. It went white, then bright red" (Now magazine). At times now, "my feet can get so numb they feel like china and could shatter if I walk on them. When the blood starts flowing again it’s like someone is stabbing me with cocktail sticks." As GMTV’s Entertainment Today presenter and interviewer, Jenni's had to do lots of standing around, often in the cold and rain: "there are times when my fingers go so numb when I’m doing an interview that it’s difficult for me to hold the microphone".
In 1978, at the age of 30, cancer specialist and TV personality Dr Bob Buckman developed the rare auto-immune disorder dermatomyositis, similar to rheumatoid arthritis. He was seriously ill for two years, but then returned to work. A decade later, he suffered from an inflammation of the spinal chord, which has left him with numbness in his right arm and leg.
He specialises in teaching communication skills, particularly in oncology. He draws on his own experiences in teaching students, doctors and business executives how to communicate, and how to break bad news. Humour has its part to play, too. He met comedian John Cleese when they were both students at Cambridge University, and since 1992 they've collaborated on over 48 'Videos for Patients' titles. He's also author or co-author of 20 books, including eight for the 'What You Really Need to Know About…' books on common medical conditions, and his life story, Not Dead Yet (1990).
www.quillandquire.com
'Mac' McEvoy was 23 when he developed AS. He went on to become Air Chief Marshal Sir Theodore Newman McEvoy KCB CBE, a veteran fighter pilot. After his retirement from the RAF, aged 58, he became vice-president of the British Gliding Association.