Johann Ilgenfritz: Hello everyone. This is Johann I am the founder of UK Health Radio, and I am thrilled and honoured to be part of this very special live show. This is the fifth anniversary of Yes to Life here on the UK Health Radio. Robin from the entire team thank you for who you are and for everything you do. So Ladies and Gentlemen, without any further ado, let us welcome Mr. Robin Daly to his anniversary show.

Robin Daly: Hi. There. Thanks very much for welcoming me onto the show, rather unusually.

Johann Ilgenfritz: Hello, Robin an absolute pleasure to be with you; the creator of Yes to Life the charity, as well as the live show. It is wonderful to have you on the UK Health Radio.

Robin Daly: Great. It has been quite a ride for the last five years I have loved doing the show and this is a treat to celebrate what has gone on in the last five years.

Johann Ilgenfritz: Yes I agree It has been fantastic to have you on; I have a small surprise for you as well. Raphaela is joining me in the studio; for our listeners’ sake, Raphaela is the creative director of UK Health Radio’s, Health Triangle Magazine and she is with us in the studio here as well.

Raphaela: Hello, Robin I am so honoured to be here with you and to celebrate the special show with you. Congratulations on behalf of the whole team of Health Triangle Magazine and all the readers.

Robin Daly: Thank you so much; it is nice to have you on the show, Raphaela.

Johann Ilgenfritz: I believe we have an actual picture; three live interviews, anniversary shout outs coming up, I am looking forward to finding out a bit more about yourself Robin about the man that you are, and that runs the charity. I think let us just get started with a question from me. I would be interested to hear, I am sure our listeners are as well, more about your background and your personal story that led to Yes to Life’s creation.

Robin Daly: Well, it is one of those curious things, from my background, that has nothing whatsoever to do with health or medicine or anything like that. It was an area I was brought to terms with by a family experience of my daughter Bryony constructing cancer when she was nine, which shocked us all. It came out of the blue and, we went from a problem with her leg to her relocation a hundred miles away in a Bristol hospital the next morning, it was that much of an emergency.

It was just total shock a complete bombshell and a very fast learning curve. I am sure lots of listeners are familiar with what I am talking about. She was nine then she died when she was 23. In between this time, she spent a lot of time in hospitals, had a lot of treatments, we spent a lot of time trying to find out what could help her. It was our own difficulties along the way that prompted us to want to set up Yes to Life. In the early days, when she was nine, there was very little information around and we did not have a mobile phone, let alone any internet.

So, we found what information we could at that time and did what we could. It was last time she contracted cancer aged 22, the internet arrived when the opposite became the problem, too much information. Especially when trying to find good, relevant information that could help her.

It was almost an impossible task. The learning curve was so steep; because cancer is such a complex area there is an outright contradiction about every single area of it. It is enormously complex there are far too many things to look into, far too many questions to answer; we knew that people should not be in this position, and that they needed some help. Therefore the idea of an organisation to exist, which was there to help, came about. That is why we wanted it to be a charity, of its own, with no hidden agenda other than to help readers get their hands on information that could help them quite quickly and shortcut this horrendous process. So that was how the charity was born, very shortly after Bryony died but, we were planning it while she was still alive, having already made a name.

Johann Ilgenfritz: Yes, I can relate to that maze of information that hits you when you start researching. This was the starting point of the UK Health Radio, after I was diagnosed, to get as much of the good information in one place as quick as possible. So I relate to that as well. The other thing I always find is that of course it Is about the person that has cancer, but the influence it has on the surrounding people, on the families, is often neglected. It is just as significant as the person with cancer, diagnosed, himself, or herself.

Robin Daly: It has taken us I would say decades to find out really what happened in our family. After going through, what the experience of the other two children was to suddenly be, almost a hundred percent side-lined with both parent’s attention soaked up by this one child. It was an extraordinary experience for them and difficult experience for them to make sense of. So, you are absolutely right. Its effects are very far-reaching.

