Russell Watson Fern Britton Meets...

One night in 1990 a 24-year-old Salford factory worker left his

seat by the bar here in the Railway Inn and sang. The song was a Neil

Diamond classic called Love On The Rocks and by the time he'd finished

That pub singer was Russell Watson. He's gone on to sell millions of

albums and played some of the biggest music venues around the

world to thousands of people. has been an astonishing rise from

this guy who sang in local pubs. But for his friends there was a

time when Russell forgot his roots. I texted him a couple of times and

he never replied and that was basically it for two and a half

years. And he wasn't the same person.

Then at the peak of his fame, Russell's world fell apart. In the

last decade, he has faced three serious illnesses - one career

threatening and two life He's a fighter. I know at one point

he wanted to give up himself. seen myself go to hell and back but

I'm fascinated to discover how success, fame and illness have

changed Russell Watson. But I'd also like to know what remains of

the Salford working class lad and what are the qualities that have

So how are you? I am very good, thank you. I am, I am feeling very

good. I feel fit I feel strong and the voice is good. Which is amazing

coming from someone whose career has been fabulous and then

something else has chipped away at you. Its' like a roller coaster

it's Isn't it? Yes. It's like, it is, it's like a roller coaster -

these amazing highs and then these cataclysmic lows. I feel like, if I

was an athlete they'd have to invent a new race. It would have to

be like the 1000 metre hurdles because I feel like I've had to

clear so many in my life and my career. Do you feel guided? Yes. I

feel a connection with something spiritual now every time I walk on

stage. I like to think that God isn't just something that is

outside of me but something that is very much predominantly inside me

as well in my heart and in my soul. Russell Watson was born on 24

November 1966 in Salford, Lancashire to mum Nola and father

My dad worked his backside off and he would be doing 14 hour shifts

you know six, seven days a week. was a crane driver, wasn't he?

was, yes, at the steel works but I saw the sweat and toil that went on.

I saw my dad working incredibly hard just to afford to buy us

birthday presents and Christmas presents and keep food on the table.

I'd get home from a 12 hour shift, probably be absolutely knackered

and he'd just, I'd walk in and he'd look up at me and I knew he'd done

something wrong. He'd been threatened by his mother, of course.

"Wait till your father gets home, I'll be telling him what you've

been doing". And your mum, she was a stay-at-home mum? Yes. My mum was

a stay-at-home mum. She wrapped me in this little cotton wool bud

called Sunningdale Drive and that's pretty much where I spent the first

12, 13 years of my life other than going to school. My parents didn't

go out they didn't go out for dinner, my dad didn't go to the pub.

And that was it. That was my life. It was a little bubble. Russell

attended Irlam Endowed Primary School but instead of concentrating

on his studies he put most of his energy into dreaming up out of

I would organise football tournaments and subutteo games.

We'd have draws for the matches, I'd do all little cards for each

person's name. We'd have somebody drawing the numbers out and

somebody calling the names out and I would organise all that as a kid.

If things didn't go his way the mood was unbelievable. It was just,

you were thinking this is only a kick about but for him it was a

World Cup so that was. I would say, I won't say it was a bad thing,

obviously it's helped him because he is a very driven person but it

was quite comical then you thought he's not happy and he'd storm off

and he'd have his oranges in the bag and he's not giving them anyone

because nobody's performed, you know, and off he'd storm, you know.

And football became your life? Football was everything. I wasn't

particularly good at it. I thought I was world class, you know. There

was that marvellous game - there you are in the goal waiting...

Highlight of my football career. The seven-a-side championship at

Moorfield School. For me, it was a Roy of the Rover's moment. It went

to penalties. The last penalty kick was due to come up and all I had to

do was save the ball. I saw the ball sort of skidding across the

mud and I somehow managed to hurl my body saving superman fashion,

slid what felt like 20 feet across the mud. Tipped the ball round the

corner of the post and that was the glory moment. It was amazing. I've

just won the seven a side cup single handedly. Has he told you

that, yeah? What happened was, when he made it out as though he'd won

us the game, we did actually happen to mention that, well wasn't it our

goals that won the actual final, Russ? Two goals from me and one

from you. 3-2. Yeah, and his comment was he got a bit annoyed

and said, well it's all right for you, you won other football things.

