10th February,
The concert poster for the HARTLEPOOL concert



Many thanks to the secretary of the HMVC

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23rdJanuary.
From the Mirror Newspaper 22nd Jan.





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2nd January
From THE MIRROR online

Russell Watson: If I can do the Great Manchester Run anyone can!

22 nd January

Within 48 hours all the places for the Bupa Great Manchester Run were snapped up. But now you have the chance to go for one of 10,000 extra places.

Here opera singer Russell Watson talks about completing the run last year after fighting a life-threatening brain tumour...

Some do it for charity or to honour the memory of a loved one, others just want to get fit But whatever the reason they’re there it’s likely this will be the biggest and best Bupa Great Manchester Run ever.

The 10km run through

Manchester city centre and out to Old Trafford has been staged since 2003. And this year for the first time we’ll be able to watch the action on TV as the 36,000 runners make their way round the course.

Elite runners Jo Pavey, Haile Gebrselassie and Sonia O’Sullivan have competed in the past and organisers expect more top athletes this time round.

And the sports professionals will be joined by celebs like X Factor’s Danyl Johnson, New Order’s Peter Hook and opera singer Russell Watson, who took part last year just months after recovering from a brain tumour and weeks of radiotherapy.

“Finishing the run last year felt wonderful,” recalls Russell, 43. “But it was bloody tough. I was just coming through my recovery – I’d had a brain tumour removed, five weeks of radiotherapy and I was just getting used to taking a massive concoction of medication. It took much longer to get fit than I’d expected.

“I got over the line in around an hour which was good for how unwell I’d been, but I’m determined to do it quicker this time.”

Russell praises the fantastic atmosphere at the run, saying the support he felt as he slogged round the course helped carry him over the line.

“It’s an amazing, carnival atmosphere,” he says. “I’m local up here so lots of people recognised me and knew I’d been sick.

So as I ran through people were saying ‘Go on lad!’ and ‘You can do it!’ – especially as I was getting towards the end and I was getting a bit red in the face!”

Dad-of-two Russell first became dangerously ill in 2006 when he was diagnosed with a large brain tumour.

It was removed, but returned the following year.

The impact on his life emotionally, physically and psychologically was immense as he struggled to rebuild his life and career.

“It was a very dark time,” he recalls. “All the treatment knocked the stuffing out of me and as I lost my hair and gained weight from the steroids I was on, looking at my Uncle Fester

reflection in the mirror made me feel very, very down. But I learned to look at my sickness in stages, and once the radiotherapy was finished, the next stage was recovery. And to recover properly I had to get strong and healthy again.

“It was a long road, and took at least a year until I was back to myself. But as I got stronger, and lost that excess weight I gained when I was ill, I got a real boost psychologically.

“I know people say ‘healthy mind, healthy body’ but for me it was the other way. As my body got its strength back I felt emotionally stronger and happier too.”

Runners raised a staggering £2 million last year and everyone hopes they smash that amount this year. “It was fantastic last year,” says Russell. “But this year it’s going to be on telly so I think it will be even bigger.”

And Russell says doing his bit for charity means more to him now that he knows how it feels to be vulnerable.

“So many people do things like this because a charity they are helping is close to their heart.

“And I’m raising money for a wonderful little lass Kirsty Howard, who was born very sick with a back to front heart and misplaced internal organs. She has struggled all her life with illness.

“But she always has a smile on her face and even though she’s only 13, she’s raised £5million for Francis House, the hospice that looks after her.

“I had a difficult couple of years, but this fantastic girl can’t just move on. So I want to help her out now that I’m fit and able.

“I’m not saying everyone should run a race like this, because people have their own difficulties and different circumstances. But if I can do it then anyone who’s reasonably fit should be able to do it. So if you’re pretty fit and could jog or even walk 10km, I reckon you should get off your backside and give it a go.

“It’s great fun and you’ll feel happy and proud when you’re finished.”

The Bupa Great Manchester Run, which will take place on May 16, opened for general entries earlier this month, and within 48 hours all the places were snapped up. But organisers are now holding a ballot for the last 10,000 places. The ballot is open until February 1, 2010. To register to take part in the ballot, visit www.mirror.co.uk/bupagreatrun.

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January

From the Salford Lowry Outlet Mall/news

Christmas Lights Switch On

The Lowry Outlet Mall was host to an incredible line-up of entertainment on Sunday November 15 for their annual Christmas lights switch-on. The event saw 5,000 shoppers visit the Mall to help get the Christmas celebrations started.

