0:00:02 > 0:00:04This programme contains some strong language
0:00:04 > 0:00:07and some scenes which some viewers may find upsetting
0:00:07 > 0:00:11When Wilko Johnson exploded onto the stage in the early 1970s,
0:00:11 > 0:00:13in the punk, blues band Dr. Feelgood,
0:00:13 > 0:00:16strutting and grimacing and wielding
0:00:16 > 0:00:19his Telecaster guitar like a machinegun,
0:00:19 > 0:00:21the world didn't know what had hit it.
0:00:21 > 0:00:24# The way that you smile when you hold my hand... #
0:00:24 > 0:00:28He inspired everyone from The Who's Roger Daltrey to Paul Weller
0:00:28 > 0:00:29and The Jam.
0:00:32 > 0:00:35This story goes way beyond rock and roll.
0:00:35 > 0:00:38It's a film about a man confronting his mortality
0:00:38 > 0:00:42and how the paradox of being told he was going to die
0:00:42 > 0:00:44only made him feel more alive.
0:00:44 > 0:00:47Tonight, Imagine celebrates the miracle
0:00:47 > 0:00:51of Wilko Johnson in Julien Temple's remarkable film.
0:01:12 > 0:01:15BELL TOLLS
0:01:18 > 0:01:21"Send not to know for whom the bell tolls
0:01:21 > 0:01:22"It tolls for thee."
0:01:33 > 0:01:34It's Canvey Island,
0:01:34 > 0:01:39it's springtime, it's 2014 and my life is coming to an end.
0:01:40 > 0:01:43It's been the most extraordinary year.
0:01:57 > 0:02:00# I've been searching all through the city
0:02:00 > 0:02:03# See you in the morning down by the jetty
0:02:06 > 0:02:10# I'll take you down to the jetty... #
0:02:11 > 0:02:14CHEERING
0:02:31 > 0:02:34CHEERING FADES
0:02:34 > 0:02:37WIND WHISTLES
0:02:43 > 0:02:48I had this lump in my stomach which I'd been treating by ignoring
0:02:48 > 0:02:50and hoping it will go away.
0:02:50 > 0:02:54And my son saw it one evening and said, "Come on, you're going
0:02:54 > 0:02:59"into the A & E," and dragged me down there and tests began and...
0:02:59 > 0:03:02they started saying to me, "Yes, you've got this mass
0:03:02 > 0:03:08"in your stomach that seems to be emanating from your pancreas."
0:03:11 > 0:03:13Yes, they told me I had cancer.
0:03:17 > 0:03:19An inoperable cancer
0:03:19 > 0:03:21and erm...
0:03:23 > 0:03:26..perhaps ten months to live.
0:03:42 > 0:03:44I was absolutely calm.
0:03:46 > 0:03:47Not a flutter.
0:03:48 > 0:03:52It was as if he was telling me something I'd known all my life.
0:03:52 > 0:03:55I knew it meant that...
0:03:55 > 0:03:56I was going to die.
0:04:02 > 0:04:04I remember walking out of the hospital -
0:04:04 > 0:04:07my house was quite near the hospital so I was going to walk home.
0:04:07 > 0:04:09It was a beautiful winter's day,
0:04:09 > 0:04:13looking at the trees against the sky
0:04:13 > 0:04:18and suddenly I felt this...
0:04:18 > 0:04:22elation.
0:04:22 > 0:04:24It was almost an ecstatic feeling.
0:04:29 > 0:04:31You're vividly alive.
0:04:33 > 0:04:38Every little thing you see, every cold breeze against your face,
0:04:38 > 0:04:40every brick in the road.
0:04:40 > 0:04:44The very paving stones seemed to be shimmering.
0:04:45 > 0:04:48Oh, man, it looked so good.
0:04:48 > 0:04:50I mean, everything was tingling.
0:04:50 > 0:04:52You know, looking around and everything
0:04:52 > 0:04:54in the street, everything, I'm thinking,
0:04:54 > 0:04:56"I'm alive, I'm alive, I'm alive."
0:04:58 > 0:05:00Suddenly everything lifted off of me.
0:05:02 > 0:05:09Present, future, past - it was all concentrated down into the moment.
0:05:13 > 0:05:15"The corn was orient and immortal wheat
0:05:15 > 0:05:18"Which never should be reaped
0:05:18 > 0:05:20"Nor was ever sown
0:05:20 > 0:05:24"I thought it had stood from everlasting to everlasting
0:05:24 > 0:05:28"The dust and stones of the street were as precious as gold
0:05:28 > 0:05:34"The green trees when I saw them first transported and ravished me
0:05:34 > 0:05:38"Their sweetness and unusual beauty made my heart to leap
0:05:38 > 0:05:40"And almost mad with ecstasy
0:05:40 > 0:05:43"They were such strange and wonderful things.
0:05:45 > 0:05:51"The men and young men were glittering and sparkling angels
0:05:51 > 0:05:58"And maids, strange seraphic pieces of life and beauty
0:05:58 > 0:06:02"Boys and girls tumbling in the street and playing
0:06:02 > 0:06:04"Were moving jewels
0:06:04 > 0:06:08"I knew not that they were born or should die
0:06:10 > 0:06:15"The city seemed to stand in Eden, or to be built in Heaven
0:06:17 > 0:06:18"The streets were mine
0:06:18 > 0:06:20"The temple was mine
0:06:20 > 0:06:22"The people were mine
0:06:22 > 0:06:26"Their clothes and gold and silver were mine
0:06:26 > 0:06:29"The skies were mine
0:06:29 > 0:06:32"And so were the sun and moon and stars
0:06:32 > 0:06:35"And all the world was mine
0:06:35 > 0:06:39"And I the only spectator and enjoyer of it."
0:06:47 > 0:06:52We're so wrapped up in what's going on in our everyday lives...
0:06:52 > 0:06:55we don't think about... You exist.
0:06:55 > 0:06:58You exist. You, you... look at all this.
0:07:00 > 0:07:02You can see it and experience it.
0:07:02 > 0:07:05See a world in a grain of sand.
0:07:10 > 0:07:11Look at Blake.
0:07:11 > 0:07:14He was seeing trees full of angels at Peckham
0:07:14 > 0:07:16long before Dr Timothy Leary.
0:07:34 > 0:07:36By the time I got home, I was...
0:07:36 > 0:07:39almost euphoric.
0:07:39 > 0:07:42JAZZ MUSIC PLAYS
0:08:05 > 0:08:08The idea that death is imminent
0:08:08 > 0:08:13really makes you realise what a wonderful thing it is to be alive.
0:08:13 > 0:08:16I never would've guessed that it would feel like this.
0:08:16 > 0:08:21It seems to me that finding this out has somehow completed my life.
0:08:21 > 0:08:25All of the things I would imagine one would feel, I don't feel.
0:08:26 > 0:08:29I am a feather for each wind that blows, you know,
0:08:29 > 0:08:31and the wind's blowing me this way now.
0:08:31 > 0:08:32And naturally you sit and think,
0:08:32 > 0:08:34"Why didn't I work out before that...?
0:08:34 > 0:08:37"Man, just the moment you're in that matters."
0:08:39 > 0:08:42Of course, we can't always be threatened with imminent death,
0:08:42 > 0:08:46but it probably takes that to knock a bit of sense into our heads.
0:08:47 > 0:08:49I did feel so high.
0:08:49 > 0:08:52I was wondering first of all, "Is this shock?"
0:08:52 > 0:08:54CROWD CHEERS
0:08:54 > 0:08:57But in fact, this feeling has persisted.
0:09:01 > 0:09:04CRACKLING
0:09:10 > 0:09:14I remember somebody telling me there are several stages you're supposed to go through
0:09:14 > 0:09:18about denial and anger and I haven't been through any of that.
0:09:18 > 0:09:21I don't get angry about it. I mean, who's to get angry with?
0:09:21 > 0:09:24I've got cancer cos I'm actually a human being
0:09:24 > 0:09:27and human beings are prone to get cancer.
0:09:27 > 0:09:28And why should I be any different?
0:09:28 > 0:09:31So, no, I've never been through those things.
0:09:32 > 0:09:36Just realised that, you know, that something's happened to me.
0:09:36 > 0:09:40SINGING
0:09:44 > 0:09:49Everybody's going to die and I've got the advantage of knowing that it's worked out for me.
0:09:49 > 0:09:52In a way, you're free of the grip of mortality
0:09:52 > 0:09:54and your destiny is settled.
0:09:58 > 0:10:03Death is something that you always look at as the indefinite future.
0:10:03 > 0:10:05And, me, it's going to be,
0:10:05 > 0:10:09I don't know, a few months or something.
0:10:11 > 0:10:15There's a special providence in the fall of a sparrow
0:10:16 > 0:10:20If it be now, 'tis not to come.
0:10:20 > 0:10:24"If it be not to come, then 't'will be now."
0:10:24 > 0:10:28If it be not now... yet it will come.
0:10:30 > 0:10:31The readiness is all.
0:10:34 > 0:10:37Since no man has aught of what he leaves,
0:10:37 > 0:10:42what is to leave betimes?
0:10:42 > 0:10:45Hamlet and he was right. And that's true for everybody.
0:10:45 > 0:10:47It will come.
0:10:49 > 0:10:53If you love certain lines, they're always in your mind.
0:10:53 > 0:10:56I do love my conversation with the quotations from here and there.
0:10:56 > 0:11:02It doesn't matter if whoever I'm talking to is not going to pick up on that either, you know?
0:11:02 > 0:11:07Or if you're with a fellow literary type they'll pick up on what you're saying.
0:11:07 > 0:11:09Just fun.
0:11:11 > 0:11:15Reading is just something I've done as almost a reflex all my life.
0:11:15 > 0:11:18You know, I'll sit there reading every word on the Cornflakes packet in the morning.
0:11:18 > 0:11:20You know, I just do it.
0:11:20 > 0:11:25I get uncomfortable if I haven't got something to read.
0:11:25 > 0:11:28"But at my back I always hear Time's winged chariot hurrying near
0:11:28 > 0:11:33"And yonder all before us lie Deserts of vast eternity."
0:11:33 > 0:11:35Andy Marvell. What a marvel.
0:11:35 > 0:11:38Repeat. Are you wounded? Are you bailing out?
0:11:38 > 0:11:42Yes, I'm bailing out, but there's a catch. I've got no parachute.
0:11:42 > 0:11:43And I'd rather jump than fry.
0:11:43 > 0:11:46WIND WHISTLES
0:11:55 > 0:11:57After I received the verdict, they told me
0:11:57 > 0:12:00I had about ten months to live.
0:12:00 > 0:12:03And with chemotherapy, maybe a year.
0:12:03 > 0:12:06Chemotherapy makes you very, very ill
0:12:06 > 0:12:08and actually I feel fine right now.
0:12:08 > 0:12:12And I would rather just have my last months
0:12:12 > 0:12:13just feeling as good as I can.
0:12:17 > 0:12:20"What cannot be cured must be endured."
0:12:23 > 0:12:24I think the best thing to do,
0:12:24 > 0:12:28rather than trying to fight it, is to accept it
0:12:28 > 0:12:29and make the most of it.
0:12:29 > 0:12:33The whole idea of running for a second opinion or something, you think you just,
0:12:33 > 0:12:36you know, I don't want to spend my time doing that.