But it was a good save I'll give him that. Yeah. He weren't bad.

champion returned home and told his mum and what did his mum say?

God. I think I stood at the door and she went, "Where's Russell?" I

was covered from head to toe in mud. My mum went crazy. Ah, mums don't

always understand, do they? they don't. They certainly didn't

understand a few of the things I got up to. Oh, would you like to

expand on that or is that still secret? Well, I was a naughty boy I

used to get into scraps and it was always down to the fact that if

anybody was bullying my friends, I'd just run straight in and deal

with it. That was me, from a very early age. So a strong moral

compass. Was that brought on by churchgoing, Sunday school, a

belief in God? It was based on what I saw develop inside the household.

I learned about respect from my parents and, and honesty and

integrity. I mean, I did believe in God I think but in a way that

wasn't forcedly pushed on me. It was probably only later on in life

towards my sort of early to mid teens that I started to question,

what is this God? And while you were thinking about those things,

which do start to take a back burner because you were growing

into an adult and you're thinking this is what I am going to do with

my life? Was what you wanted to do with your life, music at that time?

I had no aspirations to do or be anything. My life was so

unbelievably flippant at that stage. I very much lived for the day and

that's why I think my career is, in my opinion has been so incredibly...

Incredibly organic and almost a mistake. It was almost like a

mistake it was almost like it shouldn't have happened but it did.

What were your musical experiences? Did you have things going on at

home? It was a real eclectic mix of styles in the house During the day,

mum would be playing Chopin and Tchaikovsky and Abba and then in

the evening, Dad would come home and it would be Johnny Cash and

Dire Straits and Meatloaf so there was a real mix of different styles

constantly being played in the household. I didn't differentiate

between the two styles. I just saw classical music and pop music as

music that I liked. That's interesting, so there was no line

between them at all? No, it was music that I liked, there was no

division, there was no cultural division. There was no there was no,

what would be the word? Class division? There was no class

Having been weaned on a mixed diet of anything from Abba to Ashkenazy,

Russell did what many teenage boys do and joined a band - called The

Crowd. The Crowd, indeed. You were the singer? At that point, no.

was probably a little bit too shy to stand up and get on the

microphone and sing but what I did do was I played guitar and a little

bit of keyboard because I had had piano lessons from being around

about the age of seven. Music was something that I did for fun, apart

from anything else. I never had any great aspirations to be the next

big band. I wasn't thinking we were going to be the Beatles or the Jam

or anything like that or the Rolling Stones. Russ was kind of

the director, in a way because he was the one with the musical

background and he's also quite a bit of a perfectionist, isn't he?

Yeah. Yeah, so things like when you're playing and your guitar is

just going slightly out of tune because they've very old strings

and we would stop the song and it would be out of tune and if it was

a song that he was heavily involved in we used to do Green Onions which

I don't know if you know but its very repetitive and the thing is it

got mind numbing because Russ would say let's do it again, let's do it

again, let's do it again. After Russell left school he got

what he called a mind numbingly repetitive job at a local nuts and

bolts factory. �25 a week is how much I picked up

for doing that. It wasn't very much, but I made a lot of friends there,

and that was it was great fun. you got a nickname? I got a

nickname. Minty. Oh Good Lord, yeah. Did you know why they called you

Minty? No it took me a while to work it out somebody explained to

me after a few years why. Which is? Because when we clocked on, you

were supposed to get, to get in around about ten to eight or

thereabouts. I was always late, so I would always turn up "after

eight". Hence the name, Minty. Very clever. It ground you down. You

woke up every morning thinking, I can't, I can't do another day of

this. Yeah. The job. It was the singular most mind numbing, boring

draining job that has ever been Then one night in February 1990,

fate presented Russell with a way On a pub-crawl with his mates, he

walked into the Railway Inn slap bang in the middle of a radio

talent contest. He had no inkling that the next few hours would

We were hoping what we would find was a brand new pop singer or a

comedian. But what we did find was an opera singer and an opera singer

from Salford. And, I mean, opera singers do not come from Salford.