Johann Ilgenfritz: Yes Okay Robin, thank you very much. I am sure we all know a little bit more now. At this point, I think it is time for our first guest, who was your first guest on the very first Yes to Life show; he is a scientist writer, a journalist, author, and a long term trustee of the Yes to Life charity.

Welcome Jerome Bern.

Jerome Bern: Hello, delighted to be here on this happy anniversary occasion.

Robin Daly: Extraordinary. Thank you, Jerome; you have been on this journey with me for a long time now. I realised a very long time, I met you early on in the life of Yes to Life you have been involved. I think you are certainly our longest standing trustee, and a great supporter of the charity, which is fantastic!
Jerome Bern: Well, it has been a great opportunity for me because I do find information around cancer fascinating, not only because of what it tells us about the body and so on, but also because of what it tells us about; medicine, politics, and money.

It is a fascinating mix. Most of the places that I write for are not interested in covering it because, A: it is a bit too dodgy, and fringy and B: because it upsets too many people when you start pointing out some of the commercial interests. You have been a great place where I can put some stuff. Thank you.

Robin Daly: I still have a vision of sitting down at your dining room table with you, with my brand new recording machine, making that very first interview, and we were talking about the theory behind cancer, at that time in that show.

Am I right in thinking that you re-listened to it? I haven’t myself but-

Jerome Bern: yes, I have loved nothing more than to listen to my own voice for half an hour or so. It was great.

Robin Daly: So you heard what you had to say then?

Would you say the same things now, as you said then, how do you feel that the understanding of cancer, which is what we were talking about, has moved during the last five years?

Jerome Bern: Well, without wishing to blow my own trumpet or anything like that. I do think that I highlighted and pulled together something very important that was happening then. The thing I was focusing around was the issue of a Ketogenic diet and the role that reducing carbohydrates could have, how that all fitted in and why it made sense with cancer, which was something that I just come across a couple of years earlier, there was a researcher at Oxford who was looking into the Ketogenic and finding out the benefit. Do I need to explain what it is or can we assume that everybody now is familiar?

Robin Daly: I think for the sake of an anniversary show, we will assume everybody has got a fairly good idea
Jerome Bern: Basically, when you drop your carbohydrates low enough, you start producing these energy packets called Ketones, which can have a really beneficial effect.

The ketogenic diet opened up a way of looking at what was going on with cancer, contrary to the standard view which was all down to Genes. This was suggesting that actually the way that the body used energy , was a key factor which was ignored. I think that it has been fantastically fruitful as far as cancer treatment. It has always existed not very much funding on the outside, on the fringe and heavily attacked by a lot of the people who are involved in the mainstream. There is still a dismissal of the idea that something as simple as sugar could play any part in having anything to do with cancer. Although there are pretty good reasons to think that it would, and I will get to it in more detail in a minute or two.

Only a couple of years ago this guy called Siddhartha Mukherjee, one of the great oncologists, did a wonderful book on the Emperor of All Maladies, which is a bestselling and very informed book on cancer. He has now taken up, looking at the Ketogenic diet specifically, and the way that it interacts with the food, that changes in your diet and interacts with drugs in a very positive way. That was all rooted in the Ketogenic diet. So there is a kind of very clear progression with people looking at what is happening in your body and how that can fight cancer, which also relates to the Ketogenic diet.

So for me, that is the heart of it. I do think that it is even more relevant now because of the pandemic, and the virus. And one of the things that is very clear now is the failure to consider nutrition in any way in response to a pandemic and something which directly and hugely, strongly challenges the immune system, and the establishment model has absolutely nothing to help the immune system at all. Only a few drugs, rather crude drugs that will only make some difference, but the real key to it is a nutritional one. I think that it is one of the things that is going to come out of the pandemic. The fact that cancer will be part of, what are we really missing by pushing nutrition to the side-lines. So I think that we are at the beginning of a revolution and I think it will continue.