0:13:03 > 0:13:06I've avoided any kind of false hope and didn't try
0:13:06 > 0:13:09and bargain with it, because if you're struggling against something
0:13:09 > 0:13:13and hoping for some miracle cure, it means it's on your mind.
0:13:14 > 0:13:19If it's going to kill me, I don't want it to bore me.
0:13:19 > 0:13:22So I just want it out of the way until it does its stuff.
0:13:31 > 0:13:34It's not so much death that bothers me as much as dying.
0:13:34 > 0:13:37Sooner or later, my health is going to break down
0:13:37 > 0:13:39and I'm going to be horribly sick in bed,
0:13:39 > 0:13:41and I just don't want to go through that.
0:13:41 > 0:13:45I was asking them what's going to happen.
0:13:45 > 0:13:48They told me that when the cancer comes on,
0:13:48 > 0:13:50it will come on gradually, slowly.
0:13:50 > 0:13:53And so naturally you think every little sniffle you get,
0:13:53 > 0:13:56you think, "Whoa, it's beginning."
0:13:58 > 0:14:00And then, then you're not so cocky.
0:14:00 > 0:14:02HE CHUCKLES
0:14:07 > 0:14:10Good Hamlet. All that lives must die.
0:14:10 > 0:14:13Passing through nature to eternity.
0:14:36 > 0:14:39The first thing I did was go to Japan,
0:14:39 > 0:14:42which is a place I love very much.
0:14:47 > 0:14:50If you want to seek tranquillity, it's a good place to go.
0:14:53 > 0:14:58We went up to visit a monastery up in the hills in Kyoto.
0:15:01 > 0:15:04We got there, this place was just so silent.
0:15:04 > 0:15:05There was no-one there.
0:15:07 > 0:15:12At one point, I was looking out across the temple roofs
0:15:12 > 0:15:16and there was a fine snow falling
0:15:16 > 0:15:18through these huge pine trees.
0:15:20 > 0:15:24The sun was shining through and made the snow golden.
0:15:25 > 0:15:28Normally, I would be looking at a scene like this and thinking,
0:15:28 > 0:15:31"Wow, I must impress this memory on my mind
0:15:31 > 0:15:34"so I can recollect it in future times."
0:15:34 > 0:15:36But, of course, there will be no more future times for me.
0:15:36 > 0:15:41I realised what I've got to do is just experience this now -
0:15:41 > 0:15:44not try and commit it to memory.
0:15:44 > 0:15:47I managed to do it. It's quite a hard thing to do actually.
0:15:47 > 0:15:52But just looking at it and just contemplating that scene,
0:15:52 > 0:15:57without reference to the future or the past or anything,
0:15:57 > 0:15:59just that moment. The sublime moment.
0:16:03 > 0:16:05Wordsworth had these daffodils right,
0:16:05 > 0:16:08"Which flash upon that inward eye,"
0:16:08 > 0:16:10which is the bliss of solitude.
0:16:11 > 0:16:12And...
0:16:12 > 0:16:16yes, it was something like that.
0:16:16 > 0:16:18CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
0:16:20 > 0:16:25In Japan, I took the opportunity to do a couple of farewell gigs.
0:16:25 > 0:16:28OK, listen. I'm never going to see you again.
0:16:28 > 0:16:30CHEERING DROWNS OUT SPEECH
0:16:33 > 0:16:38BLUES INTRO PLAYS
0:16:45 > 0:16:49The last number we did was Chuck Berry's Bye Bye Johnny.
0:16:49 > 0:16:54# So bye, bye-bye, bye... #
0:16:56 > 0:16:59And I'm waving, I'm going, # Bye-bye, bye-bye... #
0:16:59 > 0:17:01And all the crowd are going, "Bye."
0:17:01 > 0:17:04Like we're all waving to each other going bye-bye...
0:17:04 > 0:17:07# Bye, bye, bye... #
0:17:07 > 0:17:10Hello, hello, hello.
0:17:10 > 0:17:12# Bye-bye, Johnny
0:17:12 > 0:17:14# Goodbye, Johnny Go home
0:17:16 > 0:17:20# I said, bye, bye, bye-bye
0:17:22 > 0:17:26# We'll go bye, bye, bye-bye
0:17:29 > 0:17:30# Bye-bye, Johnny
0:17:30 > 0:17:34# Goodbye, Johnny B Goode. #
0:17:36 > 0:17:38CHEERING
0:17:42 > 0:17:43Arigatou.
0:17:43 > 0:17:47That was a buzz because it was just such a great piece of show-business.
0:17:47 > 0:17:50You know, you're going, "Bye-bye." Everybody's crying
0:17:50 > 0:17:52and that, it's fantastic.
0:17:54 > 0:17:57Me, I didn't have a lump in my throat or anything.
0:17:57 > 0:17:59I didn't feel at all upset.
0:18:01 > 0:18:05- CHANTING:- We want more, we want more, we want more.
0:18:05 > 0:18:06Thank you, Wilko.
0:18:08 > 0:18:10Wilko.
0:18:10 > 0:18:13We want more, we want more, we want more.
0:18:21 > 0:18:23I came back from Japan with a carrier bag full of letters
0:18:23 > 0:18:25that people had given me.
0:18:25 > 0:18:27Thank you, Wilko.
0:18:29 > 0:18:31Full of these good feelings for me.
0:18:31 > 0:18:35Often expressed in broken English, which makes them
0:18:35 > 0:18:37all the more touching.
0:18:37 > 0:18:39Wilko, see you again.
0:18:39 > 0:18:41God, I love Japan.
0:18:46 > 0:18:48But I love it here, too.
0:18:48 > 0:18:50Anyone that grew up on Canvey Island
0:18:50 > 0:18:51knows that Canvey Island's special.
0:18:57 > 0:18:58It's Treasure Island.
0:18:58 > 0:19:01SURF GUITAR PLAYS
0:19:07 > 0:19:09CHILDREN SCREAM
0:19:15 > 0:19:19People say, "Wow, what, you live in Canvey Island, right?
0:19:19 > 0:19:20"It must be fantastic.
0:19:20 > 0:19:22"It must be like being on holiday all the time."
0:19:22 > 0:19:24"Yes, yes, it is."
0:19:24 > 0:19:25Whoop!
0:19:28 > 0:19:30# Come on, pretty baby
0:19:30 > 0:19:32# Let's move it and a groove it... #
0:19:34 > 0:19:38People used to come from the East End of London
0:19:38 > 0:19:40to Canvey Island, right.
0:19:40 > 0:19:43# It's a rhythm that gets into your heart and soul
0:19:46 > 0:19:49# Let me tell you, baby It's called rock'n'roll
0:19:52 > 0:19:53# They say it's gonna... #
0:19:53 > 0:19:55SCREAMING
0:19:57 > 0:20:01# They just don't know what's a goin' to replace it
0:20:04 > 0:20:06# Ballads and calypso they've got nothing on real... #
0:20:06 > 0:20:10On these summer days the traffic used to back up several miles.
0:20:10 > 0:20:12When we were kids, we used to see all these people stuck,
0:20:12 > 0:20:14fuming in this bloody traffic jam.
0:20:16 > 0:20:19And we, we used to walk along going, "1,032...
0:20:19 > 0:20:21"1,033."
0:20:21 > 0:20:23SURF MUSIC PLAYS
0:20:32 > 0:20:33It was funny.
0:20:33 > 0:20:36I mean, you wonder, is this your idea of a good time?
0:20:37 > 0:20:41You drive down here and you, you get on this shingle beach,
0:20:41 > 0:20:46which gives way to a sort of mud of the river bottom.
0:20:49 > 0:20:53There were a lot of magical things for me on Canvey Island.
0:20:53 > 0:20:56I don't think that the beach is really one of them.
0:21:00 > 0:21:03He was a founding member of the rock band Dr. Feelgood
0:21:03 > 0:21:06and is known for his unique way of playing the guitar.
0:21:06 > 0:21:09Picking and strumming at the same time.
0:21:09 > 0:21:11BLUES MUSIC PLAYS
0:21:19 > 0:21:22When he was diagnosed with terminal cancer,
0:21:22 > 0:21:24Wilko Johnson decided to refuse treatment
0:21:24 > 0:21:28and carry on doing what he does best.
0:21:28 > 0:21:31He's now embarked on his farewell tour.
0:21:31 > 0:21:33- Good morning, Wilko.- Morning.
0:21:33 > 0:21:37Bring us up to speed because some people won't know you've been ill, but you have.
0:21:37 > 0:21:39You've been diagnosed with terminal cancer.
0:21:39 > 0:21:41- Yeah.- So, what, what's happening? How are you right now?
0:21:41 > 0:21:44I'm feeling fit and fine at the moment.
0:21:44 > 0:21:47I've got maybe six months,
0:21:47 > 0:21:51I can expect to feel healthy before I start to, erm, crumble.
0:21:51 > 0:21:56I get the distinct impression that because of what's happening to you, that you, you're just sort of,
0:21:56 > 0:22:00absolutely embracing everything that's, you know, in front of you.
0:22:00 > 0:22:02Is that what, is that what's going on?
0:22:02 > 0:22:04You walk down the street, you'll, you'll look at
0:22:04 > 0:22:07you'll look at a dustbin or a pussycat or something.
0:22:07 > 0:22:10Wow, you know, it's almost tingling.
0:22:10 > 0:22:13The world is almost tingling with life and it,
0:22:13 > 0:22:15it just feels so good.
0:22:15 > 0:22:16And to live in the moment you're in,
0:22:16 > 0:22:19without any of that extraneous stuff,
0:22:19 > 0:22:22it's, it's a euphoric feeling and I'm...
0:22:22 > 0:22:24Yes, I'm pleased I've had it.
0:22:25 > 0:22:29Dave has texted to say, "Wilko, you have brought pleasure to millions.
0:22:29 > 0:22:31"You are a special man."
0:22:31 > 0:22:34Olly Iron has quoted you, "Wilko Johnson, tingling with
0:22:34 > 0:22:37"the euphoria of being alive after being given ten months to live."
0:22:37 > 0:22:40And lots of people inspired by your attitude.
0:22:40 > 0:22:43If other people can find some strength in anything I've said,
0:22:43 > 0:22:44then good.
0:22:45 > 0:22:48The great, great Wilko Johnson.
0:22:48 > 0:22:51First time I've heard him play, I think, since 1975.
0:22:51 > 0:22:53- Eh?- Do stay with us.
0:22:57 > 0:23:00Many people have told me they've found, you know,
0:23:00 > 0:23:04whatever I've said about having a fatal illness, erm,
0:23:04 > 0:23:07somehow inspiring. But I've, I've only...
0:23:07 > 0:23:11spoken about the way I felt it, the way I've experienced it.
0:23:12 > 0:23:16People come up to me in the street and so on and shake my hand and that,
0:23:16 > 0:23:18perhaps thinking it's their last chance.
0:23:26 > 0:23:30You've decided to go out in style, on stage, with a bang.
0:23:30 > 0:23:31Not literally go out.
0:23:31 > 0:23:34I mean, don't buy a ticket hoping you can see me keel over.
0:23:34 > 0:23:38Right at the moment, thank you very much, I feel fit as a fiddle.
0:23:44 > 0:23:47And yet I know that death is upon me.