They come from Turin or Milan. But there was Russell and he was

# love on the rocks... # And that night in the pub, when you got up

on stage, you hadn't prepared. You had not thought, this is what I am

going to do tonight but you got up on stage and said, OK, what have

you got for me to sing? Yeah. I sang this Neil Diamond song, gave

it everything I had and the place went mad. There was probably 30, 40

people in there that night. It was not busy and they said, well done,

Son, you are going through to the next round. Oh. Great. OK. You went

all the way through to the final? All the way through to the finals,

which was held live on Piccadilly Lovely. I can remember that, on the

final day, there were several competitors lined up. We lined them

up all on telephone lines and they were waiting actually for the

result. And the telephone call came through to me and I thought, oh,

they are ringing me up to tell me to get lost and they rang me up and

went... We are pleased to tell you, you have won. I was like, yeah. The

second thing I have won in my life. I am not sure really whether he was

very confident that he would win. But when it came through he was

actually the winner, he blew the audience away. And then, did you

think, this is it for me then. I'll give up the job and I am going to

be a singer? Er, pretty it, pretty much so, yeah. I think I

immediately thought, wow, this is fantastic. I mean, there was a

little bit of prestige as well with winning the competition. There were

a few agents and what have you there, you know, waiting to give me

a bit of work. And, literally, I think it was the next day or the

day after. I walked into the factory with the proverbial oily

rag and threw it on the floor. I think I got in about 8:07am. On

purpose. I walked into the office and I said, Robin, I am, leaving.

And he went, really? I said, mmm hmm. He says, what are you going to

do? I said, I am going to be a singer. And he went, see you next

The radio win was the kick-start of Russell's career. He was no longer

a young man living for the moment. He was pursuing a dream that would

require a thick skin and lots of I spent ten years serving my

apprenticeship as an artist and I In the North, they say what they

think. They have paid their money and they want to be entertained.

And if they do not like it, they will tell you very quickly and very

sharply. It was tough and the audiences were tough. They would

literally sit back in their chairs, fold their arms as you walked on

the stage, and they would almost get this sense of, well, go on then,

entertain us, Son. If you can. you can get through wet Sunday

afternoons in a working men's club, say in Dukinfield, then I think,

you know, you become hardened to the whole business and you can

handle it. If you can do that, I As Russell learnt the show business

ropes, he became a popular booking in pubs and clubs around the North

West. But some venues would have challenged even the most seasoned

performers. There was this one particular place that I went into

this night. I am halfway through my first song, which I think was an

Elton John track, Sacrifice. It is a human sign when things go wrong.

Next thing, crash bang wallop. All the side doors, fire exits, the lot,

all come crashing open. There are like I don't know, ten, 15 plain

clothes detectives. They have got arms up backs and they have got

guys pinned to the floor. I am like, what the heck is going on here, you

know? This is just unreal. It is like a scene from the OK Corral. I

went over to the landlady and I said, well I had best get off,

hadn't I?' She went, gerroff, she went. Get on with it, you soft lad,

it happens every bloody night in For Russell, the 1990s were not all

about his singing ambition. In 1993, he married and became a father and

with extra mouths to feed, money was tight. In fact, the Watsons

found themselves in a real financial crisis. There is a knock

on the door and there is a man standing outside in the pouring

rain with a runny nose. Mr Jones, the bailiff. What a lovely man! I

know it sounds odd that a bailiff is a lovely man, but he was. He was

in a little Mac with a little goatee beard and he stood there and

he went, Mr Watson. I say, yes? Mr Watson, we have got to come and

seize some of your possessions. I went, mmm, dear. I said, well,

first of all, why don't you come in because you are drenched, you are

going to catch your death. And I think he was a little bit surprised

at the way I responded to him but I genuinely believe that, if you

treat people with respect, it does not matter what they are there for,

or who they are, they will respond to that. I do genuinely believe

that you reap what you sow. And he sat down and he had a cup of tea

and we started talking. He said, well, look, I will do you a favour.