Robin Daly: I hope that is true. Well, you are right, the Ketogenic diet is definitely the first diet that ever really got his head over the parapet and got looked at all seriously by stances. Everything else was dismissed as complete nonsense up to that point on that. So it was a breakthrough moment, that. Very interesting . Thank you, Jerome.

Johann Ilgenfritz: Jerome, thank you so much. It was really interesting. I think one of the parts of the pandemic that really became visual to everybody was the lack of information on nutrition out there. Except of course on UK Healthshare and a few others-

Jerome Bern: – I think it was also a very interesting, and alarming illustration of just how firmly the mainstream medical faces turned against nutrition, even when something as clearly relevant as vitamin C not dangerous, played a major part in the immune system. The idea that you might use it to help patients, fight them either as a protection, or in the stages when are critical problems. The immune system is really crying out for vitamin C because it is important, but still the NHS was absolutely not budging, so a lot of pushing needs to be done.

Robin Daly: I agree. All right, well look great. Thank you very much for the opportunity, do not give up keep going! Thank you so much.

Thank you so much it was lovely to have you here.

Johann Ilgenfritz: It was great to have Jerome. He has graced us with his knowledge quite a few times on UK Health Radio. Thank-you so much

Raphaela: I think it is time for the first shout out, which is from a famous British actor, who is known for playing Michael Cutter in Law and Order the special victims unit, as well as King Ecbert in my personal favourite Vikings. He was nominated for a golden globe for playing Robert F. Kennedy, he won a satellite award for best supporting actor as Ralf Wigram in the Gathering Storm and has appeared in Priest, The Wings of the Dove, Batman Begins, Nonstop, and Mandy.

Linus Roache: Hi it is Linus Roache here, I just wanted to say a couple of words about, Yes to Life and why I am so proud to be a patron of this charity, you probably know Robin Daly who founded it has a very powerful story as to why he started this charity.

I can say, as Robin is an old friend of mine that in my life in the past 10 years I have had 3 or 4 very close friends who have had to deal with the cancer diagnosis. Having to watch them go through this pretty terrifying experience, of trying having to navigate their options, having to do this, and having to do that. How to find your way within this very complex world? I realised what Yes to Life is doing is kind of an invaluable service, not kind of It is an invaluable service and it actually helped a few of them friends figure out what was right and best for them.
The one thing I did learn through that process is that there is so much confusion around what to do. That it is very important that the individual gets behind their own path to treatment, and that they are very much convinced and engaged in that process.

Without the kind of resource that Yes to Life offers, it is hard to know what to do. It gives you a place to think, to learn, to be educated, to learn from others, and even Robin, I think has some funds help individuals with alternative, practices that are not available in the NHS and in conventional medicine.

So I am just very proud, and happy to be part of such an important charity. I would encourage anybody who is listening if you have got time to look up Yes to Life, learn more about it, get involved, support financially. It will be very, welcome. Thank you all, and thank you Robin, for creating such an important resource for the world.
Bless you. Thank you.

Robin Daly: What a lovely message.

Johann Ilgenfritz: Absolutely lovely to hear from Linus Roache there. Great Robin another thing I would like to ask you is what is your viewpoint is. What has happened to the environment over the last 15 years since you started Yes to Life?

Robin Daly: Well, I have sort of a dual experience of perhaps, really nothing changing and it being slow and, rather terribly sticky environment to bring change into.

But actually, I think that a lot has changed somehow. The environment is radically different, there are new people coming into health care all the time; younger people, people with a different way of looking at things. There are people from different cultures coming into health care. I really noticed how much the Indian culture has. It seems to be affecting one way of looking at things these days. A lot of the top figures who are actually talking about lifestyle medicine, the most intelligent way are in highly qualified doctors who have an Indian heritage.

Things like yoga or meditation, they are just like that is life for them, it is not something wacky, and unusual. I still get a little bit shocked when I talk to somebody from the NHS who likes what we are doing.

Nonetheless, it is not uncommon; I mean 15 years ago it was unthinkable, absolutely unthinkable that we would ever hear that somebody in the NHS would think we were doing something good. That is a massive change, I have had top figures from the NHS on my radio show and that is just so exciting that they want to go on and talk about stuff.

