Richard told me Tony had his liver removed.  But that he sent him a note and Tony told him he was just fine.

His LIVER?  That’s a serious organ.  You need that one.  I mean you can get a transplant, but isn’t there a waiting list?  How could Tony say he was fine?

Well, maybe it wasn’t his liver, Richard said.  Upon reflection, Tony said he had one of two removed.

HIS KIDNEY, I replied.  Hell, you only need one kidney.  I know this writer who gave up her OWN kidney for a friend.  I breathed a sigh of relief.  Especially when my own note to Tony came back with such a warm reply.

But then I got a note on my BlackBerry from Marc Geiger.  Today, while I was riding the gondola at Whistler.  You couldn’t see a thing outside.  The rain had turned to snow.  But whatever winter mood I was in evaporated when Geiger told me Tony was much sicker than I realized.

I haven’t been myself all day.

You see you don’t keep Tony Wilson down.  NOTHING can beat him.  Not even Roger Ames.  Certainly not the powers-that-be in Manchester.

Tony Wilson is a national treasure.  No, an INTERNATIONAL treasure.  That guy you see portrayed in "24 Hour Party People"?  He doesn’t hold a CANDLE to the real Tony.

I’d say Tony’s a force of nature, but that would give the wrong impression, that he’s solely willful.  Oh, Tony’s willful, but not in an asshole way, not even in a cunning way, but in a CHARMING way.

If you haven’t been charmed by Tony Wilson, you just don’t know him.

And this charm…one expects it to be by your side forever.

The Big C is a dangerous adversary.  But modern science has kicked his butt again and again.  I think it’s time for we humans show him who’s boss.  To rid Tony of his cancer.

If you were ever touched by New Order, took Ecstasy and partied till you pooped.  Or were ever depressed and felt that Joy Division was the only worthwhile music on the planet.  Or got a chuckle out of, were fascinated by, "24 Hour Party People".  I want you to send Tony Wilson an e-mail, SAYING THAT!

Oh, Tony knows he’s loved.  But sometimes he’s moving SO fast, with so much spinning off his personality/identity, that he doesn’t let others in.  Now he’s got the time.  Now’s the window within which you should let him know how he’s touched you, how the world wouldn’t be the same without him.  Whether you’ve ever met him or not.

You see Tony loves music.  THAT’S why he got into this business, not to make a million dollars, hell, he hasn’t GOT a million dollars.

And Tony believes in the artist.  Hell, that scene in "24 Hour Party People" is true, the artists owned everything, Factory Records nothing.

Oh, the wisdom of Tony Wilson…  Listen to him talk about artist development.  How you’ve got to hang in there long enough for the act to deliver its masterpiece, usually three records in.

Oh, not that Tony’s always right.  But he’s a thinker and he goes on RECORD!  He’s not a fat cat playing it close to the vest.

Mmm…  I don’t want to make it like I’m giving a eulogy here. It’s just that I’ve NEVER EVER known ANYBODY like Tony Wilson.  Who not only knows the music, but can recite five hundred years of English history, IN DETAIL!  I learn more in one afternoon hanging with Tony than I did in a year of college.  If for no other reason than he makes it INTERESTING!

Now Tony tells me he’s going to be o.k.  This is what he e-mailed me:

Bob,

yes, I’ve been ill; gonna survive but your thoughts are a strength to me; rather than explain I thought I’d attach an article I just finished this morning for our local newspaper in which I come out; not gay, just the C word which we’ve kept under wraps…

don’t worry, will be well enough to visit your fave music event,,,,, another C word I believe and visit my mate in Santa Monica….

love all your stuff at the moment and want to get your input on what we should be doing in New York in June….

love yahhhhhh

wilson

Anthony Wilson
The Loft, 10A, Little Peter Street,
Manchester, England M15 4PS

Is Tony being optimistic, or has he got the disease licked.  I DON’T KNOW!

But I do know, despite having trouble with tributes, not comfortable with accolades even though he LOVES the spotlight, Tony will say your love is rubbish, that it’s unnecessary, but it will touch him.

So, if you’ve been touched by Tony, e-mail him at: ahw@factory.u-net.com.  Let him know.

I’ll leave you with what he sent me, which was ultimately printed in the "Manchester Evening News" under the title "My Cancer Battle":

As I was lying in my hospital bed in the M.R.I. in early January I realised I had to write something about this experience.

Not about what a big operation I just had; though you should see the scar, a long horizontal from one inch above my belly button right round to my side. Nor about the bizarre wonders of modern surgery; when they took the bandage off I was horrified; "staples, 34 ******* staples, did you get them from Staples?" "Shut up Tony, said doctor Steve, only the very finest titanium for you."

And then there’s the way they remove said staples. Yes, it’s a hand held gizmo like the one that removes staples from papers. Thought you should know.

But it wasn’t these stories of modern science I wanted to relate.

I wanted to write a love letter to the NHS.

Yes, that much debated, much moaned about and always criticised thing called the National Health Service.

As my mother, a Daily Express-reading died in the wool conservative used to say (her devout Catholicism could not be submerged) the NHS is the greatest glory of this Nation. And it was and it still is.

I am proud to recall that on my last day presenting BBC North West’s Politics show, two weeks before Christmas, I chaired a mini debate between an MP and GP on the subject of the NHS. When the show was over and as we were leaving the studio, I commented to these two gentlemen, "strange how everyone has a complaint about the NHS except for people who actually use it; when you actually come face to face with its care and concern, it is little short of wonderful." I was thinking of how dear old Hope had looked after my dad in his final days; little did I think that two weeks later I would be marvelling at that care and concern myself.