I can suspend the warrant on the judgment for you but you will have

to pay me �10 by Friday. You have to promise and, basically over the

sort of next two or three years, well, I ended up digging myself out

of a financial quagmire that I was in. It was, at one point, I think I

had something like 12 County Court judgments. We could not afford

anything. It was unbelievable. You would not believe how it feels to

walk down to the local Post Office and everybody knows that you are

going in to buy tokens for gas because you cannot afford any.

Looking back, what did that do for you? What did you learn? It gave me

an appreciation of what I have now like you would not believe. If ever

there is a period in my life, where I start to pity myself and feel

sorry for myself, there are periods in my life, which I reflect on -

the illness being one of them and the struggle that I had during that

period of time financially being the other. As the 1990s drew to a

close, Russell's fortunes changed It was the break he needed in his

singing career and not only that, it brought together the two

greatest passions of his life: So, when you get the phone call

saying, Russell, would you like to come and sing at the last match of

the season at Old Trafford? Your team, Manchester United, the

biggest audience you had ever played. Like by far. I was used to

performing in front of 57. thousands? No. 57. I turned up and

there was the usual buzz, the anticipation before the start of a

football match. I was stood at the side of the pitch with my dad. The

guy who was doing the announcing at the time, who calls out the teams,

is a friend of mine, called Keith Fame. I remember he leant over he

says, how you doing Russ? You all right, Son? I said, yeah, I am all

right, Keith. He says, you are a bit nervous. I went, I've got to be

honest, I said, I don't normally get nervous, as you know, Keith, I

said. But I am feeling a little bit tentative today about this because

it is so many people. He went, Russ, you will hammer them, kid. You will

knock them dead. This young man walked out. The United fans were

having a go at the Spurs fans. The Spurs fans were having a go at the

United fans, as you would expect. And then Russell started to sing

And the buzz, the chit chat slowly, as the aria went on, started to

gradually die down. The crowd was absolutely silent. 70,000 people.

Not a sound from any of them. And it was eerie. And I remember going

up for the top note and I held the last vincere, and I just held it

As I was holding the note, I could hear the applause and the roar

starting to build. There were 60 or 70 cynical old hacks there and they

stood up and applauded. I have been all over the world and seen some of

the biggest matches and I have never seen that, like in 40 years.

And I remember I looked up to the heavens and I just thought, oh,

does it get any better than this? I walked off to the side of the pitch

and my dad, who is not the most emotional human being in the world,

was stood at the side, eyes all misted up. I said to him, are you

all right, Dad? And he said, aye, I think I have got something in my

eye, Son. Wow! It was an incredible day. I do not know whether you said

it unconsciously, as you looked up to the heavens, but was there an

acceptance that somehow God and fate had brought you to that place

at that moment? Yes. Very much so, because I mean, if I look back at

my career now, retrospectively, I genuinely believe that my career

was not an accident now and that I am here for a reason. And I look

back at that point and I think that maybe the essence was starting to

Following his performance at Old Trafford, Russell's popularity

skyrocketed. There was a record Suddenly, he was appearing

alongside some of the country's best-loved stars including his

mother's favourite, Cliff Richard. I remember we were at rehearsals

one day and he said, Russell, I was out with some friends last night

and we were having a little chat about you. We thought that it might

be a good idea if you changed your name. And I went, oh, really? Well,

we like Watson, we think that is great, but we were thinking

something Mediterranean like Russo. I went, really? Like Russo Watson?