I feel like we have gone from being rank outsiders, to being sort of accepted by quite a sway the people. There is still plenty of the on guard who would just think we are the nearest thing to the devil and we just need just need to wait for them to die. I think.

But, plenty of other people now embrace the choice. We offer that the whole outlook of people taking charge of their own situation, having choice which is how it should be. That sort of didactic, patriarchal, 20th century model of medicine, which has been hanging around for far too long.

It is just so out of date. There is only a few areas of life where that way of working, where people would just be bossed around still actually operate. You cannot do that in most places but, they get away with it the people in medicine literally boss people around and shout.

As I said, I think it has moved a lot and I am very happy with the things that have happened. I do not think there is any room for complacency. Thinking, Oh yeah we are over the nail, It is going to be fine things can turn around. There is all sorts of forces at work that do not like people to have choice. So it could easily go the other way if we take our eye off the ball, I think it is great what has happened so far.

Johann Ilgenfritz: I absolutely agree. Especially with watching our listenership, even the Indian culture, India has come up from absolutely nowhere a year ago to be the third strongest listenership country. It is amazing how they are embracing it.

I wanted to just mention one thing here as well it is because of the incredible information that Yes to Life and all of the other shows on UK Health Radio, are putting out there. This is has not been published yet but, UK Health Radio has just clipped 1 million mark listeners in a month. So it is amazing! The pandemic, naturally has contributed to that tremendous leap because people are now physically out there looking for information which I do agree with you. I think that it is positive.

We have to keep our eye on the ball very closely, but I think health is not going to go away so quickly, people thinking about health and just being interested about health and in their own health, is really on the cards now. I think we will stay for hopefully a very long time.

Robin for our next shout out; we have a shout out from Dr Robert Verkerk from the Alliance for Natural Health, and probably the person with the most knowledge about health I personally have ever met, and the passion to go with it. I have to admit, I have never in my life, met anybody so passionate and so intelligent.

I always joke and say he actually quite irritates me because I do not think he has ever forgotten a word he has read or written. He makes me feel so inferior sometimes, but, as I said, an amazing person. I know a very good friend of yours, Robin. I met him through you.

Robert: Robin five years with UK Health Radio wow what a rapid five years, that is a huge congratulation from me, Robert Kirk, and the Alliance for Natural Health team.

What a journey it has been, Robin inspired by such a tragic loss of your daughter Bryony and it is just been remarkable to see how you have channelled all of that effort to ensure that so many like Bryony now have the support and information they need to choose their journey, their paths, and often have the other side of cancer through Yes to Life, what you have done, is really built a community, with an incredible amount of hard work. Let us not forget the adversity, but it is your passion and the commitment that shines through.

It has been an absolute privilege to work with you so closely now for over a decade, we are all really looking forward to the next chapter, the next decade, and Robin keep up the great and inspiring work!

Raphaela: Excellent, our shout out from Kirk. There is time for another shout out. This is one of Robin’s own personal heroes who have been on the shows three times over the years. He is a top international writer on cancer both orthodox, complementary, and lifestyle therapies, author of several top selling books, and the winner of countless international awards and honours.

Ralph Brass: Hi Robin This is Ralph Brass here in the US. I just wanted to congratulate you on five years of doing your fabulous radio show; amazing 250 episodes have gone by. You have just done amazing work to enlighten the public about the options they have in terms of cancer treatment. It was great for me to be on your show, it was wonderful when you were just getting started, to go over Great Britain, to London and to take part in your Yes to Life conference. So just keep up your great work, and look forward to celebrating another five, maybe 15 more years of your wonderful performance. Thank you so much for what you do boss Robin.