 Key 103 Breakfast Show presenters Mike and Chelsea hosted the event in style as they introduced acts including: opera singer extraordinaire Russell Watson, who was joined on stage by Kirsty Howard to help launch the Francis House Festival of Trees, Helen Flanagan aka Coronation Street’s Rosie Webster, Fenix, Master Shortee and Nu Era. X Factor fans were thrilled with a performance from the gorgeous 2008 finalist Laura White who blasted out songs from Adele, The Noisettes and of course her brand new debut single You Should Have Known, 2009 X Factor hopeful, Daniel Fox also joined the stage to make this years Christmas light switch on a year to remember.

 

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8th December



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2nd December.
The article from the WEEKLY NEWS



   
 

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29th November  THE MAIL ON SUNDAY....The full text of the article is below the news pictures.




                                                                                                      
                                                                                                                
                                                






































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DAILY MAIL Dec 1st

BACK IN GOOD VOICE
By line by Russell Watson

APPLAUSE filled the packed theatre. I should have felt euphoric, surrounded by loyal fans taking delight in the return of The Voice. But as the clapping slowed and the expectant audience readied themselves for my next song, I walked off stage.

My every thought was consumed by the blackness I felt descending. The sea of faces in front of me were a swirling mass. I was going to pass out.

Startled stage hands rushed to my side as I searched in my pocket for the tablets that have, for the past two years, become my lifeline. Then I pushed my way through a side door, gulping in the fresh air.

It was the first of May this year. In that moment I was so angry, upset and frustrated that I looked heavenwards and shouted: 'When is this going to end?' I had survived two life-saving operations to remove a pituitry tumour , undergone weeks of radiotherapy, suffered the indignity,of losing my hair, fought my way back to fitness and yet here I was, my life and career dependent on a daily regime of drugs.

I was fed up to the back teeth but as I looked around me I realised that this was the stark reality of my life now.

The tumours and resulting surgery had damaged my pituitary gland, which controls hormones released into the body including cortisol, the adrenal stress hormone which responds to stress and anxiety.

Because my body can't produce it naturally, I have to mimic it by taking hydrocortisone tablets three times a day. In my line of work, performing before thousands of people means huge amounts of stress and getting the level right in those situations can be tricky. But without them my blood pressure and energy levels plummet.

The worst-case scenario is that my heart eventually stops - but in this case, as in most when I've forgotten to take a tablet or don't take enough, I begin to feel dizzy and faint.

Within ten minutes of walking off stage I was fine again. Thankfully, the musical director had realised something was wrong and had the orchestra launch into a long instrumental. I walked back on stage, carried on singing and no one in the audience knew anything had ever been wrong.

As well as the hydrocortisone, I have a really horrible, oily injection of Nebido, a testosterone hormone, needed for sex drive, maintaining male characteristics and helping with energy levels. My doctor gives me one of these injections every ten weeks.

I also have a daily growth hormone, Norditropin SimpleXx which I need to stop me feeling too tired or depressed as well as to balance my weight and my concentration. I use an EpiPen - similar to one used by diabetics - to inject myself in my stomach orthigh

But at the end of the summer of 2006, I was in Los Angeles playing tennis with a friend and I realised I could not see the ball.

I went for tests at the Cedars-Sinai Medical Centre there and could hardly see the consultant's face as he told me I had a large benign tumour, part of which was filling the frontal cavity of my skull, while the other part was pushing into the top of my nose and pressing the nerve to my eyes, causing my vision to deteriorate.

That night I stood on the balcony of my tenth-floor room at the Four Seasons hotel, full of dark thoughts. I self-pityingly asked, 'Why me' and thought about jumping.

If it hadn't been for my young daughters Rebecca, who is now 15, and Hannah, nine, who I knew were waiting for me back home in the UK, I honestly believe I might have done it.

I was told the condition affects four in every 100,000 people, but because the tumour is usually small and difficult to detect, it is often undiagnosed because symptoms such as headache, poor vision and nausea are attributed, as mine were, to stress.

When I returned home, surgeons at St George's Hospital in London removed the tumour through my nose. There was a lot of swelling around my face afterwards and it was painful for a few weeks, but slowly I began to feel normal again. The blinding headaches that had blighted my life were gone.

By the following March I was ready to do a 22-city tour and believed my life was back on track. Unfortunately, although I didn't know it at the time, the surgeons had not managed to remove all of the tumour - and it had grown back.