He went, no, we were thinking more And it is Sir Cliff Richard. OK, I

mean this guy... Whom we love. We love. He is a legend. So, when he

suggested the name Watson Russo, I think I said something like, mmm,

yeah, Cliff, that is a really good idea. And off I toddled the next

day. At rehearsals, I remember he was swinging around on some orb

type thing in mid air, doing Wired For Sound, lights flashing, and

stopped. He looked over and he went, By the way, who would know what a

very good impersonator you are? used to be able to do a really good

Paul O'Grady as well. That is good. Lily Savage. And that again the

Paul O'Grady, the work that I did with Paul O'Grady, we worked in

Blackpool at the North Pier Theatre for three months together and that

was a big help to the start of my But Russell's newfound celebrity

had its downside. With the fame came the press attention and gossip.

I did mention to him once that he was going to get calls from

newspapers that he would not welcome. I mean that is just the

way it goes. I think that it is unfortunate the bigger the star you

are the more intrusive newspapers will be. That is just the way it

goes. Sadly your marriage broke up. Yes. Difficult when papers start to

attack you and your character and your personality. All that negative

stuff. If I look back on that period of time, now, then I think,

well yeah, it was a tough time but compared with some of the other

things that I have been through, not really. I got slated for a

period of time but as my dear old Gran used to say, she used to say,

Russ, today's newspaper is tomorrow's fish and chip wrapping,

Nevertheless, Russell had to face a further onslaught of negative press.

This time it was not about his private life. It was about his

voice.All these records are not made in a classical way, they are

made in a pop way. He became one of the targets of a growing debate

within classical music about dumbing down. The classical buffs

start to pick you apart. They did. You are just a man in a working

men's club and all that stuff. If it hadn't have been for those

remarks, and those people I wouldn't have been the success.

Because it makes you go, you watch me. No, it wasn't that. It wasn't

necessarily that. There wasn't really much I could do about it. It

was the public. It was the them and us and all the people, the working

class people, the people that are the life and soul and the energy of

this country, those people came to my rescue because the classical

elitists and the purists were attacking their boy. And they, they

didn't like that and they stood right behind me like an army. And

they went out and they bought a million of my records because I was

being attacked by people who didn't have names or faces that basically

sit in their little ivory towers, you know, criticising and pointing

their finger and, and downgrading everybody who hasn't had the right

upbringing in life, hasn't had the, what is the word? Education, the

Royal Academy. Yes exactly. I worked so incredibly hard with

limited budget to work and train my voice.

Despite criticism from the classical elite in his own country,

Russell was now enjoying success on the world stage. And in 2001 he

received his greatest accolade yet - an invitation to sing at the

Vatican in the presence of Pope John Paul II. I remember standing

on the stage just before I was about to sing and thinking, "How on

earth did I get here?" Three years ago this was Wigan Road Working

Apology for the loss of subtitles for 46 seconds

Men's Club, you know. It's just a #Ave Maria. #. Unbelievable. There

was a 110-piece orchestra behind me, 200-piece choir, there were 40 red-

robed cardinals and the Pope in his own private box and an audience

3,500, and a European audience of half a billion I think or something

ridiculous like that watching the I was blessed by the Pope. And I

gave him one of my CDs. And about two or three weeks later, a letter

popped through the front door of my home and it basically said that the

pope invokes God's blessing upon Russell's star was in the

In 2002 he performed at the opening of the Commonwealth Games watched

by an audience of 1 billion. He sang at the White House and in some

of Britain's most prestigious But while the concerts and the

occasions got grander, some things didn't change. Russell's pre-show

preparations are the same today as they've always been. I hear until

the last second, you are still in your pants before you walk out on

the stage? Yes, I am. For me, it's a bit like a Formula One driver,

you know, once you have put the helmet on and you are sat in the

cockpit the focus is then on the race and winning the race and for

me, as soon as I put my suit on the focus then was immediately on the

performance. So I can't stand around back stage for 30, 40

minutes. If I do I burn out and I genuinely do. Again people say it's

a ridiculous demand why does he have to, why can't he just wait 20

minutes by the side of the stage? I can't because I am ready for the

fight and the adrenaline is running through my veins. Adrenaline can

work two ways with people either revs you up or gets you incredibly

nervous. No. Oh revs me up. I am like a hundred meter sprinter

waiting in the traps. Just ring that bell and I am off. I can't

wait. No nerves? No. No nerves. I love it. The young working class

lad from Salford was enjoying success beyond his wildest dreams.

