By Jenny Johnston for the Every day Mail
22:18 27 Oct 2023, up to date 22:29 27 Oct 2023
The legendary Noddy Holder — bigger than life, with a voice to match — at all times did like an enormous hat. Probably the most iconic was a flamboyant mirrored affair purchased from a market.
Famously, a younger vendor known as Freddie, on the subsequent stall, advised him he needed to be a pop star, ‘similar to you, Noddy’.
It was, in fact, Freddie Mercury.
That hat is now in a financial institution vault, however Noddy has tons of of others, collected over six a long time in showbiz.
‘I’ve by no means actually stopped carrying the hats and, because it turned out, they got here in useful after I misplaced all my hair,’ Noddy, 77, tells me.
‘It wasn’t uncommon to see me with a hat, so individuals did not ask questions. Nobody mentioned, ‘Gosh, Noddy, you are not wanting effectively, are you sick?’
Even these pals and acquaintances who may need felt the Slade frontman wasn’t fairly himself did not leap to the best conclusions.
‘As soon as, we have been out with Rod Stewart and his missus. We return a great distance. He did not know I used to be sick and mentioned, ‘We’ll get a bottle of wine’ and I mentioned, ‘No, I am not consuming. I am on the fizzy water’ and he simply checked out me and mentioned, in fairly an understanding method, ‘Ah, are you on a programme?’, which means a restoration programme.’
He falls about laughing at this one. ‘That was such a rock ‘n’ roll response.’
Really Noddy Holder, possessor of the voice you may hear bellowing ‘It is Christmaaaaaas!’ on a loop in each grocery store from October onwards — had most cancers.
In the summertime of 2018, he sat in a hospital consulting room to be advised that he had a malignant tumour in his oesophagus.
The indigestion he had put right down to previous age was a symptom of one thing way more lethal. He was advised that he had six months to stay.
There may be yet another Christmas, however no extra. Instantly that line he wrote ‘look to the long run now, it is solely simply begun’ appeared somewhat redundant.
‘I requested, ‘How lengthy have I obtained?’ and the advisor mentioned, ‘Six months’. There was no hope of therapy, nothing in any respect. I mentioned, ‘OK then’.
‘I am very philosophical about my life. I assumed — and I keep in mind saying it to my spouse Suzan — ‘I’ve had a fantastic life. I’ve achieved loads, every little thing I ever needed to, actually. I am not frightened. If that is it, so be it’.’
In all of the discussions about how issues may progress — he would not be capable to eat, respiration would change into more and more troublesome — Noddy did not ask whether or not he would ever sing once more.
‘That wasn’t one thing I even thought of. When you find yourself advised you could have six months, it is not even vital. You concentrate on your loved ones.
‘You’ll be able to assume ‘why me?’ however I suppose I assumed ‘why not me?’. One in two of us will get most cancers in our lifetimes. Up to now eight years I’ve misplaced three finest pals — two to most cancers, one to a coronary heart assault.
‘Two of them used to joke — there’s a number of black humour in rock ‘n’ roll — about who can be first to go. I keep in mind considering to myself,
‘Oh effectively, silver cloud, I am going to see them once more in Heaven’.’
He bursts out laughing once more, the sound reverberating across the spectacular glass roof within the London lodge he has chosen for this interview.
‘They have been rock ‘n’ roll world, my mates, not well-known, however from that world, so there isn’t any assure they’d have reached Heaven.’
Suffice to say Suzan, who’s 20 years his junior, was much less calm on the level of prognosis.
‘I simply keep in mind having to get out of the room as a result of I knew I could not maintain it collectively, however I did not wish to lose my thoughts in entrance of Noddy,’ she remembers.
‘However I do not assume I went far sufficient, as a result of after I did lose it, he might nonetheless hear me.’
Noddy appears over his glasses at his spouse: ‘The entire hospital heard you. You have been screaming.’
Suzan, a novelist and former Free Lady producer who met Noddy after he appeared on a present she was engaged on, factors out that her response to them being handed a dying sentence was the extra regular one.
That is their first interview since going public final week about that terrible prognosis. The truth that we’re speaking about it 5 years on does take the sting off the horror.
A lifeline was supplied, albeit a couple of weeks after they’d been given no hope. Noddy was supplied an experimental chemotherapy therapy.
They needed to sit and focus on whether or not he ought to settle for it.