Robin Daly: He is one of my heroes, he is amazing. He was literally the one rock amongst the shifting sands of conjecture. There was nothing solid out there when I was first starting. I just got lots of people, throwing out stuff, which completely disagreed with each other, but I felt the stuff that he researched and wrote, and it still stands. He was just so thorough in everything he does and he is so dispassionate, he has no agenda against orthodox medicine at all, but he is very in favour of alternative medicine he is very interested in it. But, he is completely dispassionate about the virtues or the shortcomings of either alternative medicines, or orthodox medicine. It is just exactly what needed just good factual stuff is.

Johann Ilgenfritz: Fantastic. I think it is time for our, second live guest she was the second guest on the Yes to Life show back in the, start. At that time, she was someone diagnosed with cancer who had, just written a blog post. Now she is an international, famous author and patron of the years to life. So please welcome Sophie Sabbage.

Sophie Sabbage: Hello. I am very glad to be here to celebrate this anniversary and I am very glad to be here full stop, actually.

Robin Daly: Yes, it is really nice to have you on Sophie.

Sophie Sabbage: Thanks for having me.

Robin Daly: There is another scene that I still have in my mind sitting at your kitchen table, recording for that second show I ever put together. I think it was Jerome who sent me your blog post and I remember reading that and I was just absolutely blown away by it.

I have read tons of stuff written by people who have cancer, personal stories, but nothing remotely like this is short blog post, so I knew straight away, I have got to have her on my show, and that eventually ended up in Kent talking to you in your kitchen. It was really exciting! I think I did not speak to you for another three or four months and you then announced to me that you had written a book in the meantime, and that turned out to be –

Sophie Sabbage: The Cancer Whisperer. Yes I did that blog post kicked off. I started blogging because I have a background in psychology. I am not a health master in any way. I have learned a lot since then, but I am not a health practitioner, I just witnessed the extent to which fear was running the show and that when fear takes hold of patients, it makes their decisions for them, and then those decisions can be really not the best decisions to make. So I became very conscious of that, and I have since learned a lot actually about the impact of fear on medical outcomes there is increasing evidence about the impact of fear for medical outcomes. I really wrote the Cancer Whisperer to help people navigate the psychological, territory of getting a diagnosis. Yeah it changed my life that book,

Robin Daly: It changed a lot of people’s lives, it became hugely big seller it is a fantastic combination in a way, because your writing styles I say is to die for, honestly quite a completely natural.

Sophie Sabbage: I would not quite die for it actually!

Robin Daly: No. Okay 🙂

Sophie Sabbage: It is because I worked so hard to stay alive, but I appreciate the sentiment.

Robin Daly: Fair enough. But there is a combination of that though, but not only that though, you were exploring territory in a way that had not been really opened up. I do not think, you are breaking new ground with that book and I think that is why it had such an impact.

The combination of those two things; a book, which is such a joy to read, but that also took people on to a new place and shone a new light on how important that area is for people with cancer.

Sophie Sabbage: I mean, in those early months, I have stage four lung cancer. I still have stage four lung cancer, but I was dying and I was in very deep trouble, as you may recall. The first blog was about the many brain tumours that I had at that point. There were two books. I could not find one was how to deal with the terror, and nobody asked me what you are feeling. Are you afraid? Do you need emotional support?

Nobody asked me that. They told me how to get blue badge parking, which is a lovely privilege to have actual perks of cancer. But, nobody asks a question, I found it kind of staggering. So that was the book I could not find in the great industry of cancer books. The second was how to find the best complimentary treatments.

Then you produced the Cancer Revolution. Those were the two books I most wanted because I did not want to have to do all the research myself. I wanted one encyclopedia where I could find recommended complimentary practitioners. I do call it complimentary because I integrate them; I am a big fan of both actually.

I am clear that the pharmaceutical drugs I am on are the primary reason why I am still alive. I am very clear on that. So I like to integrate the two, but those were the books I could not find, and I wrote one and then you wrote the other.

Robin Daly: Well it is amazing that, was a long time ago we are talking five years ago now. I know your journey between then and now has been extraordinary with many highs and quite a few extraordinary lows and difficulties you have been through as well.

