Inspirational Maggie's podcast to mark World Cancer Day

A series on inspirational podcasts all about people living with cancer is being launched by Maggie's to mark World Cancer Day.
The first Maggie's podcast is being launched on World Cancer Day. Pic: Philip DurrantThe first Maggie's podcast is being launched on World Cancer Day. Pic: Philip Durrant
The first Maggie's podcast is being launched on World Cancer Day. Pic: Philip Durrant

The charity, which offers free practical, emotional and social support to people with cancer and their family and friends today launched Maggie’s Podcast ‘All Together Now’.

The first in the Maggie’s Podcast series features interviews by BBC presenter Victoria Derbyshire, who was diagnosed with breast cancer last year.

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Victoria’s podcast, ‘All Together Now’, features stories that explore isolation from people with cancer and those who have had loved ones experience cancer.

The podcast aims to provide messages of inspiration and support to help people live well with cancer and explores some of the creative ways people tackle the isolation so often felt.

Victoria said: “I’m so happy to be presenting Maggie’s first ever podcast. It was poignant as well as uplifting to talk to some of the people who you’ll be able to hear in this recording.

“I’m a great believer in sharing experiences to try to let those who’ve been diagnosed or who are going through treatment, know that they’re not alone.”

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Maggie’s Podcasts have been created with the aim of providing inspiration to people living with cancer as well as their friends and family, recognising the need for something more than medicine when undergoing treatment.

With research showing that 89 per cent of friends and relatives admitted to experiencing feelings of helplessness, Maggie’s aims to provide support for everyone affected by cancer through its network of centres across the UK and online and the newly launched podcasts.

Emma Sutherland, 16, and Jamie McIntosh, 18, both from Edinburgh, are interviewed in the podcast. Emma wrote a book about her mum’s experience of breast cancer and Jamie wrote a book about losing his mum to cancer.

Both visited Maggie’s Edinburgh and in the podcast they talk to Victoria Derbyshire about the isolation they felt.

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Emma said: “When my mum was diagnosed in early 2012, I felt numb for quite a long time because I didn’t really know what I was supposed to be feeling. I had no-one to talk to about it and I wouldn’t dare talk to my mum because I thought it was a sensitive subject.

“I started to unravel and we went to Maggie’s and we actually started to talk about it a little bit.”

Jamie said: “You do feel isolated because you feel you don’t want to bring it up in your own home because you feel like your mum spends so much time in the hospital getting chemo or whatever and home is the place where actually she needs to relax and forget about the cancer.

“So you don’t want to bring it up and you do feel isolated and you do feel that, at times, there is nobody to talk to. For a teenager, it’s really horrible.”

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The ‘All Together Now’ podcast will be available to download from the Maggie’s website on February 4 here: www.maggiescentres.org/podcast

Further podcasts in the series will be available throughout the year, each with a focus on a different aspect of living well with cancer, including Food My Mother Taught Me, which will explore family and nutrition, Come Into The Garden, showing the healing power of gardening, and Maggie’s Men’s Hour, offering real stories from men affected by cancer.

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