Countryfile legend Julia Bradbury was left fighting back tears when she spoke about her traumatic cancer battle.
The veteran presenter has made it her mission to speak out about her battle with breast cancer, in hope of helping other people identify some of the early warning signs that might otherwise be missed. But while she has told her story before, it can still sometimes reduce her to tears.
On Davina McCall’s Begin Again podcast, the Countryfile favourite described the moment when her doctor’s initial fears turned into a definite cancer diagnosis. Audibly upset, she said: “And I’ve never cried at this bit of the story before, but it’s the moment you feel most vulnerable, and it’s also the moment that you do nothing.”
Julia, who had lived a busy life jetting all over the world to present travel shows about Iceland, Germany and, during the 2010 World Cup, South Africa, was stopped in her tracks.
Julia became a TV fixture with her shows about country walks
(Image: ITV)
She recalled how, immediately after receiving her diagnosis she called her partner Gerald to tell him the news : “I told him, and we cried. And I said, I’ll do whatever I have to do to get through this. I will do whatever it is.
“If I have to lose a breast, I’ll have to lose my hair. If I have to go, whatever it is I need to do. I’m going to do what I need to do to get through this.”
She stresses that there is no “one size fits all” treatment to combat cancer: “Every type of cancer is different. Every type of breast cancer is different.
“You’ll have a friend who’s gone through breast cancer, and she and I will sit down and have a story, and we’ll have had a different tumour in a different place, and it will behave differently.”
Julia has made it her mission to educate the public about cancer, and how to avoid it
(Image: ITV)
Julia added: “It’s very complicated. And that’s the reason why the war on cancer hasn’t been won yet.”
However, she says that there are certain basic rules that everyone can follow to maximise their chances of avoiding cancer: “I don’t believe there is one thing that will cure anybody’s cancer. I don’t think it’s one drug. I don’t think it’s one treatment. I don’t think it’s just one approach.
“I believe the cancer has to be treated holistically, that it it is to do with so many factors and if you’re not metabolically healthy, if you’re not a healthy person, if you’re not feeding yourself the right foods, if you’re drinking lots of alcohol and you’re eating lots of sugar, that’s not the best environment to fight cancer, because it’s a metabolic disease that’s feeding off all sorts of things.”
Since receiving her diagnosis in 2021, the Dublin-born presenter has deliberately slowed her pace of life, making sure that the first 20 minutes of her day are spent in quiet meditation and yoga breathing, instead of the mad scramble that shaped her busy life before cancer.
She added: “There is never enough time to do everything you will have to sacrifice something to make way for something else.” But when it comes to your health Julia adds, there’s nothing more important.