BBC journalist Jeremy Bowen has urged people to get tested for bowel cancer following the death of his colleague and friend George Alagiah, who died on Monday.
Speaking to Sky News, the BBC correspondent, who revealed his own bowel cancerdiagnosis in 2019, implored those who received NHS test kits to use them.
The 63-year-old said: “For God’s sake use it. You’re an idiot if you chuck it away. It could save your own life.”
Alagiah, 67, was diagnosed in 2014 with stage four bowel cancer, which had spread to his liver and lymph nodesand had to undergo two rounds of chemotherapy and several operations, including the removal of most of his liver.
Bowen described how Alagiahwould “rationalise his symptoms”, for example when losing weight he said he would attribute that to exercising or eating more vegetables.
However, the former Middle East editor, who is also a patron for Bowel Cancer UK, urged people to open up about the disease if signs are spotted.
“It involves poo and backsides. We tend not to mention [these things] in polite conversation but actually if anything goes wrong in your toilet activities in a period of over more than a few weeks you need to talk to someone,” said Bowen, who is nearly five years into remission.
He said he was able to tackle his bowel cancer early despite not having classic symptoms like blood in his poo or weight loss.
He decided to go to his GP and get tested after feeling pain while working in Iraq and India – a few weeks later he was found to have microscopic amounts of blood in his stool.
“Four years earlier I had a virtual colonoscopy, a big scan of my gut and had nothing wrong then,” Bowen said.
In four years the journalist went “from nothing wrong” to having a stage three tumour in his bowel and lymph nodes.
He described the cancer as “really quite advanced” and had to have surgery and eight rounds of chemotherapy.
“I was really quite ill. Luckily I had done that test. If I hadn’t… I might not be here,” he said.
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
0:52
George Alagiah ‘understood the human condition’
Sky News reported 30% of people who get NHS kits to test for the cancer ignore them, which Bowen strongly advised against.
He said: “Don’t do it. It could be your life at stake.”
Bowel cancer check rates soared after the death of Dame Deborah James last year from the disease, who also encouraged the public to get screened.
Her daughter Eloise has since launched an anniversary clothing line for her late mother’s Bowelbabe Fund.
On Alagiah, who was also a vehement advocate of cancer screening, Bowen said his friend had the “right mental attitude” after he knew his cancer had spread.
Bowen said Alagiah “beat the odds” of his stage four cancer but knew it was “going in one direction [which is why] he was so evangelical to get tested if you had any dodgy symptoms”.
Speaking about the newsreader, Bowen added: “I met him on his first day at the BBC and showed him around. He was clearly a very nice guy and it emerged he was a very good reporter as well. What followed was a very, very distinguished career.”
The weakened pound has boosted many of the 100 companies forming the top-flight index.
Why is this happening?
Most are not based in the UK, so a less valuable pound means their sterling-priced shares are cheaper to buy for people using other currencies, typically US dollars.
This makes the shares better value, prompting more to be bought. This greater demand has brought up the prices and the FTSE 100.
The pound has been hovering below $1.22 for much of Friday. It’s steadily fallen from being worth $1.34 in late September.
Also spurring the new record are market expectations for more interest rate cuts in 2025, something which would make borrowing cheaper and likely kickstart spending.
What is the FTSE 100?
The index is made up of many mining and international oil and gas companies, as well as household name UK banks and supermarkets.
Familiar to a UK audience are lenders such as Barclays, Natwest, HSBC and Lloyds and supermarket chains Tesco, Marks & Spencer and Sainsbury’s.
Other well-known names include Rolls-Royce, Unilever, easyJet, BT Group and Next.
If a company’s share price drops significantly it can slip outside of the FTSE 100 and into the larger and more UK-based FTSE 250 index.
The inverse works for the FTSE 250 companies, the 101st to 250th most valuable firms on the London Stock Exchange. If their share price rises significantly they could move into the FTSE 100.
A good close for markets
It’s a good end of the week for markets, entirely reversing the rise in borrowing costs that plagued Chancellor Rachel Reeves for the past ten days.
Fears of long-lasting high borrowing costs drove speculation she would have to cut spending to meet self-imposed fiscal rules to balance the budget and bring down debt by 2030.
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
3:18
They Treasury tries to calm market nerves late last week
Long-term government borrowing had reached a high not seen since 1998 while the benchmark 10-year cost of government borrowing, as measured by 10-year gilt yields, was at levels last seen around the 2008 financial crisis.
The gilt yield is effectively the interest rate investors demand to lend money to the UK government.
Only the pound has yet to recover the losses incurred during the market turbulence. Without that dropped price, however, the FTSE 100 record may not have happened.
Also acting to reduce sterling value is the chance of more interest rates. Currencies tend to weaken when interest rates are cut.
A Nazi-obsessed man has been jailed for attempted murder after he stabbed an asylum seeker in a terrorist attack.
Callum Parslow was handed a life sentence and will serve a minimum of 22 years and eight months in prison after he knifed the man at a Worcestershire hotel on 2 April last year, as a “protest” against small boat crossings.