But, like so many before him, Russell discovered that all the

fame and adulation can change you - and not always for the better.

mean, I knew Russell just when he was making his way and I have to

say if I'm being totally honest, there was a time when we feared for

him that he might be going off the rails that it was going to his head

a bit. There's a great old expression especially where I come

from in Northern Ireland about that you get too big for your boots.

It's possible to get a bit big for your boots? Did you? Oh God, yeah.

It all went wrong around 2003. In fact, if you, you can see if you

look at the covers of my records. You look at the first record which

was The Voice and there is this kind of, "Hey I'm here its

brilliant, I don't deserve to be here". And then the second record

you can see a man, I was walking, I think I was walking in a travelator

in an airport that was the cover of the second record and then I was

swinging my arms. The coat was swathing around and it looked like

a man who was going somewhere who had intent and who was travelling

and who was going somewhere and knew what he wanted. On the third

record there was a guy in a blue pinstripe suit with a very sharp

tie on and all the make up and the hair immaculate and I remember I

was stood like this. I'm number one. Me, me, me, all for himself

basically I think. He invited me to his house and he said "I'll put

some music on." and so we said to him, "Yeah, so long as it's not

your rubbish". He wouldn't have it and in the past he would have

laughed. He would have come back with you and he would have a go at

yourself but he didn't. And at the end of it I texted him a couple of

times and no reply and that was basically it for two and a half

years. And he wasn't the same person. I remember that time

specifically. It was almost like I had lost myself and what it was all

about and where I had come from. I was walking round with you know,

three or four bodyguards and all that malarkey. Did you? Why?

don't know. I think I thought I was But Russell was about to get a wake

up call. By 2003, his most precious asset - his voice - was failing him.

My falsetto range of my voice had gone. It's like the light heady

sound of my voice. When I was trying to go ooh, all that was

happening was oh. The time was very difficult for me because I thought

I was going to lose my voice and I thought I was going to lose my

means of income and wouldn't be able to sing again which was you

know it was career threatening not life threatening career threatening.

Russell needed a relatively simple operation to remove a vocal polyp

but there was a danger that it could affect the range and quality

of his singing. How long was it before you could test your voice

out after the operation? Well, I was told not to speak for I think,

it was 14 days. Well, like a naughty little boy I went down into

my studio this day and very quietly hid in a corner and I went ooh. And

it felt like it was amazing and again I looked up and I cried my

eyes out because I thought, it's a success. I think we all tend to

look for God when we are down or when we are up against the odds. We

tend to go searching for God more at those particular points in life.

You know, why are we going down this route? You know, why is this

happening you know, particularly After the throat operation Russell

believed his health worries were behind him and resumed his singing

In 2006 he took part in a BBC celebrity show - Just The Two of Us.

But, despite appearances, all was I had terrible headaches. And they

were headaches from hell, they were. It felt like my head was exploding

and the pain that I got in this area here, was so excruciating it

would make me cry and I'd have to go and lie in my bedroom close the

curtains and wait for the pain to stop. I went to see a specialist

and the specialist told me that it was nothing to worry about it was

just stress and I needed to take a holiday. And I remember walking out

of that that hospital and thinking this isn't stress, there has got to

be and there is something more serious. And then I have these

internal conversations with myself, oh come on, Russ you're alright.

There is nothing wrong with you, get on with it. It's that Salford,

that again, what was instilled into me by my, predominantly by my

father, you know, just get on with it, son. What's the matter with

you? Get on with it, lad. And Russell did just that. In

September 2006 he flew out to LA to record a new album. But he ended up

in a Los Angeles Hospital I remember, awful experience. The

doctor looked at me. He sat back in his chair and went, "Mr Watson, you

have a brain tumour". Right. OK. 'What does this mean?' The first

question I asked was, am I going to die? That was the first question

that came into my head. Well, we need to do tests and find out

whether its benign or malignant, we have to do MRIs and blah, blah,

blah. I was like well, I am making a record. I was told I was stressed.