To have somebody who is now as high profile as you are, demonstrating what is possible If you are open minded about integrative medicine and you are intelligent about it, and you are not railroaded into anybody else’s particular view of how things should be done. I think that is a fantastic thing for the world. It is a shining example.

Sophie Sabbage: Thank you, I am very clear complimentary treatments have made a huge difference to my immune system, my wellbeing, my wellness, and I have often spoken about being caught in the crossfire between complimentary medicine where the patient is in the middle and the doctors are saying; do not do that quackery, it is all a bunch of nonsense, here is a bowl of sweets. Then, some practitioners, complimentary or alternative practitioners say, do not do chemo, it will kill you, and the patient gets stuck in the middle of two equally righteous positions actually. I have wanted to try and bridge that divide and say there is value here, but we need to be discerning, we need to be educated, we need to become experts in our own disease, which is one of the reasons I am still here.

There have been moments when I have known more about my illness than my own oncologist. That has saved my life at least twice. I am all about taking the reins, become an expert in your own disease and, educate yourself.

Robin Daly: Yes that is right. That is what we are trying to help people do as well we are on the same team. Thank you so much for being our trustee. I mean our patron as well. It is a really great for us to have you as a shining example.

Sophie Sabbage: It is my privilege, the cancer world truly needs what you bring.

Johann Ilgenfritz: Great, Sophie, thank you so much for joining us today!

Sophie Sabbage: You are welcome. Thank you Bye

Johann Ilgenfritz: Robin, the next shout out is from a person that I met right in the beginning of my cancer journey, Robert Scott Bell. I finally personally met him together with you at the healthcare crisis think tank in 2015. I could finally shake his hand and thank him for everything that he had done with us, for me. Here is, Robert Scott Bell from the US.

Speaker 7: This is a very serious message that we are trying to send to our friend Robin Daly on the UK Health Radio and you are come in with silly British slangs from an American that has never even been there.

Robert Bell: That is why I am doing it, because I have had no idea of what I am doing but Robin Daly I understand we got an anniversary coming up.

Speaker 7: that is right, fifth year anniversary.

Robert Bell: That is right, he has only got four times that amount of time to catch up with me but it is okay Robin, you are doing great work Robin! By the way, for those who do not know who this is, this is Robert Scott Bell at Super Don and we love you, we love all our friends and family in the UK Health Radio. Seriously congratulations for for all of the great work, and the important work that you are doing with Yes to Life, your foundation which I understand you started five years earlier. Good on you.

I really love what you are doing, bringing the power to heal back where it belongs with each and every one of the Brits out there who needs information desperately, to be empowered to help them, get well and stay well.

So, Robin Daly, thank you. I have a cousin, my cousin Robin is in England to, so I was confused at first I thought I was going to say hello to my cousin, but I guess you can be my cousin Robin Daly here.

Speaker 7: Was it not Robin Leach from the UK.

Robert: Oh, don’t bring up Robin leach is Robin Leach a fan too?

Well, Robin Daly you will need to get back to us on that. But seriously,we are just a couple of yanks having a good time, appreciate of course, Johan and the entire UK health radio crew. And of course you have been there for five years. It is so great, we love the outreach that you are doing and you keep it up. We will keep cheering you on here from, across the pond, as they say and one day maybe we can get you on and you can tell us all the wonderful things you have learned in the years you have been doing the broadcast there at UK Health Radio.

So with that, Super Don me Robert Scott Bell, wishing you another five or any number of years more than you want on UK health radio, because the power to heal is yours and you are helping them remember it that it is theirs too. Thank you Robin.

Johann Ilgenfritz: Thanks, Rob that was great to hear.

Robin Daly: Great. Having a laugh there, that was great, very nice.

Johann Ilgenfritz: Robin I have just looked at the clock and we are starting to run out of time a little bit. I think it would be the perfect time to bring in our third guest, Sue de Cesare Executive director of Yes to Life for almost the last five years and sometime before, now retired, but still working on the Yes to Life helpline.

Sue, welcome, lovely to have you on the show on UK Health Radio thank you so much for your time.