I remember so clearly waking up one morning in October 2007 with the worst headache I have ever had. I was burying my face in the pillow and screaming, then being sick. I couldn't see, my temperature was nearly 40C and I thought this was it. I was dying

My personal assistant Victoria Davis arrived at my house for work and called an ambulance straight away. She told me later that I looked grey.

Everything was a blur but I could hear one voice saying, 'Stay with us, Russell, stay with us, mate' over and over again. It wasn't until I got out of intensive care a week later I learned it was the ambulance medic. He was the one who'd kept me going when I wanted to give up and die I was in so much pain.

The second tumour had grown to such an extent it had begun to haemorrhage. It was also pressing on my optic nerve and there was a danger I could go blind if it wasn't removed straight away.

Before I agreed to the operation, which had to be done within 24 hours, I wanted to see my daughters, who live nearby with their mum Helen. At that stage I wasn't convinced I was going to pull through.

This time the surgeons went in through my upper lip and along the floor of the nasal cavity to access the tumour. The pain afterwards was horrendous and I could barely lift my head from the pillow, let alone walk a few steps. I was completely drained.

But I was soon convinced - maybe it was the euphoria of surviving - I'd be back singing within eight weeks and everything would carry on as normal.

I had no idea how long it was really going to take me to recover, and I am very lucky that I have some great friends who put up with me when I felt moody or depressed, and were a huge support.

Doctors do not know what causes pituitary tumours, but they know they can regrow, so I needed a five-week course of radiotherapy - to try to reduce any potential growth - which started on January 2, last year.

The stark reality of the treatment I was going to have to endure five days a week hit me when I went for the first session. I was going to have radiation, via lasers, on four points - front, back and each side of my head. Measurements have to be absolutely exact to the millimetre, otherwise it can be catastrophic.

I lay on an operating table, and was securely attached to brackets so that my head couldn't move.

Then a Perspex box-like contraption was fitted to the contours of my face and a further Perspex box fitted over that, from the neck up - all of it designed to stop any movement of my head.

The actual 'zapping' lasted only a couple of minutes but it was absolutely terrifying. I felt claustrophobic and couldn't imagine how I was going to endure this for five weeks, never mind relax as the nurses kept telling me to do.

Weirdly though, it just became routine after a week.

What I hadn't been prepared for were the side effects. I felt as if I had flu constantly, every muscle ached, I couldn't move out of the chair without feeling exhausted. Unscrewing the top of a water bottle would knock me out for the day. Then one day I was washing my hair and big clumps started falling out.

I'm 6ft 1in and have always been very physically fit. I play tennis, box and work out. I took pride in my appearance, and overnight I looked like Friar Tuck, with little clumps of hair and felt like an old man.

I looked in the mirror in despair. At that moment I didn't care that the treatment could have been saving my life.

To make matters worse, a side effect of radiotherapy is inflammation of the skin, so I had to take steroids to counteract it.

And of course, the steroids had their own side effects.

Not only did I put on two stone in five weeks - going up to 16½ stone - they made me incredibly angry and aggressive and I'd fly off the handle at the smallest thing. Rebecca and Hannah were terrific - they became very protective of me and if anyone came over to say hello when I was out, they would close ranks around me as a kind of warning.

There were days when I felt so sick and miserable I didn't want to go on, and days when the girls - who split their time between my home and my former wife Helen's - would come over and I felt confused and unable to concentrate.

But they were so loving and, in a funny way, I think it has improved our relationship and brought us closer.

I didn't think about my singing once during this time. I didn't have the mental capacity to take it on board. I knew that I had to divide my recovery into stages - it was the only way I was going to be able to deal with it

The first stage was making it through radiotherapy, and the second was getting fit - I was in the gym the day after I finished treatment. I could barely do five minutes on the running machine and lifting weights that were just 1kg nearly killed me, but I felt as if I was getting my control back, something I had lost ever since my tumour had been diagnosed.

It took ten months to get anywhere near my old physical fitness again. I began watching my diet and lost the weight I'd gained, getting back to my normal 14½ stone.

The next stage was my voice. I can't tell you how much effort and time I have put into getting myself back to being the singer I once was, and for more than a year I was not even convinced I could.

Trying to sing classical music, such as Nessun Dorma which requires you to really use your diaphragm and breathing, was impossible because the pressure generated in my head to reach the higher and more powerful notes was agony. I just could not deal with it. I'd feel dizzy and my vision would become affected.

I had to turn to Frank Sinatra, soul, and easy-listening music to be able to sing at all. I knew the chances were that I was never going to be able to sing as I used to.

