Skip to content

Because Cowards Get Cancer Too

John Diamond

Shortly before his 44th birthday, John Diamond received a call from the doctor who had removed a lump from his neck. Having been assured for the previous 2 years that this was a benign cyst, Diamond was told that it was, in fact, cancerous. Suddenly, this hypochondriac was genuinely faced with mortality. Out of necessity, he wrote about his feelings in his Times column and the response was staggering. Because Cowards get Cancer Too follows Diamond's story of life with, and without, a lump - the humiliations, the ridiculous bits, the funny bits and the tearful bits.

First published:
1998
Published by:
Vermilion
Length:
Hardcover 256 pages

About the author

John Diamond (10 May 1953 – 2 March 2001) was a British broadcaster and journalist. He attended the City of London School and trained as an English teacher before becoming a journalist. He wrote a regular column for the Saturday edition of The Times from 1992 onwards called "Something for the Weekend", and worked as a presenter on BBC radio and television. He met his second wife, journalist Nigella Lawson, when they were both writing for The Sunday Times and they married in Venice in 1992. Diamond died of throat cancer in Westminster, aged 47. On 3 September 2002 Nigella opened the John Diamond Voice Laboratory at the Royal Marsden Hospital in London, where he had been treated.