0:23:47 > 0:23:50I'm just hoping it spares me long enough to do these gigs,
0:23:50 > 0:23:52then I'll be a happy man.
0:24:07 > 0:24:09That's all right.
0:24:09 > 0:24:13Norman's bass playing is one of the reasons I'm still going.
0:24:13 > 0:24:15Norman Watt-Roy!
0:24:15 > 0:24:17CHEERING
0:24:20 > 0:24:24And now we've got Dylan Howe on the drums and they're just so good.
0:24:24 > 0:24:27I just get such a kick off playing with these guys.
0:24:27 > 0:24:29And it's a good band.
0:24:30 > 0:24:33So many bands, so many musicians talk about their farewell tour
0:24:33 > 0:24:36and then they're back again a few years later. But you've got no choice.
0:24:36 > 0:24:39Well, I've got no choice about that at all, no.
0:24:39 > 0:24:42You know, I can't go on for another five years.
0:24:42 > 0:24:43When you're playing,
0:24:43 > 0:24:47you realise that this might be the last one, this is the end.
0:24:47 > 0:24:51# Bye, bye, bye... #
0:24:51 > 0:24:54Oh, that sounds so sweet now!
0:24:54 > 0:24:57# Bye, bye, bye, bye... #
0:24:59 > 0:25:02# Bye-bye, Johnny Goodbye, Johnny B Goode. #
0:25:05 > 0:25:07CHEERING
0:25:07 > 0:25:10Thank you so much. Thank you.
0:25:10 > 0:25:12Goodnight. And goodbye.
0:25:12 > 0:25:15I think I'm a happier person
0:25:15 > 0:25:18probably now than I have been for years and years.
0:25:31 > 0:25:33I'm not suggesting I'm walking around
0:25:33 > 0:25:35with a silly grin on my face all the time.
0:25:36 > 0:25:39Obviously there are dark nights of the soul.
0:25:46 > 0:25:49Like three o'clock in the morning and you're thinking about it.
0:25:49 > 0:25:50And, erm...
0:25:55 > 0:25:57..moods go up and down easily.
0:25:57 > 0:26:02But I think my mood this year has been
0:26:02 > 0:26:04better than it normally is.
0:26:07 > 0:26:10There is no such thing as happiness -
0:26:10 > 0:26:12only lesser shades of melancholy.
0:26:14 > 0:26:18Generally through my life, I have been a fairly miserable so-and-so.
0:26:18 > 0:26:25I'm someone who tends to shrink away from erm, people.
0:26:27 > 0:26:29I don't know why.
0:26:29 > 0:26:34I'm never the life and soul of the party, if you know what I mean.
0:26:34 > 0:26:35I tend to be in the kitchen.
0:26:39 > 0:26:44And subject to getting uptight about the tiniest thing
0:26:44 > 0:26:48or something, and of course now I realise how foolish all that is.
0:26:48 > 0:26:51You know, there's really, you know...
0:26:51 > 0:26:54It just don't matter.
0:26:54 > 0:26:58- # Tell me who's that writin'? - John the Revelator
0:26:58 > 0:27:02- # Who's that writin'? - John the Revelator
0:27:02 > 0:27:05- # Who's that writin'? - John the Revelator
0:27:09 > 0:27:13- # What's John writin'? - Ask the Revelator
0:27:13 > 0:27:17- # What's John writin'? - Ask the Revelator
0:27:17 > 0:27:20- # What's John writin'? - Ask the Revelator
0:27:20 > 0:27:23# The book of the seven seals...#
0:27:24 > 0:27:26Death has no fear for me.
0:27:26 > 0:27:29I'm not frightened of going to hell or anything like that.
0:27:35 > 0:27:37I'm an atheist.
0:27:37 > 0:27:42I absolutely do not believe in God.
0:27:43 > 0:27:46I don't believe in any kind of survival after death.
0:27:46 > 0:27:49I believe that death is oblivion.
0:27:49 > 0:27:52I'm just going to return to the oblivion that I came from.
0:28:07 > 0:28:10Time began 13-and-a-half billion years ago, and these
0:28:10 > 0:28:1213-and-a-half billion years went by until 1947
0:28:12 > 0:28:17when I popped out and thought, "Blimey, it's big, innit?"
0:28:17 > 0:28:20And that's where I'm going back to.
0:28:20 > 0:28:23That's where we're all going back to in the end.
0:28:26 > 0:28:27Oblivion.
0:29:05 > 0:29:06Death is our normal state.
0:29:11 > 0:29:14For all of eternity, we exist for the briefest eye blink.
0:29:19 > 0:29:22You've got your Anglo-Saxons and their famous image
0:29:22 > 0:29:26of man's life being like a bird
0:29:26 > 0:29:29that flies out of the darkness into the lighted hall and through
0:29:29 > 0:29:31and then out into the darkness again.
0:29:35 > 0:29:37Of course, if you study astronomy,
0:29:37 > 0:29:41you begin to get some inkling of how vast eternity is.
0:29:43 > 0:29:46Man, it's so big. It's light years.
0:29:46 > 0:29:50Billions of stars and billions of galaxies.
0:29:50 > 0:29:52Wilko, you love astrology and the stars and looking at...
0:29:52 > 0:29:54- Astronomy.- Astronomy. Apologies.
0:29:54 > 0:29:58Astronomy. But you have lectured about the Moon as well, haven't you?
0:29:58 > 0:30:00Oh, yeah. You know,
0:30:00 > 0:30:01I'm a keen astronomer.
0:30:03 > 0:30:07I've got a great, big, huge telescope on my roof in a dome.
0:30:08 > 0:30:12What you've got up there is this marvellous huge clock,
0:30:12 > 0:30:14turning and turning.
0:30:21 > 0:30:26FAUSTUS: Stand still, you ever-moving spheres of heaven,
0:30:27 > 0:30:32That time may cease, and midnight never come;
0:30:32 > 0:30:36The stars move still
0:30:38 > 0:30:43Time runs, the clock will strike
0:30:43 > 0:30:45The devil will come
0:30:45 > 0:30:49And Faustus must be damn'd.
0:30:57 > 0:30:59The constellation Orion, which is my, you know,
0:30:59 > 0:31:01my favourite constellation,
0:31:01 > 0:31:05is moving out of the sky now and I'll never see it again.
0:31:07 > 0:31:11Also my very favourite thing in the sky is, of course, Saturn
0:31:11 > 0:31:14and it comes up over the houses across the road.
0:31:14 > 0:31:15Nice big star.
0:31:15 > 0:31:18And if you look at it through a telescope, it's fantastic.
0:31:20 > 0:31:22I said goodbye to that
0:31:22 > 0:31:25and thought, "Well, I'll never look on that wonderful thing again".
0:31:27 > 0:31:30It's weird, you know, you're saying farewell to...
0:31:30 > 0:31:32It gives you some funny feelings.
0:31:46 > 0:31:49"To die, to sleep.
0:31:49 > 0:31:52"To sleep, perchance to dream.
0:31:52 > 0:31:53"Aye, there's the rub.
0:31:53 > 0:31:56"For in that sleep of death what dreams may come
0:31:56 > 0:31:59"When we have shuffled off this mortal coil."
0:32:02 > 0:32:06Funnily enough, in my dreams there is no cancer.
0:32:06 > 0:32:09I've never dreamt about it. I've never had cancer in,
0:32:09 > 0:32:10in, in my dreams. Er...
0:32:13 > 0:32:15One reason I enjoy them so much, I think.
0:32:15 > 0:32:16HE LAUGHS
0:32:16 > 0:32:19COCKEREL CROWS
0:32:21 > 0:32:24The first thing that happens when you wake up
0:32:24 > 0:32:26is that you remember you've got cancer.
0:32:27 > 0:32:29"O Rose thou art sick.
0:32:29 > 0:32:31"The invisible worm
0:32:31 > 0:32:32"That flies in the night
0:32:32 > 0:32:34"In the howling storm:
0:32:34 > 0:32:35"Has found out thy bed
0:32:35 > 0:32:37"Of crimson joy:
0:32:37 > 0:32:39"And his dark secret love
0:32:39 > 0:32:41"Does thy life destroy."
0:32:43 > 0:32:44Oooh.
0:33:08 > 0:33:10My future self is quite close to me now.
0:33:12 > 0:33:14I mean, I'm not going to get much older.
0:33:17 > 0:33:19Now I'm going to die,
0:33:19 > 0:33:24I find myself in a retrospective kind of mood.
0:33:24 > 0:33:26It's the only one you can have, innit?
0:33:26 > 0:33:28You know, it's all behind you, mate.
0:33:36 > 0:33:38I was born here, I grew up here.
0:33:39 > 0:33:44Erm... It's always had a certain magic for me.
0:33:47 > 0:33:50And there's something magic about it still.
0:33:57 > 0:34:00It's imprinted on me, I think, this.
0:34:00 > 0:34:02I love it, I just love it. I love this.
0:34:02 > 0:34:04I love this estuary. I love this...
0:34:06 > 0:34:08..blessed plot.
0:34:21 > 0:34:25One of my earliest memories, sort of, flood,
0:34:29 > 0:34:32I can remember looking out the back and where there used to be,
0:34:32 > 0:34:34er, fields, I could see, er, waves
0:34:34 > 0:34:37and I knew that something was amiss.
0:34:42 > 0:34:44And our house was ruined.
0:34:54 > 0:34:57"Canute turned towards the ocean.
0:34:57 > 0:34:59"Back!" he said, "thou foaming brine
0:34:59 > 0:35:03"From the sacred shore of Canvey I command thee to retreat.
0:35:03 > 0:35:07"Venture not thou stormy rebel, to approach thy master's feet."
0:35:14 > 0:35:19The wall broke down in the middle of the night and, of course,
0:35:19 > 0:35:20many people lost their lives.
0:35:22 > 0:35:25My dad was a gas fitter.
0:35:29 > 0:35:33And, I mean, he remained here on Canvey during the flood.
0:35:33 > 0:35:35They had to maintain the gas pipes...
0:35:38 > 0:35:42..which meant he was wading around in icy water up to his chest
0:35:42 > 0:35:43and stuff like that.
0:35:44 > 0:35:46This did his chest in.
0:35:46 > 0:35:48Pneumonia. He couldn't breathe.
0:35:53 > 0:35:56Every year he got worse and worse until finally
0:35:56 > 0:35:58I come home from school one day
0:35:58 > 0:36:01and there was something funny about the house. It's quiet.
0:36:06 > 0:36:09I look on the table and I see all these certificates
0:36:09 > 0:36:12and I realised he's, he's gone. He's dead.
0:36:12 > 0:36:14(And I thought, "Fuck, great".)
0:36:15 > 0:36:17I was so pleased.
0:36:21 > 0:36:23I didn't like my father.
0:36:24 > 0:36:26I despised him.
0:36:33 > 0:36:34He was violent and, er...
0:36:36 > 0:36:38Yes, fuck him.
0:36:39 > 0:36:41Are you sitting comfortably?
0:36:41 > 0:36:42Then I'll begin.
0:36:47 > 0:36:50My mother was an educated woman, actually.
0:36:50 > 0:36:54She got this gig, er, scrubbing the floors
0:36:54 > 0:36:59at the gas company in order to buy our grammar school uniforms.
0:36:59 > 0:37:02And, er, what more can you say?