But having my physical fitness back meant I could focus on my voice. I practised every day with my voice coach and amazingly, after all I have been through, the tumour seems to have opened up the nasal cavity and cleared my sinuses, which has had a beneficial effect on my voice.

I believe I have a better voice now than I did before and I'd like to think it's my reward for the bad times.

I have signed a new contract with Sony and will be bringing out a classical album at the end of 2010 as

I celebrate my tenth anniversary in the record industry.

It feels as if I am starting my life again. Being ill has forced me to have a new beginning, but one that I hope will, ultimately, make me a better performer.

That said, there are still days when I have mood swings because my hormone levels may fluctuate. At the moment I am using up too much testosterone - in five weeks I am using what should last ten - and doctors have no idea why.

Travelling can be a nightmare because my injection timetable may not coincide with my work one. If I go to Malaysia, for instance, I take my assistant Gary along because if I was sick I may not be able to explain quickly enough the problem to a foreign doctor who doesn't speak English, whereas Gary knows what to do.

Although I have to carry a bag full of drugs and needles through customs, no one bats an eyelid whereas before I used to get stopped and searched all the time.

I feel as if I have been given a second chance at life and I want to grab it with both hands.

I appreciate my friends and family more but I'm less certain about having a long-term relationship.

I have had to become quite selfish in the way I view my life. I have my children, my singing and my health to focus on and it doesn't leave a lot of energy for anyone else at the moment.

I want to prove to any of those that doubt me within my industry  that the difficult years are now behind me.

Interview: Nikki Murfitt

'The drugs Russell is taking are replacing the hormones his body no longer makes,' says Tara Kearney, Russell's endocrinologist who works at Salford Royal NHS Foundation Trust, Salford, and the Alexandra Hospital, Cheadle.

'About ten per cent of patients who have surgery for this type of tumour may experience a recurrence over a ten-year period,' she says.

'However, radiation treatments can reduce this risk. It is hard to remove all of a pituitary tumour because the carotid arteries run either side of the gland, and if the tumour is wrapped around the arteries, some of it may have to be left intact to avoid haemorrhaging.'

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30th Oct 09

RUSSELL  WATSON helps launch handwashing and hygiene "BMI Clean Team" campaign

Singer Russell Watson poses with Lesley King, Infection Control Sister at BMI The

Alexandra Hospital, at the hospital’s launch of “BMI Clean Team” hand washing and hygiene campaign.

Singer Russell Watson helped nurses at BMI The Alexandra Hospital launch a yearlong “BMI Clean Team“ campaign to promote handwashing and hygiene this week. The hospital is one of several BMI Healthcare hospitals across the country taking part in the campaign, which was introduced in conjunction with Infection Prevention Week (19-23 October).

Mr Watson was at the hospital on 19 October for a consultation with his specialist Dr Tara Kearney, consultant diabetologist and endocrinologist following his successful recovery from surgery to treat a brain tumour. Mr Watson was being filmed for ‘Tonight with Trevor McDonald’ programme airing next month that will document how Russell has twice bounced back from the devastating illness. Following his consultation, Mr Watson showed his support for the campaign by signing a BMI Clean Team campaign poster and taking a hand-washing test with a special UV light box, called a glo-box.

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The Manchester Evening News....

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                             An article from the Salford Advertiser ,dated 6th Aug.

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24th July




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9th July                                                                                         

From THE CAMBRIDGE NEWS online.

HOW RUSSELL WATSON FOUND HIS VOICE AGAIN

PUBLISHED 9/7/09

Ahead of his appearance at Audley End, ‘people’s tenor’ Russell Watson tells Paul Kirkley how he faced down life-threatening illness – and his critics – with help from some friends in very high places.

FORGET all the talk of Susan Boyle: The Movie, how’s this for a Hollywood pitch: Average blue collar Joe working 12-hour shifts in a nuts and bolts factory is plucked from obscurity to sing at a high-profile sports game,

signs five-album deal that results in the most successful classical record of all time, and goes on to perform for popes, presidents and royalty all over the world.

At the height of his success, he is struck down by a life-threatening illness – twice – but fights through to make a triumphant return to the stage. Cue rousing finale of Nessun Dorma, fireworks, standing ovation. The End.

It’s A Star Is Born-meets-Rocky- meets-Billy Elliot – with the welding scenes from Flashdance thrown in for good measure.

The only problem is it’s way, way too cheesy. I mean, seriously, a nuts and bolts factory? That’s positively Dickensian. And that third-act reversal, where our fallen hero lies in his hospital bed and wonders ‘Will I ever

sing again?’... well, who’s gonna buy that?