‘It wasn’t a given,’ he factors out. ‘It was a really aggressive therapy, and there have been no ensures.
‘I had to do this factor of weighing up whether or not I needed to spend my final six months of life going by means of that, feeling sick on a regular basis.
‘And I would at all times mentioned — proper from after we met — that I by no means needed Suzan to show into my nurse, as a result of that is the concern while you marry somebody who’s older, as she did. I at all times mentioned, ‘Shoot me first’.
She pats his leg, ‘Fortunately for you, I haven’t got a gun’.’ His eyes twinkle, as he reaches for one more joke.
‘After all, there was a substitute for therapy. I might have ditched Suzan and gone off around the world, spending my final six months discovering myself an excellent youthful mannequin.’
‘On the time, it was bleak and with hindsight, I did begin to grieve prematurely,’ says Suzan. ‘My head was going to all of the locations you by no means wish to go.’
‘She was practically down the charity store with my hats,’ quips Noddy. ‘What did you write in my eulogy anyway, Suzan? I hope you mentioned, ‘He made everyone smile.’
There may be nothing fairly as joyous as assembly somebody who has been given one other chunk at life, however the extraordinary factor about Noddy’s ordeal is that he managed to maintain it quiet for thus lengthy.
He and Suzan solely advised household (they’ve one son collectively, Django, 28, and Noddy has two daughters, Charisse and Jess, from his earlier marriage, each of their 40s) and some shut pals.
‘I did not even inform the opposite members of Slade,’ he says. ‘I did not wish to fear individuals, but additionally I did not belief that it would not find yourself on social media, even when individuals have been which means effectively.’
They did not even inform the grandchildren (his daughter’s youngsters), the satisfaction of Noddy’s life. The one time he ‘had a wobble’ in all of this, says Suzan, was considering them rising up with out him.
Noddy explains: ‘My granddaughter Issy is 12 now, however she was seven on the time and too younger. She solely discovered this week, and she or he’s sufficiently old to grasp now.
‘My grandson Beau is six, which continues to be little. On a regular basis I used to be going by means of the therapy we tried to maintain it regular for them. They’d come spherical and I’d simply play guitars with them. I used to be simply Grandad.’
So why go public now? ‘Partly to boost consciousness,’ says Noddy. ‘My advisor was saying that though that is fairly a typical illness, notably in males of my age, most individuals aren’t actually conscious of it.’
He hadn’t heard of it himself till, paradoxically, one other pal from the music trade was recognized with most cancers of the oesophagus.
‘That was Chas (Hodges) from Chas and Dave. He advised us all about it, and the way sick he was, and that was the primary time I would heard of it. Chas died the very week I obtained my prognosis.’
There may be one more reason they determined to go public. So profitable is Noddy’s experimental therapy that he has been requested to go to hospitals so his case can be utilized for educating functions. He needed followers to know first.
He titters once more, at this concept of this various ‘tour’, with him rolled out as a medical marvel quite than a pop star.
The precise chemo solely lasted a couple of months, from September to December 2018, however the slog to restoration has been an extended one.
His defences lowered, Noddy developed pneumonia and ended up in hospital. At his weakest his weight dropped to eight stone.
His hair has grown again into a brief silvery whisp, which Suzan thinks is ‘quite cool’, so maybe gone ceaselessly are the wilder locks.
The most cancers was picked up (‘and I’ve my GP to thank’) due to a routine blood check which confirmed very low iron ranges.
‘All credit score to him, my GP began asking questions ‘have you ever been feeling drained?’ Properly, sure, however I assumed it was simply because I used to be getting on a bit. Then he mentioned, ‘hassle swallowing?’ I had! Crusty bread had been a little bit of an issue.’
There was a interval of roughly three or 4 weeks between being advised he would die and being supplied the therapy lifeline.
However even within the darkest moments, Noddy was nonetheless telling jokes, says Suzan. She will get emotional when she remembers phoning the youngsters (‘she needed to do it, as a result of I would most likely have made a joke of it,’ says Noddy, ‘telling them, ‘Don’t be concerned you’re within the will’, and so they mightn’t have appreciated that’).
‘It was an odd time,’ she remembers. ‘I used to be making an attempt to carry it collectively, however there was a number of going for ‘walks’ and screaming right into a bush.’
And but even in these no-hope weeks, Noddy was ‘regular’.
‘He was in a position to learn a guide,’ says Suzan, incredulous. ‘He watched TV, listened to albums, did all of the issues he’d usually do.