It isn’t just the skill and dedication of all the NHS staff; it is the simple and constant delivery of kindness, from the nurses and the nursing assistants and everyone on the ward. It is shockingly wonderful and I know that for all the bad headlines the NHS gets, this is the prime experience of those who get ill and actually use the NHS.

Lying in bed after my "radical nephrectomy" I found myself humming that old Leonard Cohen classic, "The Sisters of Mercy"; I’m sure he didn’t write it about the team on ward 7 but if I can get to him (we are kind of old friends) before he plays Manchester on this year’s world tour I will try to get him to dedicate it to the wonderful people who looked after me so well.

Carmen, and Emma and Emily and then the other Emma and Michaela and Beryl, and so many, many people to say such a thank you too. Kam who frequently did the night shift on my ward. Most nights I would wake up with a night fever having sweated so much my gown and sheets were soaked with what by then was cold water. All it takes is a press on that "Please Help Me" button and within minutes they would have me in changed sheets and gown, dry and comfortable, feeling like a new person. Feeling infinitely grateful.

And then there’s the other lot, the doctors who have helped me through all of this.

It begins with Doctor Cath. After two months feeling like **** and presuming I had a bad cold or flu and it would just get better, I suffered two weeks of incessant nagging from my partner Yvette, who finally gets me to go to my GP, the Docs, on Bloom Street on the Tuesday before Christmas. It then takes Doctor Cath just two minutes of tapping on my chest and in particular the back of my chest – how do they do it – to tell me I had something seriously wrong in my right lung and that she was sending me for an immediate X-Ray. Interesting. Turned out I had six litres of yellow gunge in said lung and so it was off to Doctor Chris and hospital to have my lung drained; "he’s a respiratory surgeon and the best" says Cath.

And so I have a cat scan and a drain shoved into my back and into my lung which drains the yellow stuff.

And later that night, approximately ten O’clock (these folk work late) Doctor Chris turns up for our second meeting and sits on the edge of my bed. It’s when he puts his hand on my knee before talking, I know what’s coming; "Tony, your cat scan reveals that your right kidney is completely consumed by cancer; there’s no saving it and will have to come out. But I’m sending you to Doctor Steve who is a kidney specialist and who did my kidney when I had a problem and who is the best in the country."

It’s like a series of high quality references all dedicated to doing the best for you. And Doctor Chris ends that night by trying to comfort me with the thought that one of his in laws has kidney cancer and is still around fifteen years later. Well it’s a thought. And for your skill, concern and kindness, my thanks.

So now it’s the 2nd of January and I’m off to the MRI; and the world of Doctor Steve. I’m not going to say too much about Steve or I’ll sound lovesick. A bedside manner that says, like Jesus to Lazarus, you will get out of this bed and be well; a confidence that radiates to all his staff, junior doctors, nurses, ward assistants – they respect him because he respects them – and most of all to his poor bloody patients like me. Again I’m getting the best, the absolute best and it’s free cause this is the UK and this is the NHS and why are the only headlines we see so negative.

Doctor Steve is pleased with my progress, and slightly self satisfied with the incredibly neat scar which does a perfect, incredibly thin, horizontal straight line.

Three weeks being tended with such care and professionalism in the MRI and then it’s home for further recuperation and the next chapter in the adventure; this time it’s Professor Robert at the Christie, the recommended main man who will do what he can with what remains of my cancer.

I like too think I’m not easily impressed but, heavens, I’m impressed again. Another medical man who exudes knowledge and confidence. It’s early February and on our first meeting Prof Robert explains to Yvette and I  that I can have normal chemo, interferon, but that there is an even better drug that’s just come through tests and has proved even better in the short term at combating kidney cancer. But there’s a problem, the NHS hasn’t approved it yet and you’d have to pay and it’s incredibly expensive. It’s called Sutent and costs the individual approximately £3,600 per six week cycle and God knows how many cycles you’d need it for. Yes, it’s that drug that caused all the problems the other week for the poor man who went on the news to complain about how much it was costing him to stay alive.

So there’s a compliant about the NHS, not the doctors or the nurses who seem to me like the agents of God, but the bureaucrats who can’t get their act together; it’s another Herceptin screw up.

A few months ago, a minister friend of mine was listening to a guest on my Saturday morning BBC Manchester radio show, Talk of the Town, when he stopped his car to hear how we were misfunding our support for autistic kids and not giving enough support to pre-teens. On getting back to Westminster, he made a few phone calls and tells me that government policy on autism may now change.

I don’t know who’s reading this but can someone get the NHS to get their act together on a drug that tests show saves lives. Now. It’s called Sutent and people need it.

The Prof also told us that there was an even better drug but it was very intense and only worked on certain forms of kidney cancer. At that very moment a lady scientist elsewhere on the site was doing a biopsy-thing on my kidney to see if my cancer was the right type. "You’ve still got my kidney…. In a jar……good heavens, I’d have thrown the nasty thing away."

That afternoon, the Prof returns; good news, my cancer has the markers which say that Interleukin 2 may work so that’s what we’re going to do. It’s two five day spells in Christies, a fortnight apart, a "Peripherally Inserted Central Catheter" that goes in your arm but then right up into somewhere else, and a menu of "possible side effects" that reads like your worst nightmare. Yvette and I quite like the irony that the worse you feel, the more good is being done. But what the hell. I trust the Prof and that’s been the same story from my first trip to the Docs on Bloom Street. Trust and absolute confidence in the employees of the National Health Service.

Hey Nonny No

And while I’m quoting Shakespeare my greatest help in these adventures, apart from my two children and my partner Yvette, has been my favourite lines from Hamlet, the "Readiness is all" speech.

Thanks, Bill.

And thank you, thank you, thank you, the dear NHS.