In my 69th year, I was diagnosed with stage 4 bowel cancer despite minimal symptoms. As a documentary filmmaker who does 95 % of all his films’ research and with extensive cancer knowledge following my 2019 prostate cancer diagnosis, I was blindsided.
However, once I started treatment, I became visibly shocked seeing some of the rising number of young people, in their 40s, 30s, and occasionally 20s, facing this "old person's disease."
Dame Deborah James famously said, "People my age don't get bowel cancer. 69-year-old men do."
She was 36 when diagnosed and died aged just 40. I'm now part of a stage 4 support group where the number of young mothers is not just surprising—it's alarming.
I knew I would utilise my skills to create a film that I would give away for free, aiming to help people, especially the young, become aware of the symptoms or, in many cases with the young, the lack of symptoms.
People over 50 are eligible for a test via a national screening programme. But as my film shows, the rise of bowel cancer in the young is growing significantly. Much of ONE IN TWO explores this.
Too many doctors are dismissing young people who think they have bowel cancer. As ONE IN TWO shows, in many cases, they have ignored this devastating cancer in favour of more palatable probabilities such as IBS. This needs to stop.
I commenced filming in November last year once I felt I had a chance of completing the film.
All documentaries succeed or fail because of the individuals taking part, and I have assembled the best group of bowel cancer experts I could have wished for, especially those living with it.
The interviewees are -
Lisa Andrews (Filmed Maggie’s St Barts London)
Lisa trained at St Barts Hospital and is a Trauma and Orthopaedic surgeon living with and navigating stage IV bowel cancer, which was diagnosed in 2020. Lisa works for Lewisham and Greenwich NHS Trust. She regularly operates on patients with bony metastases originating from bowel and other primary tumours.
David Burke (Filmed in Belfast, Northern Ireland)
Dr Burke, a trainee cancer doctor with personal experience of cancer, is dedicated to enhancing the quality of life for individuals undergoing anticancer treatments. Taking up a post as an academic clinical lecturer at Queen’s University Belfast and supported by the Belfast Trust Charitable Research Fund, David is currently collaborating with patients and scientists to develop new research into physical activity and nutrition support for people with bowel cancer.
Yasemin Hirst (Filmed Maggie’s, The Wirral, England)
Dr Hirst is a health psychologist and behavioural scientist whose research at the University of Lancashire aims to address inequalities in bowel cancer screening participation and earlier healthcare presentation to improve cancer outcomes. She collaborates closely with patients, the public, community-based organisations, Lancashire and South Cumbria Cancer Alliance, and the Bowel Cancer Screening Programme Health Promotion team to help identify ways to improve access to screening for underserved and marginalised communities.
Slaine Kelly (Filmed Dublin, Ireland)
Slaine, an actor and film producer, has known David Wilkinson since 2008. She is frank in her account of what she is going through. Diagnosed in April 2023 with colorectal cancer after a mysterious illness struck her on her 40th birthday, she is still battling it at the moment.
She has undergone an extensive abdominal surgery, which left her with a stoma bag, which she slowly started to advocate for.
She is on her 23rd round of chemotherapy and continues to hope that she will get on top of the prognosis, even though the doctors have said it’s inoperable at the moment. It’s a bleak prognosis, but she is continuing with the fight for herself and her 10-year-old son.
Laura Lee (Filmed Maggie’s West London)
Dame Laura, DBE, Maggie's Chief Executive, was a former oncology nurse and has been at the helm of Maggie’s since its inception in 1995. She met Maggie Keswick Jencks when Maggie was being treated at the Western General Hospital in Edinburgh. Laura was her Oncology Nurse, and together they worked on a blueprint for a different type of cancer care. When the first Maggie’s centre opened in the grounds of the Western General Hospital in 1996, Laura became Maggie’s first member of staff as Programme Director before becoming Chief Executive in 1998. Maggie’s now has 24 centres in the grounds of NHS hospitals across the UK, as well as a growing international network.
Iain Macleod QPM (Filmed Perth, Scotland)
Iain Macleod was diagnosed in June 2018 with Stage 4 colorectal cancer, with the extent of the spread making surgery impossible. The prognosis was bleak. A game changer was the availability of targeted therapy, which allowed him to undergo surgery in March 2019, and since then, there has been no evidence of recurrence. Iain has engaged deeply with various charities and support groups to both assist others affected by cancer and campaign for changes in screening and earlier diagnosis.
