![]() “What can I say about Addenbrookes? They were simply wonderful. Ironically the album was called Going Back Home – and after months of painful recuperation, Wilko finally returned to the Canvey Island base he feared he might never see again. ![]() I said it was a kind of award and she asked if it was for playing chess!” They brought it into the hospital and put it on the wall and the nurse came in and asked what it was. The album was on the Chess label and I got a silver disc for it. “People would come in and visit and say the album was really good and it was doing well and I really did not care. ![]() They would put a tube through my back and into my chest and drain two pints of dirty water into a bucket. I was very, very ill and kept getting secondary infections. “When I woke up I was in so much pain and that is how life was for the next few months. The 11-hour operation involved the removal of his pancreas, spleen, part of his stomach, small and large intestines and the removal and reconstruction of blood vessels relating to the liver. They removed a 3kg tumour – it was the size of a baby.” “I went up to Addenbrookes in spring of last year and it was an 11-hour op. I said I had nothing to lose so I agreed. “He said he thought he could operate but it would be major surgery so he did not want to pressure me into it. “By all rights I should have been dead and he said something strange was going on and he urged me to contact Emmanuel Huguet at Addenbrookes Hospital to see what he thought. I had this tumour bulging out of my stomach – as I did at Wickham last time – and it made me look seven months pregnant. He was a cancer doctor and he was curious about the fact I was not dead. He continued: “I met this guy Charlie Chan at a festival. I had gone over the time I had been given so I just thought it would be the end after that.” But Fate had one more twist in store as Wilko met someone who literally saved his life. They said they were not getting any younger… and I said I was not getting any older! I then did a couple of gigs supporting Status Quo and we were joking about old age. “I had had a pretty good life and making a record with Roger Daltrey was a good way to round things off. I also thought it was a pretty good way to sign off. We recorded it in eight days and it proved really popular and sold well and I thought it would be the last thing I ever did. He heard I had cancer and said: ‘Let’s do it!’ so I said we had better make it quick! “We had talked about it before and never got round to it. After I did Wickham in 2013, I played a few more gigs and then went into the studio with Roger Daltrey to make an album. “I still can’t quite get my head round it. Honestly, I’m not making it all up! It would be a hell of a marketing stunt if I was. “The last two years have been such an improbable series of events. It will be really nice to be back because that is something I never expected. Last time I was at Wickham, I was dying of cancer. Astonishingly the 67-year-old is now clear of the disease following an 11-hour operation to remove a 3kg tumour and there won’t be a dry eye in the Big Top when he makes an emotional return to Wickham on Thursday August 9. It was expected to be one of his last ever shows – except that was not the end of the story. Instead, the former Dr Feelgood guitarist embarked on the ultimate farewell tour with one of the final stops being the Wickham Festival in August 2013. Three years ago Wilko Johnson was diagnosed with terminal pancreatic cancer and given 10 months to live after rejecting chemotherapy.
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