Sue de Cesare: Lovely to be on here, talking about UK Health Radio and five years with Yes to Life it is amazing.
Robin Daly: It is amazing. It has crept up suddenly, we have actually been doing this for five years. There are over 250 shows out there now, rather extraordinary. But, I have said thinking over when we met Johann and the idea has been kicking around in my mind that it would be quite fun if I had a radio show. But, I had not done anything very serious about it, I just thought, well, nothing ventured…

I remember asking him, he said yes, just like that. So it was a pretty extraordinary opportunity for us. I know you think the show is an extraordinary asset to both the charity and the listeners do you want to say a little bit about it?

Sue de Cesare: I do remember suddenly we have got to do a weekly radio show and how are we going to do this? How are we going to manage it? Of course, at first, you are really excited and then the enormity of actually having a show every week to deliver to Johann and the team it is quite a lot of pressure. We knew lots of people that would be great to have on the show, but of course we are running a charity and it is a small team and it is a very busy charity, and getting hold of people to do the interviews in the right time. I was sort of thinking back, the last few days about this, about the number of times we had have those conversations that the person that we had lined up for next week, have you got any ideas?

So we did have a good sort of list of people that we could ask to come on to the show. They were always very willing to, even at the last moment so we were always very grateful to everybody that has been able to come along to the show, for you to interview.

The breadth of people sometimes you would say, I have managed to get this person, and I had not heard of them and I had to look them up. How on earth did you manage to get them to come to the show? It was amazing. Another thing is when you started, you were understandably nervous about what questions you had to ask. One of the key successes is the prep work you do for the show have definitely paid off in delivering week on week really great information for people, to listen into.

That is borne by the number of people that are now tuning into the show. It means we have met a lot of people because some of the people you have interviewed now do more for the charity. They will speak at our events, and we can tie lots of things in with UK Health Radio in terms of delivering you as much wider than a radio show itself.
That is what people with cancer need. They need to know about the show, they need to know about UK Health Radio, which is doing amazing things. This should be your sole job delivering weekly shows so the pressure is taken off of the lots of other tasks to be done.

Robin Daly: Well initially it was quite a surprise to me how relatively easy it was to get people to say yes and i just got into this sort of swing that will ask and then people very surprisingly seemed very willing to come on, particularly when it came, as I was saying earlier to people from the NHS, which I love having people in the NHS on of course.

So it has been very exciting. For me personally it has got me connected to so many people doing this job that I would never have had a reason to get in touch with them before. These people are sort of distant Gods to me, very important people on the other side of the world.

At this point I count them as my friends so it is amazing that this opportunity allows me to reach out and get to people and, and just chat to them and, get much more of an understanding of where they come from.

It is a fantastic thing, I love doing it. It is a friendship at times, it has just been the most wonderful thing. I think it is also from the point of view of our beneficiaries, it is a huge resource, something I have not spoken about yet, but we have got a new feature on our website, which enables people to search a guest, by subject, by keywords. It provides all sorts of different ways of searching to find material from the past five years; we have not finished uploading the whole archive. They will be there shortly and you can go out there and find material, which is going to make it even more useful. This makes our back catalogue suddenly very accessible So it is a great thing the radio show and you are definitely part of getting that whole thing on the road with me. So thank you very much.
Sue de Cesare: It has been a great journey.

Robin Daly: Yes

Johann Ilgenfritz: Thank you so much Sue for coming on. Robin, I did not know if you knew this but after I met you at the Crisis Think Tank, I was actually planning on asking you to do a show, but you jumped in before I could ask you.
Robin Daly: I did not know that!

Johann Ilgenfritz: So yes great minds as they say!

We are slightly pressed on time so I think it is time for another shout out. This one is from, Patricia Peat from Cancer Options.

Raphaela: This is from Patricia Peat from Cancer Options

Patricia Peat: Hi, this is Patricia Peat from Cancer Options; I just want to congratulate Robin on his five years of running what is a great radio show. He has always had great guests, and the shows are always interesting and most importantly very informative. Cancer Options has had a very long association with Robin. I think we have seen the whole movement for integrative cancer support come to fruition in the UK and around the world.