‘The variations in how we coped have been stark. I would at all times mentioned that one of many issues I cherished and admired about him was his means to only stay within the second. If they might bottle that mentality they need to give it out together with the chemo, as a result of it is crucial.’
Certainly, they’ve been advised that it was Noddy’s positivity that made the medical doctors take into account him for the therapy.
Nobody fairly is aware of why he responded so effectively to it. ‘They’re doing all kinds of checks, as a result of if there’s something in his genes, his make-up, then it might assist others.’
She jokes that it ‘could possibly be one thing within the rock ‘n’ roll structure. I imply it sounds implausible, however in the event you do get previous your late 20s on this trade, perhaps you’re invincible.’
Noddy loves this concept. ‘Rock ‘ n’ roll saved me?’ he asks, tickled. ‘One factor I’ll say is that the advisor advised me that it wasn’t a way of life factor. Anybody can get this.’
Think about being the medic charged with making an attempt to save lots of Noddy Holder’s life. Was Professor Mansoor, from The Christie hospital in Manchester, a fan? ‘I believe he was extra of a Bruce Springsteen man.’
There is no such thing as a solution to sugarcoat the chemo itself. ‘It was grim, an exhaustion I can not even describe.’
He would spend a day within the hospital, receiving medication through a ‘port’ in his chest, then the infusion can be continued at dwelling.
Suzan needed to administer supporting injections of their kitchen, which concerned ‘a minimum of as soon as the place the needle flew throughout the room’.
It appears a bit daft to ask about his singing in all this. ‘They did not particularly say ‘do not sing’ however I knew I could not.
‘It may need prompted some bleeding after which… no method.’ Might he eat? ‘Solely very mushy meals and in small parts.’ Once more, he finds the positives. ‘Fortunately I like porridge!’
So the place are we now, Noddy? ‘I’ll by no means be capable to say ‘cancer-free’ and there’s no bell to ring, however I’ve to return each couple of months for monitoring and one of the best they will inform me is that there isn’t any proof of something energetic in the meanwhile.
‘However I do know that even when this factor shrinks, it may come again. That is nice. I am ready.’
This summer time, he obtained again on stage for the primary time in 5 years as a visitor of the younger singer Tom Seals.
‘I used to be solely speculated to be telling a couple of tales and jokes about my life,’ he says. But he determined to sing.
‘My coronary heart was in my mouth,’ admits Suzan. ‘However then he blasted out Johnny B Goode and it was simply Noddy, the voice was the identical. Django — who’s at all times had extra of his dad’s angle — hugged me and mentioned, ‘I advised you, Mum, I advised you you’d smile once more.’
So we’ll hear ‘It is Christmaaaaaas’ once more, sung stay? ‘Oh sure,’ he says. ‘I do not actually know why my voice wasn’t affected, as a result of my respiration was. I do not fairly breathe in the identical method I used to, however by some means I’ve tailored the singing round it.’
There’s a beautiful twist to that summer time stage efficiency. Earlier than he sang, Noddy advised the viewers — in fairly obscure phrases — that he had been somewhat poorly and had been handled in hospital by a beautiful nurse who was within the viewers, and he needed to thank her.
‘I shouted out, ‘Sarah, the place are you?’ and this voice got here again, ‘Noddy, I am right here!’ It was his most cancers nurse, who hadn’t even advised her husband that she’d had a well-known affected person. ‘He should have questioned why she was dragging him to see Noddy Holder,’ he laughs.
‘Afterwards, they got here backstage and I gave her a hug and he was crying, saying how proud he was of her and the work she did.
‘However out in that auditorium, the gang gave her the most important spherical of applause. Too proper. Individuals like me get that type of response each time we go on stage, however these are the individuals who deserve it.’
Noddy says he has been floored by the general public response to his most cancers information. He says he cannot fairly perceive it. I can. The thought of Noddy Holder not being round, bellowing, is unthinkable.
Suzan will get her tissue out once more. ‘Individuals assume Noddy is immortal and in a method he’s, as a result of his music and his voice will stay on. Even when I stay to 124, I am going to by no means escape listening to ,’It is Christmaaaaaas’.
‘However that is not the identical factor as having my husband. Name me grasping, however I wish to hold the actual factor.’
To donate to The Christie or uncover extra about their most cancers analysis initiatives, go to www.christie.nhs.uk