0:37:02 > 0:37:06But I cannot ever remember...
0:37:06 > 0:37:07kissing her.
0:37:21 > 0:37:24All through our childhood when we were visiting relatives,
0:37:24 > 0:37:27I was always aware that there was something shameful about us.
0:37:29 > 0:37:30You could feel it.
0:37:32 > 0:37:35Just something I grew up with. I thought, "Yeah, it's natural.
0:37:35 > 0:37:39"Course, you come from Canvey Island you've every right to be ashamed".
0:37:39 > 0:37:45After my mother had died, I was clearing up the house,
0:37:45 > 0:37:49I suppose, and I found this envelope, big, brown envelope.
0:37:49 > 0:37:51And I emptied it out and there's all these certificates
0:37:51 > 0:37:53and forms in there.
0:37:53 > 0:37:54And fuck...
0:37:58 > 0:38:02What was it? It was my father's divorce.
0:38:02 > 0:38:04I knew that he'd been married before.
0:38:05 > 0:38:11It, it also contained my mother's discharge from the Army.
0:38:11 > 0:38:13This is during the war, you see, and it...
0:38:13 > 0:38:15- HE CHUCKLES - On it it said,
0:38:15 > 0:38:19"Reason for discharge," and it put "Family reasons".
0:38:23 > 0:38:27He had obviously got her pregnant and...
0:38:27 > 0:38:29Ah!
0:38:29 > 0:38:33That's why, that's why we, that's why I was so ashamed.
0:38:33 > 0:38:34Whenever we went to visit our relatives,
0:38:34 > 0:38:36that's why I was so ashamed.
0:38:36 > 0:38:38Because we were, we were...
0:38:39 > 0:38:41..the prodigy of sin.
0:38:42 > 0:38:44You fucking bastard.
0:38:45 > 0:38:46It was heavy ...
0:38:46 > 0:38:48and, er...
0:38:50 > 0:38:51Yeah.
0:38:55 > 0:39:01I've always, through my life, suffered from this misery...
0:39:01 > 0:39:02I get.
0:39:02 > 0:39:05I always had a world of my own, you know.
0:39:08 > 0:39:09Rock and roll.
0:39:09 > 0:39:13MUSIC: Shakin' All Over by Johnny Kidd & The Pirates
0:39:20 > 0:39:23I saw Roy Orbison, Chuck Berry
0:39:23 > 0:39:28and I saw Johnny Kidd & The Pirates a couple of times at a club here.
0:39:28 > 0:39:32# That's when I get the shakes all over me
0:39:38 > 0:39:40# Quivers down the backbone... #
0:39:40 > 0:39:43They would come on stage wearing pirate outfits,
0:39:43 > 0:39:46and Johnny Kidd had this, er, sword, right?
0:39:46 > 0:39:49He would throw it, "thoomp!" into the stage.
0:39:49 > 0:39:53# Shakin' all over... #
0:39:58 > 0:39:59They looked so hard.
0:39:59 > 0:40:01You know, they looked like fairground people
0:40:01 > 0:40:04and they were putting down this fierce sound
0:40:04 > 0:40:06and I became devoted to them.
0:40:24 > 0:40:26# Quivers down the backbone
0:40:28 > 0:40:30# Yeah, shakes in the knee bone... #
0:40:30 > 0:40:32Now your Lobster Smack is, er...
0:40:32 > 0:40:36I think it's actually the oldest building on the island.
0:40:36 > 0:40:38Many tales and legends cling to it, right?
0:40:38 > 0:40:41People think Captain Kidd used to go down there for a drink
0:40:41 > 0:40:42but I don't think so.
0:40:42 > 0:40:44Also people think that smugglers used to go there
0:40:44 > 0:40:46and there's some kind of tunnel
0:40:46 > 0:40:48leading all the way up to somewhere else, like, you know,
0:40:48 > 0:40:51smugglers use these sort of things but I think that's a lie as well.
0:40:54 > 0:40:56Dick, Dick, Dick used to stay away.
0:40:56 > 0:40:59He wasn't hard enough to come down to Canvey Island, mate,
0:40:59 > 0:41:01you know, like, Dick Turpin. He was up in,
0:41:01 > 0:41:02up in Essex somewhere, you know...
0:41:02 > 0:41:06Pip! Pip! Come back, Pip.
0:41:07 > 0:41:09HE SCREAMS
0:41:09 > 0:41:12Keep still, you little devil, or I'll cut your throat.
0:41:12 > 0:41:16And no, Charles Dickens did not base Great Expectations
0:41:16 > 0:41:17round Canvey Island.
0:41:17 > 0:41:20I think it's over the other side of the river, really.
0:41:21 > 0:41:23Kent, Canterbury.
0:41:24 > 0:41:26Holy Blissful Martyr.
0:41:26 > 0:41:29CHURCH BELLS RING
0:41:34 > 0:41:37This used to be cheap, little caravans
0:41:37 > 0:41:39and these houses that have sprouted up here
0:41:39 > 0:41:44unfortunately obscuring the view of the oil tanks which I love as well.
0:41:44 > 0:41:46HE LAUGHS
0:42:02 > 0:42:06At night-time, the chimney stacks are all lit up.
0:42:06 > 0:42:08You get the flames flickering underneath the clouds.
0:42:10 > 0:42:12Very Miltonic.
0:42:12 > 0:42:13"Yet from those flames.
0:42:13 > 0:42:152No light, but rather darkness visible:
0:42:15 > 0:42:18"Served only to discover sights of woe."
0:42:20 > 0:42:21I do like Milton.
0:42:21 > 0:42:25I'm very fond of Milton, yeah. I like Paradise Lost.
0:42:25 > 0:42:28I'm one of the few people that's read it all.
0:42:28 > 0:42:31It takes eight and a half hours, with a break for lunch
0:42:31 > 0:42:34- to read Paradise Lost. - HE CHUCKLES
0:42:35 > 0:42:40"Of Man's first disobedience and the fruit of that forbidden tree
0:42:40 > 0:42:45"whose mortal taste brought death into the world and all our woe.
0:42:46 > 0:42:49"With loss of Eden till one greater man restore us
0:42:49 > 0:42:50"and regain the blissful seat.
0:42:50 > 0:42:53"Sing, heav'nly muse."
0:42:55 > 0:42:58It's a great poem. Everyone should read it.
0:43:01 > 0:43:05Milton says he is writing to justify the ways of God to men.
0:43:05 > 0:43:07Now, if I think there is no God,
0:43:07 > 0:43:10there's no need for Milton to justify his ways to me,
0:43:10 > 0:43:13but it's just the eloquence with which he does so.
0:43:15 > 0:43:18And everybody knows that who is the hero of Paradise Lost?
0:43:18 > 0:43:19It's Satan.
0:43:19 > 0:43:24And Satan is the one who defies God and will not bow down to God.
0:43:24 > 0:43:25He is the hero.
0:43:39 > 0:43:44Because I love to read Paradise Lost does not mean that I have to
0:43:44 > 0:43:47believe in life after death or Heaven and Hell or anything.
0:43:47 > 0:43:49I can experience it in those lines.
0:43:51 > 0:43:54The mind is its own place,
0:43:54 > 0:43:59and in itself can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven.
0:44:09 > 0:44:12I had an interest in literature,
0:44:12 > 0:44:14you know, doing A Levels at school.
0:44:14 > 0:44:18Particularly keen on medieval literature, poetry.
0:44:18 > 0:44:20I particularly like Chaucer.
0:44:20 > 0:44:22Hello, Geoffrey.
0:44:22 > 0:44:24"The well of English undefiled.
0:44:24 > 0:44:27"When that Aprill, with his shoures soote
0:44:27 > 0:44:29"The droghte of March hath perced to the roote
0:44:29 > 0:44:32"And bathed every veyne in swich licour
0:44:32 > 0:44:35"Of which vertu engendered is the flour
0:44:35 > 0:44:39"So priketh hem Nature in hir corages;
0:44:39 > 0:44:42"And then desiren folk to goon on pilgrimages."
0:44:52 > 0:44:55Constable painted this castle.
0:44:55 > 0:44:58I used to climb up and sit in that window
0:44:58 > 0:45:02and just imagine I was a medieval soldier.
0:45:02 > 0:45:06You know, with the chainmail and a crossbow or something.
0:45:18 > 0:45:20Look, there's a little boy having a piss.
0:45:20 > 0:45:22That's fairly medieval, pissing against a wall.
0:45:25 > 0:45:27When I went up to university, um,
0:45:27 > 0:45:30I started reading more medieval stuff.
0:45:30 > 0:45:35But one of these choices was, um, Old Icelandic,
0:45:35 > 0:45:40and I thought, "I'm never, ever, ever going to read Old Icelandic
0:45:40 > 0:45:41"unless I do it now."
0:45:42 > 0:45:44I was the only one, right?
0:45:44 > 0:45:47Me and Mr Frankus, used to teach me er, Old Icelandic.
0:45:47 > 0:45:53HE SPEAKS OLD ICELANDIC
0:45:58 > 0:46:01This is what's known as a Lewis chess set, is it not?
0:46:01 > 0:46:04It looks pretty Nordic, doesn't it?
0:46:04 > 0:46:06These chaps.
0:46:08 > 0:46:12In the sagas, we find this laconic, humorous almost, er,
0:46:12 > 0:46:13attitude towards death.
0:46:13 > 0:46:15SCREAMING
0:46:18 > 0:46:21I was reading Njall's saga just, just last night.
0:46:21 > 0:46:26HE SPEAKS IN OLD ICELANDIC
0:46:30 > 0:46:34There's a passage in there where the hero is being besieged
0:46:34 > 0:46:37in his house and the guy comes up to the window
0:46:37 > 0:46:39and the hero shoves his spear through him.
0:46:39 > 0:46:42And the guy walks back to his friends and they ask him
0:46:42 > 0:46:44if Gunnar is at home.
0:46:44 > 0:46:46And he says, "I don't know if he's at home
0:46:46 > 0:46:49"but his halberd certainly is," and just falls down dead.
0:46:51 > 0:46:52Go with a joke.
0:46:57 > 0:46:59Er... I'll...
0:46:59 > 0:47:01I'll, I'll do that.
0:47:12 > 0:47:14Down at The Railway Hotel in Southend,
0:47:14 > 0:47:16when, um, I first got this diagnosis,
0:47:16 > 0:47:19everybody was coming up and embracing you.
0:47:19 > 0:47:21Makes you into a bit of a star, you know,
0:47:21 > 0:47:24"here is the doomed man," you know, walking in and all that.
0:47:24 > 0:47:26All right, Wilks? How's it going?
0:47:26 > 0:47:28It's just day-by-day really.
0:47:28 > 0:47:30It can hit me any moment.
0:47:30 > 0:47:34- And apparently when it hits you... - Yeah.- ..it hits you quick.
0:47:34 > 0:47:37And so it gets to the stage where you start thinking,
0:47:37 > 0:47:39"Man, I'm still doing OK."
0:47:40 > 0:47:43It's starting to get a bit embarrassing to the extent
0:47:43 > 0:47:45where French Henry, he's going to me,
0:47:45 > 0:47:48"Man, you're not going to die, you're not going to die."
0:47:48 > 0:47:50And I'm going, "Henry, I'm not going to see Christmas."