The underlying principles that are coming through strongly in research, and we will all continue to work to make an integrative approach the norm for people dealing with cancer. Robin and Yes to Life has worked so hard and giving people information and support so they can be empowered to make their own choices about how they deal with cancer long, may it continue and huge congratulations Robin for your continued hard work on behalf of people dealing with cancer everywhere.

Raphaela: I believe there is a final shout out which we have for you. It is another one of our very famous friends Robin and probably best known for his role as a Petty Gavi in the ITV series, soldier, Bron in the hit series game of Thrones and Bennett Drake in ripper. He and soldier co-star, Robson Green also performed as Robson and Jerome the latter half of the 1990s. They released a version of Unchained Melody, which was stated number one for seven weeks in the UK chart, selling more than a million copies and becoming the bestselling single of 1995.

Jerome Flynn: Hello I am Jerome Flynn, and I am immensely proud to be a patron for Yes to Life, and have been since their formation 15 years ago. It is amazing to look back at those 15 years and to realise the effect they have had on the environment of the whole health system for anybody who finds themselves, living with cancer.

What Yes to Life has made available now compared to what was there 16 years ago is truly extraordinary. I can speak from my own experience because I lost my father when he was, only 62. I think about how things would have been in those early days and weeks after diagnosis, if he had, Yes to Life there with all their extraordinary wealth of expertise and resources and most crucially support. I just know it would have made such a huge difference to how he felt, and dealt with the situation he found himself in and in turn that would have made a huge difference to all of his family, who were panicking along with him.

Dad felt like he was scrabbling around on his own to try and discover what choices were available to him. When he was diagnosed he was told he only had six months to live as was the fellow in the cubicle next to him.

He had become friends with this man on this day that they spent at the hospital and he saw the life drain out of his friend’s face when the same doctor delivered this news, but dad was determined to at least find out what the options were. He was absolutely determined, not just to lay down his life and accept that that was the case.

As luck would have it, he found alternative treatment that gave him nearly three years, extra life, three years. It was so precious to him and to all of us he was lucky. The point is for anyone who finds themselves, living with cancer now, Yes to Life is here supporting, informing, and empowering those people to make the best choices for their individual situation for their life to say yes to life.

To me that is precious, that is everything. I take immense comfort in knowing that Yes to Life is there. So Robin, I am just wanting to send you a huge, heartfelt thanks for the beautiful, and crucial gift that you have created with Yes to Life and deep gratitude to all of you at Yes to Life for the thousands of us whose lives you have touched.

For the thousands of us who are yet to feel the benefit, it means everything that you are there and the world is most definitely a better place for the work that you do. God bless you thank you.

Johann Ilgenfritz: Well, I do not think that there is much else to say, Jerome Flynn really hit the nail on the head. Robin, unfortunately we only have about a minute left. I can only agree with Jerome Flynn and say thank you for who you are and absolutely for everything you do for UK Health Radio, for your charity, and for mankind.

Robin Daly: Well, thank you very much indeed, and thank you for today. It has been really nice to connect with old friends and look back over the time and see what has happened. It has been a great journey, and I am very pleased to have been on it.

Johann Ilgenfritz: Yes as I said I can only second that as well. To play out I am going to play at, I hope we still can get the message in from, Clive Carroll. He is the person that wrote your theme music. He wrote you a special outro and, this is it. Take care Robin, and I look forward to listening to you on UK Health Radio. Thank you.

Clive Carol: Hello, it is Clive Carroll here and I am sending congratulations to the Yes to Life show on their five-year anniversary. Thanks very much for starting and ending the show with my guitar playing over the years. I am sitting at home during lockdown, and right now I have got a guitar on my lap and I thought I would play you a Cannibal Adelaide classic. This is a number called Sermonette and I hope you like it …

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Radio show transcript edited by Jade Higgins, Literary Transcript Editor