I have got to America and I have now been told I have got a giant

tumour growing in my head. And my family are thousands of miles away

from me and what did I do? I went in the studio and made the record

and didn't tell anybody. I thought I was going to die and I thought

when I was leaving the recording I was making was my legacy. It was

very scary. And I remember one night I was stood on the balcony of

my hotel in Beverly Hills and I was so angry and I remember thinking I

just want to throw myself off this balcony and just stop this pain.

I've had enough of the ups and the downs and everything just came

crushing in on me and I felt What stopped you? The kids. I said

I wasn't going to cry today. You're not going to. No, I am not. That is

just an illusion. You got something in your eye. But it was, it was

pure despair. Your girls. Yeah. Yeah. My kids I thought of my kids

how are my kids going to manage without me I have got to get back

home and give this a go. And you did. I did. I went in the bathroom

and did what I normally do when I'm faced with that type of situation -

rinse my face off with cold water, look at myself in the mirror and go

come on Watson. We went straight down there and luckily he'd pulled

through his operation. But it was hard. When you came round, did they

say it was a success? Yes. It wasn't. I couldn't see.

couldn't see. No. It was like a mist in front of my face. And the

first thing I thought was, well at least I am alive. And you never

felt quite right, did you? No. Even then. Still felt like there was

something wrong. Even though I was being told that everything was

Once again, Russell picked himself up and resumed his singing career.

His television comeback appearance was as a guest on the second series

of Just the Two of Us. Just nine months later Russell found himself

back in hospital being told that the tumour had returned. He was

booked in to see a surgeon. But it was an appointment Russell was

never going to make. I went to bed one night and I felt sick and

during the night. I started vomiting and the pressure of the

vomiting caused the tumour to haemorrhage. I thought I was gone,

I genuinely thought I was finished and I remember the paramedics

coming bursting through the bedroom door and they were carrying me down

the stairs in like a stretcher thing and I remember the one thing

that I said to this guy was - ha ha I can't believe I said this - 'I am

not too heavy for you am I, mate. He said, I think that is the least

of your worries, Russ. And then they got me in the back of the

ambulance and they were saying I knew because of you know all the

things you watch on the Hollywood movies and the, you know, E R and

all the rest of it I, you know, that when somebody is saying to you,

'Stay with us mate, stay with us pal', that you are in trouble. When

they got me to hospital I could hear, I think he's hemorrhaging. We

need to get his temperature down. Get him in the MRI scanner. We need

to get him to theatre. And there was this bustling and jostling and

I was just lying there like I couldn't move. It was like my brain

was switched on but my body was switched off. So I could hear what

was going on, couldn't see it because my vision had completely

gone again, and I remember as they slid me into the MRI and they click,

click, clack, clack, bang, bang, bang, bang that the MRI, I remember

this moment, this sedate serene moment where everything just shut

down and there was this inner peace and there was this calm in my body

Come and get me. And there was, I visualised in my head a room. The

room that I was in was black and the door that I saw was white. I

felt like I had a choice to stay in the room or walk through the door

and I knew that if I walked through the door I wouldn't be going back

and listening to the MRI scanner and again, it was that, that moment

where I thought I need to stay and carry on fighting. I am here for a

reason and gradually the clack, clack, clack of the MRI scanner

started getting louder. And the buzz of the room came back and the

next thing I knew I had come round and I was in a hospital bed with a

surgeon at the end of the bed. Mr Leggate. The man who saved my life.

I was confronted with this chap with a tumour, with haemorrhage,

bleeding and needing to consider surgery to put him back on the

straight and narrow, to save his vision and to save his life. We've

got to get you to surgery now, he said. I don't want an operation.

'You need one.' I'll die if you give me an operation. No, you won't.