0:47:50 > 0:47:54And I made the most stupid bet in the universe, right?
0:47:54 > 0:47:58I bet Henry £100 that I wouldn't see Christmas,
0:47:58 > 0:48:01and he bet me £100 that I would.
0:48:01 > 0:48:03Now, of course, if I win, I'm dead.
0:48:03 > 0:48:05If he wins, he gets £100.
0:48:13 > 0:48:15After I'd got the verdict...
0:48:17 > 0:48:18..I wrote several songs.
0:48:22 > 0:48:26I noticed that a lot of them tended to be about death.
0:48:26 > 0:48:29Stuff about clocks and stuff like that, you know.
0:48:29 > 0:48:31And I thought, "Well, you've got to watch it, right?
0:48:31 > 0:48:35"Cos I don't want this to be progressive music or anything."
0:48:35 > 0:48:37I think there are some kind of references
0:48:37 > 0:48:40to the inexorability of the Grim Reaper.
0:48:42 > 0:48:44You will come with me.
0:49:00 > 0:49:03I fell in love with, er, particularly cumulus clouds
0:49:03 > 0:49:07because they're just sort of great backgrounds for hallucination.
0:49:07 > 0:49:10Just seemed like an obvious thing to do one sunny day,
0:49:10 > 0:49:12"Let's go and look at the clouds".
0:49:13 > 0:49:15They're good things to look at.
0:49:15 > 0:49:18Do you see yonder cloud that's almost in the shape of a camel?
0:49:20 > 0:49:22By th' mass, and tis like a camel indeed.
0:49:22 > 0:49:25Methinks it's like a weasel.
0:49:25 > 0:49:27It is backed like a weasel.
0:49:27 > 0:49:28Or like a whale.
0:49:30 > 0:49:32It's very like a whale.
0:49:34 > 0:49:36Everybody knows you just stare at clouds
0:49:36 > 0:49:38and you see the most wonderful pictures.
0:49:40 > 0:49:43I love riding in an aeroplane for that reason.
0:49:49 > 0:49:51I decided I wanted to be a...
0:49:51 > 0:49:53a painter.
0:49:53 > 0:49:55Maybe I could convey some of this imagery
0:49:55 > 0:49:58that I've never seen anywhere else but...
0:50:02 > 0:50:06You do get ecstasies with LSD.
0:50:06 > 0:50:08But LSD is a whole...
0:50:11 > 0:50:13..different place.
0:50:13 > 0:50:15Wow.
0:50:15 > 0:50:20MUSIC: Merrily We Roll Along
0:50:35 > 0:50:37A lot of it is just visions that arise, you know,
0:50:37 > 0:50:39it might be visions of, er...
0:50:42 > 0:50:44..Babylon.
0:50:44 > 0:50:47The primal swamp, you know.
0:50:50 > 0:50:54DOLL SINGS
0:50:54 > 0:50:57The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom.
0:51:03 > 0:51:05It makes you see everything in a different kind of way.
0:51:13 > 0:51:16I think at one point I probably used to think life was the boring time
0:51:16 > 0:51:18you spent in-between LSD trips.
0:51:20 > 0:51:24And then you realise it's scrambling you a bit.
0:51:24 > 0:51:25And, er, I didn't do it.
0:51:32 > 0:51:35You never know what is enough
0:51:35 > 0:51:38unless you know what is more than enough.
0:51:38 > 0:51:39Good old William Blake.
0:51:51 > 0:51:53You were, for a short period of time, a teacher, weren't you?
0:51:53 > 0:51:55What were you supposed to be teaching?
0:51:55 > 0:51:57Er, I was an English teacher.
0:51:57 > 0:51:59I really enjoyed teaching.
0:51:59 > 0:52:02I felt a mission to turn people on to literature
0:52:02 > 0:52:04and I thought, "They ain't getting past me
0:52:04 > 0:52:06"without seeing a bit of Shakespeare".
0:52:09 > 0:52:12To be or not to be...
0:52:14 > 0:52:15"That is the question.
0:52:16 > 0:52:19"Whether tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings
0:52:19 > 0:52:21"and arrows of outrageous fortune
0:52:21 > 0:52:25"or to take arms against a sea of troubles
0:52:25 > 0:52:27"and by opposing, end them."
0:52:28 > 0:52:30Alas, poor Yorick!
0:52:32 > 0:52:34I knew him, Horatio.
0:52:34 > 0:52:37If you got a bit of enthusiasm and you're willing to show people
0:52:37 > 0:52:39what you can find in Shakespeare or literature,
0:52:39 > 0:52:42one or two of 'em, at least, you're going to turn on
0:52:42 > 0:52:44and you've given them a gift for life.
0:52:44 > 0:52:46What do you read, my lord?
0:52:46 > 0:52:47Hmm? Er, words.
0:52:49 > 0:52:50Words.
0:52:53 > 0:52:54Words.
0:52:54 > 0:52:56Being in a rock and roll band
0:52:56 > 0:53:00and being a teacher, very similar things.
0:53:00 > 0:53:01I mean, what are you doing?
0:53:01 > 0:53:04You're in a room making a fool of yourself
0:53:04 > 0:53:07in front of a load of young people and trying to put something across.
0:53:07 > 0:53:10MUSIC: I Can Tell by Dr. Feelgood
0:53:21 > 0:53:25# I can tell cos it's plain to see, yeah
0:53:28 > 0:53:32# I can tell the way you look at me
0:53:35 > 0:53:39# The way that you smile when you hold my hand, yeah... #
0:53:41 > 0:53:44You were the leaders in this style of music, weren't you?
0:53:44 > 0:53:48- I do believe that's fair to say, yeah.- Yeah.- Canvey Island boys.
0:53:52 > 0:53:54# I can tell
0:53:54 > 0:53:57# I can tell
0:53:57 > 0:53:59# I know you don't love me no more... #
0:53:59 > 0:54:01Come on, Wil!
0:54:06 > 0:54:08In Dr. Feelgood, he had attitude.
0:54:08 > 0:54:11They're gritty as well, there is a bite to them.
0:54:11 > 0:54:12MOSQUITO BUZZES
0:54:12 > 0:54:14And Wilko was the stand-out to me.
0:54:14 > 0:54:15The way he moved.
0:54:15 > 0:54:18Whoops. Mosquito up the butt.
0:54:24 > 0:54:27We had a sound and it was a sound reminiscent
0:54:27 > 0:54:29of Johnny Kidd & The Pirates.
0:54:30 > 0:54:32Exactly our influence.
0:54:33 > 0:54:37Well, we supported Johnny Kidd & the Pirates on quite a few gigs.
0:54:40 > 0:54:43Lee's white suit was actually quite famous.
0:54:43 > 0:54:46It had been lived in, that suit.
0:54:51 > 0:54:53I always went for a black suit.
0:54:53 > 0:54:55This is 15 quid in Asda.
0:54:55 > 0:54:57"Tis not alone my inky cloak, good mother."
0:55:01 > 0:55:03Great, isn't it? Yeah, look, I bought four of 'em.
0:55:03 > 0:55:05I thought, "I can look smart all the time."
0:55:05 > 0:55:10Throw it on the ground of an evening and put on a new one the next day.
0:55:10 > 0:55:12# Cos I'm a hog for you, baby
0:55:12 > 0:55:15# I can't enough of your love
0:55:17 > 0:55:19# When I go to sleep at night
0:55:19 > 0:55:24# You're the only thing I'm dreaming of... #
0:55:24 > 0:55:27Gradually, Lee was building this kind of persona,
0:55:27 > 0:55:29then the one I had kind of complimented it.
0:55:29 > 0:55:30I was either his lieutenant...
0:55:30 > 0:55:32GUNFIRE
0:55:32 > 0:55:33..or his berserker.
0:55:43 > 0:55:46Berserkers were very valued warriors
0:55:46 > 0:55:48and when they went into battle
0:55:48 > 0:55:51they became possessed with this fighting rage
0:55:51 > 0:55:53and it was impossible to stop them.
0:55:53 > 0:55:56You had to kind of cleave their head in two.
0:55:59 > 0:56:03When it came to the guitar solo, then I would be the mad axeman.
0:56:07 > 0:56:09And that is a berserker.
0:56:10 > 0:56:12Tricky to be around.
0:56:12 > 0:56:14HE LAUGHS
0:56:14 > 0:56:17APPLAUSE AND CHEERING
0:56:17 > 0:56:20All this rock and roll business was a complete accident.
0:56:20 > 0:56:24I... I never meant to do this.
0:56:24 > 0:56:26I thought I was going to be a painter but, um...
0:56:27 > 0:56:30..when it came to make your mind up time,
0:56:30 > 0:56:32I chose the, er, Cadillac rather than the garret.
0:56:32 > 0:56:35CROWD CLAP IN UNISON
0:56:38 > 0:56:40What's he doing here?
0:56:40 > 0:56:42Sir Ilyn?
0:56:42 > 0:56:43He's here to defend us.
0:56:45 > 0:56:48When the axes smash down those doors, you may be glad to have him.
0:56:48 > 0:56:54My character in Game of Thrones was Ser Ilyn Payne, the executioner.
0:56:54 > 0:56:56He's a violent psychopath.
0:56:56 > 0:56:59He's, at some point in his career, had his tongue removed,
0:56:59 > 0:57:03which, you see, I've never done any acting before and it's...
0:57:03 > 0:57:04HE LAUGHS
0:57:04 > 0:57:07It's really good to get a part where you don't have to learn any lines.
0:57:07 > 0:57:12All you've got to do is give people dirty looks, and I can do that.
0:57:13 > 0:57:15"I'm fucking having you."
0:57:15 > 0:57:20Just thinking that in your mind and your face'll do the rest.
0:57:20 > 0:57:21No, it was a lot of fun.
0:57:21 > 0:57:25Unfortunately cancer intervened.
0:57:26 > 0:57:29MUSIC: Cross Road Blues by Robert Johnson
0:57:35 > 0:57:38You definitely step into a different kind of consciousness.
0:57:38 > 0:57:41You look on everything differently so all of my past experience
0:57:41 > 0:57:44and things like that, they're all in that other world.
0:57:44 > 0:57:46You know, I call it BC.
0:57:47 > 0:57:48Before Cancer.
0:57:50 > 0:57:54I have found myself becoming more and more isolated.
0:57:54 > 0:57:58Um, I'm living in a, in a, in a...
0:57:58 > 0:58:01I don't know, a different place than most people.
0:58:01 > 0:58:03# Standin' at the crossroads
0:58:05 > 0:58:07# I tried to flag a ride
0:58:13 > 0:58:15# Didn't nobody seem to know me
0:58:15 > 0:58:18# Everybody pass me by... #
0:58:20 > 0:58:22I look out on a crowded street and think,
0:58:22 > 0:58:26"Look at all these people. They're all subject to mortality."
0:58:30 > 0:58:35But I'm not because mine is, er, established and sorted out.
0:58:35 > 0:58:39MUSIC: Stranger On The Shore by Acker Bilk
0:58:51 > 0:58:53I've stopped reading newspapers.
0:58:53 > 0:58:55I don't look at the news on the television.
0:58:55 > 0:58:58I'm completely shut off from the ways of the world.
0:59:01 > 0:59:04The feeling that I have no future
0:59:04 > 0:59:06means that whatever's happening in the world,
0:59:06 > 0:59:09you don't get to see what's going to happen.