Seamus Martin (Filmed Dublin, Ireland)
Professor Martin has held the Smurfit Chair of Medical Genetics since 1999 at the Smurfit Institute of Genetics, Trinity College Dublin, Ireland. He is internationally acclaimed in the field of programmed cell death (apoptosis), which is crucial for the development and function of the immune system. He is one of the most highly cited scientists worldwide on this subject.
He was elected to the Royal Irish Academy in 2006, to the European Molecular Biology Organisation in 2009, and received The RDS/Irish Times Boyle Medal in 2015, Ireland's highest scientific honour. The Martin Laboratory is funded by an ERC Advanced grant as well as an Irish Research Council Advanced Laureate Award. He has also had cancer.
Nicola McLean (Filmed Maggie’s Lanarkshire, Scotland)
Nicola, who lives outside Glasgow, was diagnosed in April 2019 with stage 3 bowel cancer. She had visited her GP several times and was initially told she had IBS. After insisting on further investigations and when her symptoms had been overlooked, the cancer was finally detected.
Following extensive treatment, Nicola received another diagnosis in 2022, this time stage 4. She underwent cytoreductive surgery and HIPEC chemotherapy at Basingstoke Peritoneal Malignancy Institute. Nicola considers herself lucky to be alive, although she finds it difficult to cope with each day due to side effects and pain. Despite this, she feels fortunate and regularly attends Maggie’s and support groups.
Ravindhi Murphy (Filmed various hospitals in London)
Dr Murphy, David Wilkinson’s oncologist at West Middlesex University Hospital, is a Lower GI medical oncologist and medical adviser at the Centre for Drug Development, Cancer Research UK.
Stephen Rowley (Filmed Stroud, England)
Stephen is a survivor of Stage 3C colon cancer. In 2018, his brother Damon was diagnosed with Stage 4 colon cancer and died later that year. Since then, Stephen has become a cancer patient advocate. In 2020, he founded the Bowel Cancer Support Group UK, which has grown to a membership of 7000+ and subsequently became formalised as the charity Bowel Matters.
Aside from providing day-to-day patient support, Stephen is actively involved as a patient advocate in cancer research, particularly in the areas of early detection and screening. He represents patients regionally through the Cancer Alliance and SW Genomic Medical Service and represents the UK on the patient advisory committee of Digestive Cancers Europe.
Renee Shawcross (Filmed Oban, Scotland)
Renee, an Operating Department Practitioner with NHS Highland, regularly works in the Endoscopy/Colonoscopy department. She was diagnosed with stage 4 cancer at the age of 37, despite having no symptoms and no family history of the disease. Now aged 40, Renee is considered inoperable and incurable. She is a single parent to three young children.
Dale Vimalachandran (Filmed Maggie’s, The Wirral, England)
Dale is a specialist bowel cancer surgeon based in the North West of England. He leads a clinical team that investigates, manages and operates on patients with bowel cancer. He also runs a research group at the University of Liverpool that explores all aspects of bowel cancer, from early detection and personalised therapy to palliative management.
He is the national speciality lead for bowel research for the Association of Coloproctology of Great Britain and Ireland and the charity Bowel Research UK.
Further Filming
There are a few other people I wish to film, including one young woman who first had symptoms when she was just 19 years old and a young man who was 33.
So much for being an old person's disease.
I wish to raise £40, 000 to complete the film, which will be spent on further filming in England and Wales, as well as post-production work (including editing, sound post-production, music composition and recording, animated sequences, third-party image clearances, graphics, and other related expenses).
Should we exceed this goal, I wish to raise a further £40,000, which will be allocated for the film's theatrical release.
Until the Sony Warehouse fire and the subsequent bankruptcies of three companies owing me a significant amount of money, I ran a small film distribution company specialising in only British & Irish films. We released over 100 films in cinemas, online, on DVD, and licensed to broadcasters.
The purpose of the cinema release is to ensure editorial coverage across a broad range of media and to raise money and awareness for a charity, ideally Maggie's, which was so helpful to me in a very dark time.
After that, ONE IN TWO will be made available for everyone for free on the likes of Google, Amazon Freevee, Tubi, Pluto, Plex and anyone else who will support what I think is an essential educational film.
(Oh, yes. And the film's title... If you didn't know already, one in two people living now in the developed world will get cancer in their lifetime.)
Organizer
David Wilkinson
Organizer
England