I will. I know it. I know it. I have been through all this. I'll

die. Stupid. He was very ill and you only have a limited amount of

time to convince the patient that actually they need to have

something done to bring them back into the real world and back from

that one foot in the grave situation. He said, I have to walk

in this room on many occasions, Mr. Watson and tell people that there

is nothing that we can do for them and they have to go home and I am

telling you that I can do something so why don't you have think about

it and when you have thought give me a buzz. There's a thing by the

bed. And then I think just events overtook the situation and then he

was confronted with something that he had to deal with there and then.

Buzz. The public says, yes. before you have seen the girls?

that was the proviso. Yeah. I want to see the kids because if I don't

make it at least they get to say goodbye. In some ways I think it

was a bit selfish to want to see the kids and to see them when I was

in that state but... I think they'd be very angry with you if you

popped off without seeing them personally. I think you are

probably right. I think you are probably right. The emergency

operation, carried out by James Leggate, lasted four hours, longer

than normal for someone with Rusol Watson is in a critical

condition tonight after emergency surgery on a brain tumour. Rusol is

in our intensive care unit. He is critical. He is still in a very

critical condition. I have more than my fingers crossed. This was

quite something because when we saw him go in there, we wondered

whether that would be the last time we saw Russell Watson. As I opened

my eyes and they flickered I could see two outlines, white, shaded

outlines and I thought,Oh I've made it to heaven. I must have done

something right. And they were my kids at the end of the bed.

your two angels. Yes. And they are just stood like looking at me,

staring at me. Like, hi, daddy and the tears came down my face again.

You couldn't get up and go and wash your face could you? No, not this

time. He's a fighter. He's a fighter. And I know he did feel

like giving up himself. But he thought of his family and his girls.

He has been through so much and I'm very proud of him for getting

through it. And it's changed him for the better. It was an

absolutely magnificent recovery, the doctors did a fantastic job and

I think it has made him a better person for it and I think he'd be

the first to admit that. I rang and he answered. It was a big relief

because he became what he used to be and that was the nice thing. He

still looked quite fragile but it was the same Russ that we'd known

you know since we were 8 kind of You've got to have been through the

bad, you've got to have been through the good, you've got to

have had the fortune, you have to have the story, the romance has to

be there. It's what makes an artist Now The Voice is back. And this

year Russell has fulfilled a promise he made to himself when he

was ill - to perform in front of his fans at the Royal Albert Hall.

For an artist, a singer, it is a bit like walking through the tunnel

at Wembley Stadium for the FA Cup final. He has come a long way from

his humble beginnings singing to an audience of 30 in the Railway Inn.

So, the future for Russell Watson. Is what? Key for me with life is

happiness, happiness just to be happy. That's it. I don't want

anything else. I just want to be happy. Happy and healthy. And what

does Christmas mean to you? Probably the first thing that most

people say every Christmas,Oh My God, where did this year go? And

there is a real sense of 'Where did this year go?' for me this year. It

feels like it just, it feels like it was only a blink away and that's

what I think I tend to focus on at Christmas is - sounds a bit odd

this - but how short life is. Christmas makes you think about

life, Christmas makes you reflect and I have seen myself go to hell

and back but I am back and I am alive and my value of what I have

now, the people around me and my life and what I do has been

quadrupled, it is unbelievable. And when I walk on stage and I sing now

it's... I used to sing before, now I sing. And I sing from the soul

and it's completely different to singing music on a piece of paper

and you can't teach that at the # 0, Holy Night, the stars of

Well, I started the day seeing if I could find out whether fame,

fortune and illness had changed Russell at all and they clearly

have, haven't they? He's certainly a very thoughtful, grounded man now.

But how much of the Salford lad is still in there? Quite a lot I would

say. He's still got that naughty, cheeky schoolboy about him, hasn't

he? And yet, Russell, no matter what has happened to him, all the

ups and downs, he's never going to Next week my guest is the actor

Brian Blessed. His life is one big adventure on screen. And on