0:59:10 > 0:59:12So I won't concern myself with it.
0:59:16 > 0:59:18It's a kind of limbo.
0:59:31 > 0:59:35"Tis a strange place, this Limbo!
0:59:38 > 0:59:41"Not a Place, yet name it so;
0:59:50 > 0:59:57"Lank Space, and scytheless Time with branny hands
0:59:57 > 1:00:01"Barren and soundless as the measuring sands
1:00:04 > 1:00:07" 'Not mark'd by flit of shades, unmeaning they...'
1:00:10 > 1:00:13" '..as moonlight on the dial of the day.' "
1:00:24 > 1:00:27It is as though there's this kind of barrier.
1:00:27 > 1:00:30It can mean being very, very lonely...
1:00:34 > 1:00:36..in a way that I've never known before.
1:00:38 > 1:00:42This feeling of isolation can, you know, if you're a bit tired
1:00:42 > 1:00:46or a bit down, it can turn into the most terrible loneliness
1:00:46 > 1:00:49which you know nobody can save you from.
1:00:49 > 1:00:51Who are you going to run to?
1:00:51 > 1:00:55You can't run to your friends and go, "I'm lonely, I'm lonely".
1:00:55 > 1:00:59"Of course you're lonely, cos you're on your own."
1:00:59 > 1:01:01But you just have to go through these things.
1:01:01 > 1:01:04The same as you might enjoy the ecstasy of existence,
1:01:04 > 1:01:07you've also got to enjoy the, the kind of misery
1:01:07 > 1:01:11of the reverse side of the coin.
1:01:11 > 1:01:12BLUES GUITAR NOODLING
1:01:19 > 1:01:24If you're not afraid of dying, there is nothing you cannot achieve.
1:01:27 > 1:01:31It's always bothered me that our generation have, er,
1:01:31 > 1:01:34kind of lived a life of denial about death.
1:01:34 > 1:01:36You know, we worry far too much about it, you know.
1:01:36 > 1:01:39It's something that should be embraced.
1:01:39 > 1:01:40# Mmm...
1:01:40 > 1:01:42# Ah... #
1:01:42 > 1:01:44Death is something that everybody, every single person,
1:01:44 > 1:01:48has to face up to, and it's not just you've got to face up to it
1:01:48 > 1:01:52at the end, it's with you all your life.
1:01:52 > 1:01:56"Who would lose, though full of pain, this intellectual being?"
1:01:57 > 1:01:59We've all got to face that.
1:01:59 > 1:02:01# Ah...
1:02:03 > 1:02:07# Ah, oh-oh...
1:02:07 > 1:02:08# Oh-oh... #
1:02:08 > 1:02:10I know the hardest thing is for my friends
1:02:10 > 1:02:13and my family and that who are losing,
1:02:13 > 1:02:17because I experienced this ten years ago
1:02:17 > 1:02:20when my wife Irene died from cancer.
1:02:20 > 1:02:22# It was a teenage wedding
1:02:22 > 1:02:24# And the old folks wished them well. #
1:02:26 > 1:02:28We'd been together for 40 years.
1:02:28 > 1:02:30You know, I'm still in love with her
1:02:30 > 1:02:33and still miss her tremendously.
1:02:35 > 1:02:37And that was probably the hardest thing I've had to
1:02:37 > 1:02:39accept in my whole life was that she's gone.
1:02:43 > 1:02:45I know what it's like to sit there helpless...
1:02:47 > 1:02:51while somebody you love is just taken away from you
1:02:51 > 1:02:53by this horrible spectre.
1:02:55 > 1:02:57A dreadful feeling.
1:02:58 > 1:02:59LOUD DOOR SLAM
1:03:01 > 1:03:05"The mystery of love is greater than the mystery of death."
1:03:06 > 1:03:09# Goodnight, Irene
1:03:09 > 1:03:11# Goodnight, Irene
1:03:11 > 1:03:15# I'll kiss you in my dreams. #
1:03:18 > 1:03:21I'm still prone to burst into tears thinking about her,
1:03:21 > 1:03:25but I've never come anywhere near that thinking about myself.
1:03:25 > 1:03:29# Irene, goodnight
1:03:29 > 1:03:33# Irene, goodnight
1:03:34 > 1:03:37# Goodnight, Irene
1:03:37 > 1:03:39# Goodnight, Irene
1:03:39 > 1:03:42# I'll kiss you in my dreams. #
1:03:46 > 1:03:51It honestly doesn't seem to me to be tragic or sad or anything
1:03:51 > 1:03:53that I'm going to die,
1:03:53 > 1:03:57but I know what it's like for my people around me.
1:03:59 > 1:04:00LOUD BANG
1:04:00 > 1:04:01They can't make jokes about it.
1:04:01 > 1:04:05- HE CHUCKLES - It would be in very poor taste! But I can.
1:04:05 > 1:04:07HE CHUCKLES
1:04:08 > 1:04:11SOMBRE ORCHESTRAL MELODY
1:04:39 > 1:04:44The ten months have gone by. I'm still on my feet.
1:04:47 > 1:04:50But the tumour continues to grow.
1:05:06 > 1:05:09When the disease will kick in and do its stuff, I don't know.
1:05:10 > 1:05:12They told me I would be dead by now.
1:05:21 > 1:05:26The first thing I did after October when they told me I would die
1:05:26 > 1:05:30was to make this album with Roger Daltrey.
1:05:30 > 1:05:31BLUESY ROCK MUSIC
1:05:37 > 1:05:39This idea of doing an album together,
1:05:39 > 1:05:42it came up a couple of years ago and nothing ever came of it.
1:05:42 > 1:05:44Then when Roger heard that I'd got cancer,
1:05:44 > 1:05:47he come back and said, "Well, you know, we'll do that album".
1:05:47 > 1:05:50I'll sing any song he wants me to sing.
1:05:50 > 1:05:52Let's just make a record, let's make the record for fun.
1:05:52 > 1:05:56So I said, I said, "Yeah, yeah, but we'd better do it quick".
1:05:56 > 1:05:58Which we did.
1:05:58 > 1:05:59Eight days.
1:05:59 > 1:06:00BLUESY ROCK GUITAR
1:06:03 > 1:06:06- DALTREY:- By this time, it is starting to affect him.
1:06:06 > 1:06:08He had wobbly days.
1:06:08 > 1:06:10He used to feel sick a lot and it was pushing in,
1:06:10 > 1:06:13into other organs in his body.
1:06:13 > 1:06:16We're thinking we're making an album with a man who's going to be
1:06:16 > 1:06:18dead in, maybe next week. We might not
1:06:18 > 1:06:20even get this thing finished.
1:06:22 > 1:06:24No expectations of this record whatsoever.
1:06:24 > 1:06:26Didn't even have a record deal.
1:06:29 > 1:06:31And it's turned out to be very successful.
1:06:31 > 1:06:35That's great! You know, I'm going to, I'm going to die.
1:06:35 > 1:06:37# I want to live
1:06:38 > 1:06:40# The way I like
1:06:41 > 1:06:43# Sleep all the morning
1:06:43 > 1:06:46# Go and get my fun at night
1:06:46 > 1:06:49# Yeah, things ain't like that here
1:06:49 > 1:06:53# Working just to keep my payments clear
1:06:59 > 1:07:01# I bought a brand-new motor
1:07:01 > 1:07:02# And I'm waiting on a loan
1:07:04 > 1:07:07# So I can fill her up and start her
1:07:07 > 1:07:10# And I'm going back home. #
1:07:10 > 1:07:11TYRES SCREECH
1:07:12 > 1:07:15When I listen to the album now, there is so much life.
1:07:15 > 1:07:19There's so much energy in it. It made me want to go, "Yeah!
1:07:19 > 1:07:23- "Yeah! Fuck it!" - HE CHUCKLES
1:07:23 > 1:07:24This is what music SHOULD be about.
1:07:38 > 1:07:40Who would have thought that I would have an album
1:07:40 > 1:07:42in the charts at the end of that year?
1:07:42 > 1:07:44But there it was.
1:07:44 > 1:07:45Roger Wilko and out.
1:07:45 > 1:07:48It's good that we could think of those things
1:07:48 > 1:07:50with his condition.
1:07:50 > 1:07:53Even though we could see this tumour was now sticking out...
1:07:53 > 1:07:55He looked pregnant.
1:07:55 > 1:07:57He had names for it. I gave it a name.
1:07:57 > 1:07:59- Henry. - HE LAUGHS
1:08:00 > 1:08:02I tried to get it to sing.
1:08:03 > 1:08:05CROWD LAUGHS
1:08:05 > 1:08:07'Couldn't get a word out of it.'
1:08:07 > 1:08:11First of all it wasn't that obvious but now, now it's grown quite big.
1:08:11 > 1:08:18It's now quite huge, to the extent that my guitar actually rocks on it.
1:08:18 > 1:08:22If I'd lie on my back, in bed, it would be sticking up.
1:08:22 > 1:08:23Beating - boom, boom, boom.
1:08:23 > 1:08:26And you think, "Oh, man, it's an alien job!"
1:08:26 > 1:08:28WEIRD MUSIC
1:08:28 > 1:08:32"Is it going to come bursting out one night and strangle me?"
1:08:32 > 1:08:35It's just as well to laugh at it, really.
1:08:35 > 1:08:37It's important.
1:08:37 > 1:08:38A sense of TUMOUR.
1:08:41 > 1:08:45This year's GQ Man of the Year award goes to...
1:08:45 > 1:08:48Ladies and gentlemen, Sir Elton John.
1:08:48 > 1:08:52CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
1:08:56 > 1:08:59Wilko Johnson is a hero of mine.
1:08:59 > 1:09:03I remember seeing Dr Feelgood so many times.
1:09:03 > 1:09:06But for this man to take time out...
1:09:06 > 1:09:09and we all know his personal story at the moment,
1:09:09 > 1:09:12and the beauty of what he's going through and telling that he's
1:09:12 > 1:09:14too busy living life to think about fucking dying.
1:09:14 > 1:09:19If I could give you this award, I will. You can have that.
1:09:19 > 1:09:20CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
1:09:22 > 1:09:24You're the fucking genius here.
1:09:28 > 1:09:30I'm not bothered about
1:09:30 > 1:09:32entering any hall of fame or anything like that.
1:09:32 > 1:09:34I mean, I've had my fun and that's that.
1:09:34 > 1:09:38I think rock'n'roll is a thing that is of the moment.
1:09:38 > 1:09:41You know, it's not something to try and set in stone.
1:09:41 > 1:09:42When I'm gone, I'm gone.
1:09:42 > 1:09:45I mean, what's it going to matter to me?
1:09:48 > 1:09:51One of the things that's made this so tolerable, if you like,
1:09:51 > 1:09:54is I think I have just been so lucky.
1:09:54 > 1:09:58I've had a splendid life and to demand more seems greedy, in a way.
1:09:59 > 1:10:02I can't imagine it being...better.
1:10:02 > 1:10:06People I've loved and things I've loved.
1:10:06 > 1:10:09WHISTLING
1:10:10 > 1:10:14# Dreamin' thing in my heart. #
1:10:16 > 1:10:19I always used to have this thing, you know,
1:10:19 > 1:10:20in my life from when I was younger,
1:10:20 > 1:10:24that I thought one day, when I got old, that I would be wise.