“A film has been talked about,” says Russell Watson, the man to whom all this, and more, actually happened.

“I remember somebody saying to me not so long ago, if we were to make your story into a movie, no-one would believe it.”

But the facts are there for all to see. Go back two decades and you really will find this factory worker’s son following in his father’s footsteps, working double nightshifts as a YTS bolt-cutter in Irlam, near Manchester, while

earning extra cash to support his wife and baby by singing Elvis covers in local working men’s clubs.

One fateful night in Wigan, he was encouraged by a club secretary to try his hand at Puccini’s Nessun Dorma, and gradually began slipping more and more classical arias into his repertoire.

It was this part of his act that attracted the attention of former Manchester United chairman Martin Edwards, who invited Watson to sing at Old Trafford during a 1998 memorial for the victims of the Munich air disaster. Unfortunately,

fate – or rather Eric Cantona – intervened, and his appearance was cancelled in favour of the fiery Frenchman’s preferred choice, Mick Hucknall.

The following year, Watson’s day in the sun finally arrived when he sang at United’s last game of the season. After the match, with his team crowned league champions, he returned to the pitch to sing Freddie Mercury’s Barcelona,

tearing off his tux to reveal a United shirt underneath.

The crowd went wild and, a week later, Watson found himself reprising the song with Mercury’s original recording partner, opera legend Montserrat Caballé, at the Champions League final in – where else? – Barcelona.

After that, the successes piled up with dizzying speed: Signing a five-album deal with Decca, Watson’s debut release, The Voice – a mix of Italian arias and pop classics, featuring a particularly memorable duet of Barcelona with the

Happy Mondays’ Shaun Ryder – broke worldwide records by holding the number one position in the classical charts for a year, before being knocked off by its follow-up, Encore.

Watson became the first British male to simultaneously occupy the top of the UK and American charts, his next two albums were both Platinum-selling chart-toppers, and he lent his vocals to projects as diverse as the movie adaptation

of Captain Corelli’s Mandolin and the theme to the latest Star Trek series.

During this period, Watson also took up semi-permanent residency in palaces, courts and embassies across the globe, performing for, among others, George Bush, Tony Blair, the Emperor of Japan, the King of Malaysia, various

powerful Sultans and tabloid Britain’s own newly-anointed royal couple, Posh and Becks.

He even sang for the late Pope John Paul II, after the pontiff requested a private audience at the Vatican.

“It was almost like, dare I say it, destiny,” says Watson, reflecting on those heady days a decade on. “There was a culmination of different things. I got the Rugby Union World Cup, I got the last game of the season – and again, would

it have been such a big moment if Manchester United had lost that day in 1999 on the last game of the season, and then I wouldn’t have gone over to Barcelona to sing at the Champions League final?

“There were a lot of different things that were out of my control that just happened to make it all gel together – the night that Martin Edwards was in the Midland Hotel in Manchester and saw me sing three or four arias and said, ‘wow,

you should come and perform for us at Old Trafford’. It just happened – everything just seemed to be lined up.”

Of course, as we’ve seen from everyone from Britney to Amy to the current tragic pantomime of Susan Boyle, fame brings as many pressures as rewards. Did Watson – who split from his wife soon after the release of his first album –

struggle to adapt to his sudden success?
“The honest answer to the question is yes, it was difficult to adjust,” he says.

“At first I was caught in the lights and my little puppy dog tail was wagging away and I was so grateful to be there and every day was a bonus. And then after a while you realise it isn’t just about good luck and good fortune, it’s about

a lot of hard work.

"And that’s when you realise it’s tough out there. It’s a battle. I’ve always maintained the easy bit is getting there – the real battle is staying there. That’s what’s tough, and so very few manage it these days.”

"Perhaps inevitably in those fevered post-Diana days, Watson quickly inherited the mantle of ‘the people’s tenor’ – and a bucket of critical cold sick to go with it, the Daily Telegraph’s Rupert Christiansen famously branding

him a ‘karaoke crooner’.

“Whatever you do, you’re always going to be open to criticism from someone,” says Watson, phlegmatically.

“You can’t be liked by everyone, and clearly there were people at that time who were quite vociferous about their dislike for me and their disdain for what I was doing, and that’s fair enough.

“But by the same rule there were a lot of people who did like what I was doing – and they’re the people I focus my attentions on, rather than people who want to be critical of me. As far as I’m concerned, whatever… I’m still here

annoying you, and will be annoying you for a lot longer.”