The victim, Nahom Hagos, from Eritrea, said it was a “miracle” he survived after being stabbed in the chest and hand.
Parslow, 32, has Hitler’s signature tattooed on his arm and used a £770 knife he had bought online to attack Mr Hagos when he was eating in the conservatory of the Pear Tree Inn at Hindlip.
During sentencing, the judge, Mr Justice Dove, told Parslow: “You committed a vicious and unprovoked assault on a complete stranger Nahom Hagos who suffered devastating injuries as a result of your violence.”
The judge also said Parslow, from Worcester, was “motivated by your adoption of a far-right neo-Nazi mindset which fuelled your warped, violent and racist views”, and added: “This was undoubtedly a terrorist attack.”
Leicester Crown Court heard at the time that Mr Hagos, who used to live at the hotel, was visiting a friend and was stabbed after Parslow asked him for directions to the toilet.
CCTV from the scene showed Mr Hagos fleeing to a car park and being chased by Parslow. He was able to run back into the main reception area, where the hotel manager locked the front door.
Parslow later re-entered through another door apparently searching for further victims, the court heard.
The hotel manager and a builder used a van to take Mr Hagos to hospital in Worcester, as they felt he was losing too much blood, where he was found to have an 8cm-long wound which had not penetrated any of his vital organs.
After trying to kill Mr Hagos, Parslow ran towards a canal and was spotted with what appeared to be blood on his hands.
Officers found blood containing a DNA profile matching that of the victim on the blade of the knife abandoned by Parslow.
Failed manifesto post
After the stabbing and as police closed in, Parslow tried to post a “terrorist manifesto” on X, tagging Tommy Robinson and politicians including Nigel Farage, Suella Braverman and Sir Keir Starmer.
He wrote that he “just did my duty to England” and had tried to “exterminate” Mr Hagos. However, it failed to send as he copied in too many people.
Others on his list included Laurence Fox, Lee Anderson, Boris Johnson, Donald Trump and various news organisations.
Nazi memorabilia at bedsit
During the trial last October, the court heard an axe, metal baseball bat and a second knife were found at Parslow’s bedsit in Bromyard Terrace in Worcester.
Police also discovered a swastika armband, a Nazi-era medallion and copies of Hitler’s book Mein Kampf.
Jurors were also told Parslow had Hitler’s signature tattooed on his arm “in order to demonstrate his affiliation to the ideals of the leader of the German Nazi party”.
He also pleaded guilty to an unconnected sexual offence and two charges of sending electronic communications with intent to cause distress and anxiety at the time.
Two missing sisters in Aberdeen made an earlier visit to the bridge where they were last seen hours before they disappeared, CCTV footage has revealed.
Police Scotland said a text message was also sent to the women’s landlady on the morning they vanished, indicating they would not be returning to the flat.
Eliza and Henrietta Huszti, both aged 32, were last spotted in the city’s Market Street at Victoria Bridge at about 2.12am on Tuesday 7 January.
The siblings – who are part of a set of triplets and originally from Hungary – were seen crossing the bridge and turning right on to a footpath next to the River Dee in the direction of Aberdeen Boat Club.
In an update on Friday, Police Scotland said the sisters were seen at the same bridge at around 2.50pm on Monday 6 January – around 12 hours before they were last seen.
The force said the siblings, who were both wearing rucksacks, spent five minutes at the footpath and the Victoria Bridge but did not engage with anyone else.
More on Aberdeen
Related Topics:
Officers are now appealing for anyone who may have seen the sisters at this earlier time to come forward.
After visiting the bridge, the women were then seen on CCTV making their way through the city centre, via Union Square shopping centre, back to their flat in the Charlotte Street area.
Police Scotland said there is “nothing to indicate” that the siblings left their flat again until shortly before they were last seen at the River Dee in the early hours of the following morning.
A text message was sent from Henrietta’s mobile phone to their landlady at the same time they were last seen, indicating they would not be returning to the flat.
The phone was then disconnected from the network and has not been active since.
The following day, the sisters’ personal belongings were found inside in the flat and the landlady reported her concerns to police.
Superintendent David Howieson said: “We have carried out a significant trawl of public and private CCTV footage as we try to establish the sisters’ movements.
“We have had a positive response from the public to our appeals and I would like to thank everyone who has already come forward.
“I would again urge anyone with any information which could help find Eliza and Henrietta to get in touch.
“We remain in regular contact with Eliza and Henrietta’s family in Hungary and we will continue to provide them with support at this very difficult time.
“Searches will continue in the coming days and our officers will continue to do everything they can to find Eliza and Henrietta.”
The search team has included specialist advisers, emergency service partners, a police helicopter, and the force’s dog branch and marine unit.
Police Scotland previously said there has been “no evidence” of the missing sisters leaving the immediate area.
Officers are keeping an open mind about what happened to the women but said they have not found anything to suggest any “suspicious circumstances or criminality”.
It previously emerged the sisters did not tell their relatives they were “immediately” going to move out of their rented flat.