1:10:24 > 1:10:27- HE CHUCKLES - I don't know what I imagined this as
1:10:27 > 1:10:29but, anyway, I've got old
1:10:29 > 1:10:32and I'm afraid I'm still not very wise, but I think
1:10:32 > 1:10:34a little bit wiser than I was.
1:10:34 > 1:10:37I imagined this kind of venerable figure by a mullioned window
1:10:37 > 1:10:41with sunbeams slanting through it and the young folks will come
1:10:41 > 1:10:44to me and I would say...
1:10:44 > 1:10:46I would say incredibly wise things to them
1:10:46 > 1:10:48and they'll think, "What a wise guy."
1:10:54 > 1:10:56Time's nearly up.
1:10:56 > 1:10:59AMPLIFIED TICKING
1:10:59 > 1:11:01FLAMES ROAR
1:11:10 > 1:11:12SINISTER LAUGHTER ECHOES
1:11:26 > 1:11:28Maybe I would've liked to have
1:11:28 > 1:11:33spent my life in the groves of academe and been studying books.
1:11:33 > 1:11:35You just get one shot.
1:11:36 > 1:11:40My one's worked out OK. Mm.
1:11:42 > 1:11:44I've often seen the humorous side of all this.
1:11:44 > 1:11:47I'm not trying to make some big tragedy of it.
1:11:47 > 1:11:49You know, "I'm going to die". So are we all.
1:11:54 > 1:11:58DISTORTED: Check...mate.
1:12:02 > 1:12:06The cosmic joke is, in fact, very, very funny.
1:12:06 > 1:12:08HE CHUCKLES
1:12:28 > 1:12:32After all this time of believing that I was doomed...
1:12:35 > 1:12:40..the last couple of weeks, doctors have determined that they can
1:12:40 > 1:12:45in fact operate on this thing here.
1:12:45 > 1:12:50And, er, on, on Wednesday, that's two days' time, they're,
1:12:50 > 1:12:53they're going to, er, remove it.
1:12:53 > 1:12:56Along with half of my viscera.
1:12:56 > 1:12:57THUNDERCLAP
1:12:59 > 1:13:03If they can succeed in doing this, suddenly I have got a future.
1:13:04 > 1:13:06It came out of the blue, this new twist.
1:13:09 > 1:13:15This guy Charlie Chan popped up, who's a photographer/cancer doctor.
1:13:15 > 1:13:19Man has learned much who has learned how to die.
1:13:27 > 1:13:29When I saw him in October at KOKO,
1:13:29 > 1:13:32and I photographed him and I thought, "You look really good,"
1:13:32 > 1:13:35and I thought, "This can't be what they say it is."
1:13:38 > 1:13:41I was very mindful of the fact that he'd been very
1:13:41 > 1:13:43accepting of what was going on.
1:13:43 > 1:13:46And trying to challenge that was going to be quite difficult
1:13:46 > 1:13:50because it was going to require a very sort of significant
1:13:50 > 1:13:52psychological turnaround.
1:13:55 > 1:13:58He was saying, if I had the normal pancreatic cancer
1:13:58 > 1:14:00I should have been dead.
1:14:00 > 1:14:02I shouldn't have been prancing around on stage.
1:14:07 > 1:14:10I went through his medical records, examined him at home
1:14:10 > 1:14:13and I said, "Well, look, you don't have to go and do something.
1:14:13 > 1:14:17"Sleep on it and let me, you know, let me know what you want."
1:14:17 > 1:14:19I arranged for Wilko to meet my friend
1:14:19 > 1:14:23and colleague, Emmanuel Huguet, and his team at Addenbrooke's Hospital.
1:14:26 > 1:14:28They ran all the tests on me again and thought,
1:14:28 > 1:14:31"Hang on, maybe something can be done."
1:14:34 > 1:14:38After 18 months of believing my life was at an end,
1:14:38 > 1:14:41believing my death was inevitable,
1:14:41 > 1:14:45to suddenly be told that, "Maybe you're not going to die just yet."
1:14:45 > 1:14:50And at the moment I just can't grasp it. It just seems too good...
1:14:50 > 1:14:52I mean, I thought I was ending, you know...
1:14:52 > 1:14:56I'd done the album with Roger Daltrey.
1:14:56 > 1:14:59It's been far more successful than anybody expected.
1:14:59 > 1:15:02And thinking, "Wow, what a way to go out."
1:15:02 > 1:15:04You know, go out with a bang, and I'm thinking...
1:15:04 > 1:15:07- HE CHUCKLES - ..maybe I'm NOT going out.
1:15:07 > 1:15:09What's to come is still unsure.
1:15:09 > 1:15:12Things are going to come to a head in a couple of days' time
1:15:12 > 1:15:17and I'm going to get an injection and...and enter oblivion.
1:15:17 > 1:15:21And if I come out the other side and...
1:15:21 > 1:15:24I've got to start rethinking things, you know.
1:15:32 > 1:15:36Yea, though I walk through the Valley of the Shadow of Death
1:15:36 > 1:15:37yet shall I fear no evil.
1:15:41 > 1:15:45An operation on something that size has never been tried before,
1:15:45 > 1:15:48and the kind of word I got back there was a 15%
1:15:48 > 1:15:49chance of surviving it.
1:15:51 > 1:15:53Either they'll kill me or cure me.
1:15:53 > 1:15:56If I don't wake up, it's a good way to go.
1:15:56 > 1:15:58An atropine injection, sister?
1:15:58 > 1:15:59Yes, 100.
1:16:03 > 1:16:04Hello, Squadron Leader.
1:16:04 > 1:16:07We're all ready for you.
1:16:17 > 1:16:18I got this, er...
1:16:22 > 1:16:23They opened me right up.
1:16:23 > 1:16:25HE CHUCKLES
1:16:28 > 1:16:30I certainly don't miss it.
1:16:30 > 1:16:32- HE CHUCKLES - It's gone.
1:16:46 > 1:16:48Today is actually my birthday.
1:16:48 > 1:16:53It's... It's the birthday I never thought I was going to have.
1:16:54 > 1:16:58Um, and actually I am still feeling quite frail.
1:16:58 > 1:17:03I'm recovering from the life-saving operation that was given to me
1:17:03 > 1:17:05at Addenbrooke's Hospital.
1:17:06 > 1:17:13They removed a 3kg tumour from my...from my stomach.
1:17:15 > 1:17:17So I no longer have this cancer.
1:17:19 > 1:17:21Apparently the normal pancreatic tumour, they cannot operate on
1:17:21 > 1:17:24because if they operate on it, it just comes back.
1:17:24 > 1:17:29This one, er...they, they thought they could do it and they did it.
1:17:33 > 1:17:35It was a large tumour.
1:17:35 > 1:17:38Literally the size of a watermelon.
1:17:38 > 1:17:40Um, and by virtue of that size,
1:17:40 > 1:17:42it had got itself stuck to a number of other organs.
1:17:42 > 1:17:46The dangerous part of it, it had grown round the aorta -
1:17:46 > 1:17:48the main artery from the heart.
1:17:48 > 1:17:52So that was a percentage of chance of surviving it...
1:17:52 > 1:17:55But, of course, typical Wilko again,
1:17:55 > 1:17:57"All right. Let's have a go."
1:17:57 > 1:17:58He had nothing to lose.
1:17:58 > 1:18:02It was quite a lengthy operation. It took nine hours or so.
1:18:02 > 1:18:04Potentially hazardous.
1:18:07 > 1:18:10The first few hours were spent in extensive
1:18:10 > 1:18:12dissection of most of the abdominal organs
1:18:12 > 1:18:16and about halfway through the day we committed ourselves
1:18:16 > 1:18:18and started doing irreversible things.
1:18:20 > 1:18:24The next few hours were spent dissecting the tumour away,
1:18:24 > 1:18:29also removal of the entire pancreas, um, the spleen,
1:18:29 > 1:18:31er, parts of the stomach, part of the small intestine,
1:18:31 > 1:18:33part of the large intestine.
1:18:33 > 1:18:35And when it came to the aorta,
1:18:35 > 1:18:37apparently it peeled away like an orange.
1:18:37 > 1:18:39Just like an orange skin.
1:18:39 > 1:18:41So that was the bit of luck.
1:18:41 > 1:18:46Eventually the tumour came out at about 4.30 in the afternoon
1:18:46 > 1:18:49and then the reconstruction took us to about 7.30 in the evening
1:18:49 > 1:18:51when we finally finished.
1:18:51 > 1:18:55We really do take these patients to the very limits of what
1:18:55 > 1:18:57human beings can endure,
1:18:57 > 1:19:01and I have to say Wilko dealt with it with great dignity and courage.
1:19:01 > 1:19:02Congratulations.
1:19:02 > 1:19:03An interesting case.
1:19:03 > 1:19:06How long this tumour would've carried on before it killed me,
1:19:06 > 1:19:08I don't know.
1:19:08 > 1:19:10But it would've got me in the end.
1:19:10 > 1:19:11Thank you, Charlie Chan.
1:19:19 > 1:19:24In fact, it looked like I was going to make a very swift recovery.
1:19:24 > 1:19:28I was in for about four weeks getting my guts to work again
1:19:28 > 1:19:30and I'm now diabetic.
1:19:30 > 1:19:34I was home for a few days and then the first infection hit me.
1:19:34 > 1:19:37And I...I was shaking,
1:19:37 > 1:19:38I was just shaking uncontrollably.
1:19:38 > 1:19:40Like, it was frightening, you know.
1:19:40 > 1:19:45Oooh! And, er, boom - went back to hospital.
1:19:46 > 1:19:49I had an infection in my chest and on my liver.
1:19:54 > 1:19:58And I was lying on that bed for weeks in hospital with all
1:19:58 > 1:20:01tubes coming out of me and stuff like that.
1:20:01 > 1:20:04And that was... God, it was terrible.
1:20:05 > 1:20:08I would just be lying there in some kind of trance, really,
1:20:08 > 1:20:11and time kind of stops.
1:20:11 > 1:20:14MUSIC SLOWS DOWN
1:20:18 > 1:20:21I was groggy a lot of the time, as well.
1:20:21 > 1:20:24- Morphine, yes. - HE CHUCKLES
1:20:24 > 1:20:31# We have all the time in the world... #
1:20:31 > 1:20:34I was a bit disappointed with the morphine, actually.
1:20:34 > 1:20:36Don't go rushing out for it, folks.
1:20:39 > 1:20:41At one point, I was really wimping out.
1:20:41 > 1:20:43I was saying I wanted to go home.
1:20:43 > 1:20:46You know, I didn't like lying there and all that.
1:20:46 > 1:20:50And then I suddenly realised there's all these people, the surgeons
1:20:50 > 1:20:53and pathologists and...and nurses.
1:20:53 > 1:20:56You know, the girl bringing around the dinner.
1:20:56 > 1:21:02All of these people working so hard to, to put you right,
1:21:02 > 1:21:05you know, and I'm thinking, there's me
1:21:05 > 1:21:08sitting in the middle of it, whining like a kid, "I want to go home."
1:21:08 > 1:21:12You know, so I...I changed my tune about that
1:21:12 > 1:21:14and decided to tolerate it.
1:21:14 > 1:21:17But it took some tolerating.
