John Righten’s perspective on facing cancer.
‘It’s cancer.’ The words that you never want to hear, but they say one in two of us will. I received the grim news on the morning of my birthday bash. It was also the night I was to give my final Rogues’ talk (I’m the author) in the Grand Central in Brighton, in aid of the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC). It is a cause dear to my heart, if you’ve read my autobiography The Benevolence of Rogues.
Strolling towards Brighton Pier, the insurmountable questions landed. ‘How do I tell my family?’, ‘Should I go ahead with the fund-raiser tonight?’, ‘Did a seagull fly over my cappuccino when I wasn’t looking?’ and ‘What now, for me?’
I decided not to tell my wife or children, for now, to ensure that they, and the audience, who were travelling from far and wide, had an enjoyable evening, besides raising as much as possible for the essential support to families the charity provides. Thankfully, I retain the rare gifts of no sense, no feeling, so it was head down and crack on.
The evening was a great success. The venue was heaving. Everyone had a crib sheet containing a humorous taster of the roguish characters who had ably assisted me on my medical aid convoys over the past thirty years. I conducted missions that delivered aid to Romania after the fall of the Iron Curtain, when the world was appalled to discover the plight of its orphans. I also assisted hospitals caught in the Bosnian War and delivered medical supplies across South America. The missions and characters I met - the good and the evil - became the parchment on which I penned my ten Rogues’ thrillers.
Laughter, and awe, greeted my stories of ordinary people who accomplished extraordinary things. Tom the Bomb, the late, debonaire East End boxer/professional forger’s encounter with an electioneering US senator, lunched the roof into orbit. Since Covid, we’re an increasingly cashless society, but that night three hundred pounds landed in the bucket by the door. Word spread, and I’ve been asked to revive the night for the Brighton Fringe.
But now, ‘How do I tell my family?’ I drove them to the coastal town of Hastings the next day. The seafront car park was full, so my family headed to the beach, and I waited for a car to pull out. Minutes later, a woman returned to her car, and pointed me to her space. As she pulled away, and I steered in, a jeep shot into the car park and seized it. Sighing, I walked over and smiled at the driver. ‘Sorry (I am English after all), but I was pulling in here.’ The window wound down and the hulk driving beamed me a smile. ‘There’s three of us, mate,’ raising four fingers. Though the characters in my novels are not pacifists, I’m not a man of violence. I’m a Rogue, I use guile. Tilting my head towards the future city accountant and his sniggering passengers, I said: ‘You three may be able to take me. But my sons,’ I grimaced, shaking my head, ‘will be here any minute.’ I stepped back as the jeep shot off and ploughed onto the main road. True enough, my sons arrived, hand in hand, with their mother proudly behind them. My eldest is not yet ten, and my youngest toddled along in his nappy. There are some advantages to late fatherhood.
While the boys built sandcastles, I broke the news to my wife, Kate. Tears were selfishly welcomed, as a shrug and “Oh, look, cheesecake!” would have hurt. But we talked it through. I told her that with chemo and radiotherapy, there was hope. ‘I’ve been bombed, stabbed and shot at. This is just another challenge. We’ll beat it together.’
‘What now for me?’
The episode in the car park reminded me that I still had my wits. But even if I could write a final novel, would I have time? I had informed my readers that my latest thriller, The Englander, was my last novel. For the last two years, I’ve been a minor cog trying to help aid workers deliver aid into the Ukraine, following Putin’s brutal invasion, and more recently, Gaza. But the conflicts continue. Was all this too raw to base a thriller on? Am I being parasitical? No. I’m an author whose work is based on my thoughts and experiences.
I’m one month into my treatment, and I’ve written the first draft of The Englander- Death Sentence (I look upon insomnia as a bonus, in my case). The lead character, Connor Pierce, the Englander, has received a diagnosis of terminal cancer, but someone is targeting his sister, Lenka’s medical aid convoys into war-torn Ukraine. Pierce embarks on one final aid mission to find out who has a vendetta against Lenka, stop them, and get the medicine through. As with all my Rogues novels, it will be a no-holds-barred, frantically fast-paced thriller. But it’s about survival, resilience, and the desire of those caught in the bloodshed to lead a fulfilling, prosperous life and be free to speak and laugh freely. Is that too much to ask? Sadly, in a surreal world of mindless violence, brutality, and demigods, it is. History teaches us one lesson, and that is that we never learn. But peace will come: it must.
‘Will I survive the dark tunnel I’ve entered?
I’ll try, and with the professionalism and kindness of National Health Service staff and Macmillan nurses, a smiling family will greet me at the end of my journey. I owe everything to them. The hugs and kisses bring welcoming spears of light to the dark tunnel. Last week, my wonderful oncologist told me that my cancer was ‘curable’. Although, I am an optimist, I will opt for ‘treatable.’ Why? It may be controversial, but as I’m not on the Farage health and fitness diet, so I don’t know what triggered my cancer. If told that, ‘Eureka, the villain has gone,’ the writer in me asks, ‘Yes, but how did it get in?’ If I survive, I will be on guard for the remainder of my life, checking for lumps and signs, (while revelling in the children’s giggles). I owe my family that.
Please, if you can, read the excellent A Beginners Guide to Dying, by the exuberant and inspirational aid worker, Simon Boas, who died of cancer last month. RIP.
‘Has cancer changed me?’
Yes. Everyone reacts differently when the Grim Reaper’s scythe taps you on the shoulder, but I am reappraising my life. Can I be a better father, husband, friend, writer, human being? Whatever time I have left, I will try.
The Englander - Death Sentence will published by Amazon in winter 2025.
John Righten’s first Rogues’ novel, Churchill’s Rogue, was nominated for the inaugural Wilbur Smith awards, The Englander was shortlisted for the Killer Nashville awards and this week was awarded the prestigious ‘Readers’ Favorite’ (US) 5-star seal, and Heartbreak, based on the Bosnian War convoys, won the Page Turner Spectrum award - the narrator, Siobhan Warr as Lenka raises it to a standard that makes authors beam.
If you wish to hear more of John’s aid convoys, click on the link to his interview with the US emergency services for Disasterpodcast Author last year. https://disasterpodcast.com/2022/05/author-john-enright-on-humanitarian-aid-missions-in-wartime/
