On Tuesday I went to a briefing by Cancer Research UK, in the House of Commons, about radiotherapy services, and I was struck by three things.

Firstly: MPs are spectacularly fond of having their photograph taken. They were queuing up to take turns posing with a megaphone. This is therefore the end of my lingering desire to stand for Parliament, I hate having my picture taken. Did I think some of them were there just for the photo op? Well, you might think that, but I couldn’t possibly comment.

Secondly: how realistic The Thick Of It is. I urge those of you who haven’t seen this biting satire to seek it out on DVD or the iPlayer, it’s like Yes Minister, but infinitely more sweary.

Thirdly, and most importantly, I realised how little I knew about radiotherapy. My mother had some 26 years ago, and I share a Royal College with radiotherapists, but that’s about it. So I wasn’t surprised that public awareness of the benefits of radiotherapy is so low. If you are similarly ignorant about radiotherapy, here’s a few stats, if you’re in the know, stick your fingers in your ears and go la-la-la until the numbers stop.

Around 120,000 cancer patients benefit from radiotherapy each year, and 40% of those cured will have had it. More patients are cured by radiotherapy than by chemo. 50% of patients with cancer could be helped by it, but shortages in equipment and staff mean that the uptake is much lower.

Unsurprisingly, the best availability is in Scotland, at 43%, but in Northern Ireland it is a woeful 32%. A third of patients could benefit from Intensity Modulated Radiotherapy, yet less than a tenth get it. Patients needing Proton Therapy have to go abroad to get it.

Radiotherapy services seem to have lost out to the more ‘dramatic’ chemotherapy. Patients having chemo are often very obviously undergoing intense treatment, but patients having radiotherapy can feel just as awful. Travelling to appropriate units can be as gruelling as any dose of FEC. It’s all very well to give chemo at your local branch of Boots, but I don’t see the ASDAs of this world lining up to get a linear accelerator installed, unless they thought it was a way to get people through the checkouts faster.

Only 14% of the public know about the potential benefits of radiotherapy, so the aim of the briefing was to ask MPs to lend their voice to the campaign.

Around 30 MPs found time to attend, which wasn’t a bad turn out considering that the questions in the House were on health. Many stayed for the entire event, and some even asked quite informed and intelligent questions of the panel. So if your MP isn’t asking direct questions about how good your local radiotherapy service is, give him (or her, I’m not going Andy Gray on you) a nudge.

And for those of you who have been reading about the packed cellars at the Palace of Westminster, I didn’t get offered any Pétrus.

My father died a year ago today of bowel cancer. Watching him deteriorate was a pretty awful experience.

Although he was over eighty, prior to the diagnosis, he would happily get up at four o’clock in the morning to be first on set at Shepperton, and would drink almost anyone under the table. He had developed a bit of a movie niche as a Dickie Attenborough look-a-like. When he was told that he had cancer it was like the stuffing had been knocked out of him, despite the fact that he had seen both his wife and daughter go through it.

When I saw his first CT scan I knew his prognosis was grave. He tolerated the chemo very badly, and after six months decided to stop it. Unfortunately, his previously static disease began to progress rapidly and he continued to suffer from loss of appetite and peripheral neuropathy.

The last couple of months were pretty harrowing - he was in and out of the local DGH having malignant ascites repeatedly drained. He went to the hospice, but hated it. At the end he was obstructed, and the DGH was attempting to control his pain with Oromorph, which was just coming straight back up the NG tube. When I asked the SHO to change him to sub-cut morphine I received this snotty response: “You do understand the implications of that?” Yes I did, but I couldn’t bear to see him both in pain and terrified.

By the morning he was dead. He had waited for my mother to pop home for a shower and a sandwich, and slipped away when she wasn’t there to see him go.

I haven’t really written about it before because it was all so horrible, but the year marker seemed an appropriate time. However, I have found something positive to do. In June, Troy and I are going to Namibia, we are going to renovate a school, and build the local community a football pitch. What on earth has this got to do with bowel cancer? Well, the project is being organised by The Bobby Moore Fund, which is the bowel cancer branch of Cancer Research UK. Sir Bobby Moore died of bowel cancer at the age of 53, and his wife Stephanie set up the fund to promote awareness and fund research.

Each year the BMF arranges an ambitious overseas project, and I’ve managed to convince the husband, who won’t even go to Glastonbury, to spend ten nights in a tent in the Namibian desert. In order to go, we have to raise a minimum of £8,000 for the Bobby Moore Fund, on top of our £700 registration fees. So far we’ve raised 72% with events ranging from a 5-a-side football tournament, Hallowe’en Bingo, and a Sing-A-Long-A-Santa night.

If you would like to read more about Project Namibia, or if you would like to make a donation, please click here.

It’s going to be hard work, but great fun, and I’ll let you all know how we get on.