If there’s an unusually strong note of defiance in these words, you can hardly blame him. Because there have been times recently when Russell Watson wasn’t sure how long he would be around to annoy anyone.

In September 2006, having complained of severe headaches and loss of peripheral vision for some time, Watson was taken ill while recording his latest album in Los Angeles.

Doctors told him he had a developing pituitary adenoma (a type of brain tumour) the size of two golf balls. “Since an early age I’ve had an in-built premonition, a vision that I wouldn’t make 40,” he said at the time.

“For the previous seven years I'd have a recurring nightmare in which my head exploded.”

When the tumour was diagnosed, he was 39 years and 10 months old.

Surgeons removed the 8cm lump through Watson’s nose during a five-hour emergency operation in London. Recovery was slow. His mood swings went from ‘ecstatic to suicidal’ and he has credited his two daughters,

Rebecca and Hannah, with pulling him through his darkest hours.

But he eventually finished recording the album and, when he finally embarked on a rescheduled tour in the spring of 2007, he was greeted with standing ovations every night.

Then, in October that year, he fell ill again. An MRI scan showed the tumour had regrown, and was causing bleeding into his brain.

He underwent a second emergency operation at the Alexandra Hospital in Manchester, after which he remained in critical condition in the Intensive Therapy Unit.

“I think to have a genuine, true appreciation of life you have to have been through a little bit of mess,” he says philosophically. “I think bad times make the good times even more poignant and significant.

And what I’ve been through in the last couple of years means I have a real zest for life and a real appreciation of my health.

“I feel very, very fortunate to have come through a very difficult health period in my life. And I’m looking forward to the future now, as opposed to back.”

He is, he says, under ‘constant supervision’ from doctors.

“I’m on a concoction of various different drugs. I have to inject myself every day and take tablets but it’s like, when you get up in the morning you know you’re going to need to brush your teeth or your breath isn’t going to smell

that great; I get up in the morning and I know I need to take these tablets to get myself kick-started.

"And it builds through the day – I know at lunchtime I need to eat lunch or I’ll be hungry, and I know I need to take another tablet or I won’t feel great. It becomes second nature – it’s not something where I think, oh poor me, I’ve

got to take medication. It’s better than the other option.”

Last year, Watson signalled a change in direction when he released People Get Ready, an album of soul and R&B standards featuring the likes of Me and Mrs Jones, Soul Man and In The Midnight Hour. But when he takes to the

stage at Audley End this month for the first of the stately home’s summer picnic concerts, it will, he promises, be ‘very much the classical Russell’.

“It’s going to be a great night,” he says. “We’ve got a fabulous, 70-piece orchestra, and there’s going to be a kind of a Last Night of the Proms feel to the show, with things like Land of Hope and Glory and Jerusalem, as well as

the Neapolitan arias and full-on operatic numbers.”

The diversion into R&B territory was, he explains, a case of necessity being the mother of invention.

“Obviously I’ve had a heavy run, health wise, the last two or three years, so I’ve had to take it easy. I suppose it’s like a footballer getting back into training – he’s not going to run onto the cup final at Wembley and play a full 90

minutes after having been out with a serious injury.

“And it’s the same with what I’ve been through. The noise that I make is incredibly resonant, particularly around the front area of the skull, and that’s where I had a great big lump growing for the last few years. I’ve had to be careful.

“Aside from the fact that, at the time, People Get Ready felt like the right record and a record I wanted to make, it definitely felt like a more viable option, vocally, than singing grand opera after having 25 treatments of radiotherapy and

two brain tumour operations. It didn’t seem like the wisest move to start belting out Nessun Dorma.”

But now he’s back to full belting strength?
“Absolutely. I feel like I’m getting strong again. I’ve just finished my UK tour, 20 concerts without any problems. And I think as well the public are starting to get faith in Russell Watson as an artist because I think there was a period

of time where you never knew if I was going to be well or not.

“The last couple of years, thankfully, I’ve not had to pull out of any concerts due to ill-health. I’m very pleased – two years of a good clean record. It’s good.”

So there’s the Hollywood happy ending, which I think is where we came in. Before we let him go, though, we have to ask: What does one make small talk about with the Pope?

“I actually gave him one of my CDs,” he laughs.

I got a letter from him about two weeks later – I’m actually looking at it now – saying how delighted he was with it, and that he was going to place me in his prayers.

“It was quite a blessing – I think it may have gone some way to helping me get through the last couple of years.”

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6th July.
The article from the Observer.... 2nd July.






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