1:21:19 > 1:21:21They're coming round every sort of hour or so
1:21:21 > 1:21:23taking your blood pressure
1:21:23 > 1:21:27and pricking your finger and taking your blood sugar count.
1:21:27 > 1:21:28And I looked forward to that.
1:21:28 > 1:21:31You know, you're kinda holding your arm out and, er...
1:21:31 > 1:21:33it was kind of human contact.
1:21:37 > 1:21:40Save the NHS. It saved ME.
1:21:40 > 1:21:44# Nothing more, nothing less
1:21:46 > 1:21:48# Only love. #
1:21:50 > 1:21:53I'm still very weak and not well.
1:21:53 > 1:21:57Still going to be some months before I can leap about and say,
1:21:57 > 1:22:00"Whoopee! I'm-I'm going to carry on."
1:22:00 > 1:22:02The one thing that does worry me is,
1:22:02 > 1:22:05if I can't get my strength back, which means that physically
1:22:05 > 1:22:08I can't perform, and I don't like that idea.
1:22:08 > 1:22:10I hope that doesn't happen.
1:22:10 > 1:22:11I hope I can do it again.
1:22:14 > 1:22:19And now it looks like I'm going to live, I just hope
1:22:19 > 1:22:23I can carry some of these lessons I've learned along with me.
1:22:23 > 1:22:26I just hope that I can have some gratitude
1:22:26 > 1:22:28and I can have a little less selfishness
1:22:28 > 1:22:30and bothering about stupid things that don't matter.
1:22:30 > 1:22:34And I hope I'm properly worthy of having been given this.
1:22:36 > 1:22:40# Happy Jack wasn't old but he was a man
1:22:43 > 1:22:46# But they couldn't stop Jack or the waters lapping
1:22:46 > 1:22:47# Lap, lap, lap, lap. #
1:22:50 > 1:22:54Look at this, Canvey Island. I like it.
1:22:54 > 1:22:56Look, there's a ship going. Look at that ship.
1:23:05 > 1:23:08# Louie, Louie, oh, baby...#
1:23:08 > 1:23:11Oh, wow, I'm getting one of those.
1:23:11 > 1:23:13Feeling that kind of ecstasy.
1:23:13 > 1:23:17Sometimes you get buzzes like that, you think, "Bloody hell, man,
1:23:17 > 1:23:19"I could be...I'm supposed to be dead."
1:23:22 > 1:23:25And here we are watching the tide come in.
1:23:25 > 1:23:29# I wonder when I'm gonna make it home. #
1:23:30 > 1:23:33It's so hard for me to actually...
1:23:36 > 1:23:39..describe how I feel.
1:23:40 > 1:23:43Christ, I was going to die.
1:23:49 > 1:23:52It happens in an instant, right? It goes bang.
1:23:52 > 1:23:53It goes, "You've got cancer."
1:23:53 > 1:23:56Bang, your life changes, like that, with those three words.
1:23:58 > 1:24:01But there's not another three words on the other side.
1:24:01 > 1:24:03So you don't suddenly feel,
1:24:03 > 1:24:07"Great, I'm back in the land of the living," you know.
1:24:07 > 1:24:11You... You... And then you sort of go home and grad...
1:24:11 > 1:24:12gradually get better.
1:24:12 > 1:24:15And I'm still gradually getting better and better and better.
1:24:15 > 1:24:17But there's no sudden - boom! - like that,
1:24:17 > 1:24:20like there was when they told me I was going to die.
1:24:26 > 1:24:30I'm slowly, slowly coming back to everyday life.
1:24:30 > 1:24:34Yes, it's like parachuting back down into the real world.
1:24:41 > 1:24:44I'm still not quite down to earth yet.
1:24:45 > 1:24:49I'm finding it quite difficult to get my head round it, actually.
1:24:49 > 1:24:51And I'm still in this limbo.
1:24:51 > 1:24:55It's kind of hard for me to get used to the idea
1:24:55 > 1:24:57that my death is not imminent.
1:24:57 > 1:24:58TYRES SCREECH
1:24:58 > 1:25:00I might step under a bus tomorrow, mightn't I?
1:25:00 > 1:25:02I mean, we don't know.
1:25:02 > 1:25:04Er, I'll get used to it.
1:25:07 > 1:25:09I still don't read the newspapers,
1:25:09 > 1:25:11cos I don't want 'em to bring me down.
1:25:11 > 1:25:16# Don't bring me down Don't bring me down... #
1:25:16 > 1:25:19I'm not sort of happy-clappy or anything,
1:25:19 > 1:25:23but I think I'm more tolerant now and I think that's stayed with me.
1:25:24 > 1:25:27I was...quite a twat, actually.
1:25:33 > 1:25:36What's come back is my misery.
1:25:41 > 1:25:44- HE CHUCKLES - I mean, I'm spending a lot of time
1:25:44 > 1:25:46sitting around moping about nothing at all.
1:25:46 > 1:25:48You think, "Man, you must be cracked -
1:25:48 > 1:25:50"you've been given your life again."
1:25:50 > 1:25:52You know, you shouldn't even be...
1:25:52 > 1:25:54and yet I can contrive to feel miserable.
1:26:00 > 1:26:02What I'm about to do now is just see if
1:26:02 > 1:26:04I can remember how to play this thing
1:26:04 > 1:26:10cos it's actually the first time I've touched my guitar
1:26:10 > 1:26:15since I went into hospital for the operation.
1:26:15 > 1:26:17Shall I see if I can do it?
1:26:17 > 1:26:18I'll see if I can do it.
1:26:18 > 1:26:21JAGGED RIFF
1:26:31 > 1:26:36Which is far and away the longest I've ever gone without playing.
1:26:36 > 1:26:42Sometimes I was a... a bit frightened I'd lost my mojo.
1:26:42 > 1:26:44HE FINISHES PLAYING
1:26:51 > 1:26:52And my hands are freezing.
1:27:01 > 1:27:03I still feel very, er...
1:27:05 > 1:27:07..isolated
1:27:07 > 1:27:09But, you know, let's hope I get better and better,
1:27:09 > 1:27:12and I can start playing and that. It's all going to go away
1:27:12 > 1:27:15- and I'll be laughing. - HE CHUCKLES
1:27:15 > 1:27:17WIND WHISTLES
1:27:19 > 1:27:22CAR HORN BLARES
1:27:22 > 1:27:25Tomorrow night I'm going to get up and have a twang with Norman.
1:27:25 > 1:27:27If I can get up and do a couple of numbers
1:27:27 > 1:27:29without keeling over, I'll know I'm on my way.
1:27:31 > 1:27:35And when you actually walk on stage and you start to perform,
1:27:35 > 1:27:37that's it, that's the universe.
1:27:37 > 1:27:39You're just reduced down to that moment.
1:27:41 > 1:27:43OK, listen. Er...
1:27:43 > 1:27:46Boy, have we got a surprise tonight!
1:27:46 > 1:27:47WHISTLING AND CHEERING
1:27:47 > 1:27:49How's it feel?
1:27:49 > 1:27:52Ave Maria. We're going in, yeah.
1:27:52 > 1:27:56Look here, one of my dearest and favourite guys of all time.
1:27:56 > 1:28:00The wonderful, the marvellous, the ma...
1:28:00 > 1:28:02magical Wilko Johnson's here tonight.
1:28:02 > 1:28:04Unbelievable.
1:28:04 > 1:28:05CHEERING
1:28:05 > 1:28:07'I wasn't supposed to be here at all,'
1:28:07 > 1:28:10- so it's all, it's all a bonus. - HE CHUCKLES
1:28:17 > 1:28:21# Well, if there's something that I like
1:28:21 > 1:28:23# It's the way that woman walks
1:28:23 > 1:28:26# And if there's something I like better
1:28:26 > 1:28:29# It's the way she baby talks
1:28:29 > 1:28:31# She does it right
1:28:32 > 1:28:34# She does it right
1:28:35 > 1:28:39# She works hard every night She makes me feel all right
1:28:39 > 1:28:40# Tells me not to worry
1:28:40 > 1:28:42# Ain't a single trouble in sight... #
1:28:48 > 1:28:50CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
1:29:02 > 1:29:04'I'm a performer, really.'
1:29:04 > 1:29:05That's what I do.
1:29:08 > 1:29:11As I emerge back into the world, I just wonder what I'll be doing.
1:29:14 > 1:29:16CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
1:29:20 > 1:29:22Thank you!
1:29:30 > 1:29:33Well, there it is. I'm not dead.
1:29:33 > 1:29:35I'm actually on my roof
1:29:35 > 1:29:37with my telescope and my guitar
1:29:37 > 1:29:40and a few more years.
1:29:40 > 1:29:42And, er, what more could you ask?
1:29:42 > 1:29:44Maybe seeing Saturn again. Saturn!
1:29:44 > 1:29:46Saturn, I'll see you again.
1:29:48 > 1:29:51That year, when I thought I was going to die,
1:29:51 > 1:29:55was one of the most significant years of my life.
1:29:55 > 1:29:57I would say it was a marvellous year.
1:29:57 > 1:30:01I found out what it was to be alive.
1:30:01 > 1:30:04I've had so many insights into existence
1:30:04 > 1:30:08that I'm almost glad this happened. You know, almost.
1:30:08 > 1:30:11And...and I got away with it.
1:30:11 > 1:30:12HE CHUCKLES
1:30:12 > 1:30:14- A wretch like me. - HE CHUCKLES
1:30:26 > 1:30:29# Well, if there's something that I like
1:30:29 > 1:30:32# It's the way that woman walks
1:30:33 > 1:30:36# And if there's something I like better
1:30:36 > 1:30:38# It's the way she baby talks
1:30:38 > 1:30:39# She does it right
1:30:41 > 1:30:43# She does it right
1:30:44 > 1:30:47# She works hard every night just to make me feel all right
1:30:47 > 1:30:48# Told me not to worry
1:30:48 > 1:30:51# And there ain't a single trouble in sight
1:30:56 > 1:30:59# I said, you ought to see her jerk
1:30:59 > 1:31:02# You ought to see her walk the floor
1:31:02 > 1:31:04# And when she gets back to her seat
1:31:04 > 1:31:07# All the people cry for more
1:31:07 > 1:31:09# She does it right
1:31:10 > 1:31:12# She does it right
1:31:13 > 1:31:16# She works hard every night just to make me feel all right
1:31:16 > 1:31:18# She told me not to worry
1:31:18 > 1:31:20# And there ain't a single trouble in sight
1:31:42 > 1:31:47# I said, I give her anything that her little heart desires
1:31:48 > 1:31:53# Anything she wants just to keep her by my side
1:31:53 > 1:31:57# She does it right She does it right
1:31:59 > 1:32:03# She works hard every night just to make me feel all right
1:32:03 > 1:32:04# She told me not to worry
1:32:04 > 1:32:07# And there ain't a single trouble in sight... #
1:32:34 > 1:32:38Wouldn't it be good if we could just dig being around,
1:32:38 > 1:32:41instead of trying to harm each other and things like that?
1:32:41 > 1:32:44The world is the world and...
1:32:48 > 1:32:52..I never managed to sort it out and whether anyone will
1:32:52 > 1:32:54in time to come, I don't know.
1:32:54 > 1:32:56Maybe you've got a chance to go on and do that.
1:32:58 > 1:33:00Your move.