{"id":31998,"date":"2023-04-11T15:04:51","date_gmt":"2023-04-11T13:04:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.radiotimes.com\/?p=1813920"},"modified":"2023-04-11T22:57:47","modified_gmt":"2023-04-11T20:57:47","slug":"this-weeks-radio-times-cover-features-the-late-dame-deborah-james","status":"publish","type":"rss_feed","link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/rss_feed\/this-weeks-radio-times-cover-features-the-late-dame-deborah-james\/","title":{"rendered":"This week\u2019s Radio Times cover features the late Dame Deborah James"},"content":{"rendered":"

Friends of the late cancer campaigner and fundraiser recall a vivacious one-off who was a force of nature ahead of new BBC documentary Deborah James: Bowelbabe in Her Own Words. <\/p>

By laura.rutkowski\n \t\t<\/p>

Published: Tuesday, 11 April 2023 at 12:00 am<\/p>

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Like thousands of others in the UK, Dame Deborah James had to live with the fear and uncertainty of cancer. In her case it was stage three bowel cancer, a form of the disease that\u2019s much less publicised. Cancer isn\u2019t something people like to talk about. Bowel cancer even less so.<\/p>\n

Deborah died last summer aged 40, five years after her diagnosis. But in the intervening time her mission to raise awareness of the disease saw her start a taboo-breaking BBC podcast \u2013 You, Me and the Big C \u2013 that became the launchpad for her Bowelbabe campaign<\/a> that, as of today, has raised more than \u00a311 million for research into the disease.<\/p>\n

What was it that made this deputy headteacher and mum of two such an inspiration? This week, BBC Two revisits her life and examines the impact she had in a powerful and poignant documentary \u2013 Deborah James: Bowelbabe in Her Own Words<\/a>.<\/p>

In the new issue of Radio Times magazine<\/strong>, we talk to her Big C co-host Lauren Mahon, Radio 5 Live presenter Tony Livesey, and her friend and fellow cancer sufferer Emma Campbell.<\/p>\n

All of them point to her frank approach. She was determined to draw attention to her cancer, to campaign for people to be aware of the symptoms and to raise money for research into a cure. But she also refused to be defined by it. As Emma tells us: \u201cShe showed me that, among the fear and darkness, there is room for joy.\u201d<\/p>\n

That defiance is evident in so much of whatDeborah did. It drew the admiration of many, including Prince William, who conferred on her a damehood in her parents\u2019 garden a few days before she died. The photographs of that occasion show her pride, mixed with an inevitable sadness.<\/p>\n

The images she routinely shared on her social media \u2013 such as the one on our cover \u2013 did the same. But they also capture something else. The joy she found in living. It may have been too short, but hers was a life well lived.<\/p>\n

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Also in this week\u2019s Radio Times:<\/strong><\/h2>\n