Dame Deborah James has announced she has been working on a clothing collection to benefit charity
(Picture: Deborah James/Instagram)When Deborah James was nine years old, she trained as a gymnast for up to 30 hours a week. “I learnt at that young age that your mind is sometimes more powerful than your body,” James wrote in a blog post, “that whilst you can control it, at times it may seem like it controls you like a rollercoaster you are not in charge of — but work with it and anything is possible.”
She later speculated that the resilience she learnt from training amd competing nationally had gone on to help her with her illness: “You have a mentality that you can never end on a bad one, so if you fall off the beam, you get back on and you land it.”
Six years after being diagnosed with bowel cancer James, a former deputy headteacher, died yesterday at the age of 40. She leaves an extraordinary legacy: a blogger, journalist and presenter of the BBC Radio 5 podcast You, Me and the Big C, James raised millions of pounds to raise awareness of bowel cancer in the six years since she was diagnosed with the illness.
Born in London on 1 October 1981 to Heather and Alistair James, she grew up with a brother, Benjamin, and sister, Sarah, with whom she remained close. She studied economics at the University of Exeter and became a deputy head teacher specialising in computer science and e-learning. She worked in Surrey, at Salesian School, Chertsey and then Matthew Arnold School, Staines-upon-Thames, until her diagnosis with stage 4 terminal bowel cancer in December 2016. She was 35 and married to the city worker Sebastien Bowen, with two children: Hugo, then nine, and Eloise, then seven. She was given a prognosis of two years to live.
During treatment, James started a blog – Bowel Babe – in hopes of dismantling the taboo around bowel-related illness. The following year she was given a column in The Sun. She went on to start the BBC Radio 5 podcast You, Me and the Big C in early 2018, alongside fellow cancer patients Lauren Mahon and Rachael Bland. Bland died of breast cancer later that year.
James had worked hard as a deputy head teacher, and been on the verge of a promotion to head when she was diagnosed. “I was always a work-16-hours-a-day kind of girl and it’s hard to stop,” she said later – and so she became tireless instead in her efforts to raise money for cancer charities, campaign for the rights of patients, and raise awareness. She also, in 2020, made a BBC Panorama documentary about the impact of Covid on cancer care.
Her first book, F*** You Cancer: How to Face the Big C, Live Your Life, and Still Be Yourself, came out in 2018. In it, she addressed her children: “Hugo and Eloise, you are my world. You are my everything and I love you beyond comprehension. Know that whatever happens I am with you, I’m at your side and I believe you can do anything you want to do. I’m so proud of you and all I ask for you in life is to make the most of every single day.”
She wrote the book while undergoing chemo, and said later that she hadn’t expected to live to see it published. In fact she went on to write a second book, How to Live When You Could Be Dead, whose publication has been brought forward from January 2023 to this August; pre-sales have already allowed it to top the Amazon UK bestsellers chart.
James’s experience with cancer was a rollercoaster. She was treated at the Royal Marsden Hospital, where she had 17 tumours removed and took part in multiple drug trials. In 2020, she was told there was no evidence of cancer in her body, and she was well enough to run the London Marathon that autumn. But by early last year, her liver was failing, emergency surgery was followed by sepsis, and she was again close to death. A stent in her liver and more chemotherapy eventually bought her more time. Soon after her condition stabilised, she said, “I saw articles in the press about me and I thought, that is really sad – then I realised it was me and my story isn’t sad. It’s really positive.”
James displayed a determinedly upbeat attitude from the outset. Keen to spread the message that we should all pay attention to changes in our bowel movements, she bought a fancy-dress ‘poo’ costume soon after she was diagnosed. She wore it, with a mini-skirt and thigh boots, to film a video with a soundtrack of Right Said Fred’s I’m Too Sexy: in her costume, she dances, struts down the street and reclines mock-seductively on the bed. She went on to share the video every April for Bowel Cancer Awareness Month. Her final public message, shared by her family on Instagram, was: “Find a life worth enjoying: take risks; love deeply; have no regrets; and always, always have rebellious hope. And finally, check your poo - it could just save your life.”
The joy she found in fashion – of the non-costume variety – became one of her trademarks. “Rachael, my fellow podcast host and friend, who died of cancer, used to call it the reverse Dalai Lama, which I thought was really funny,” she told an interviewer last year. “She was always like, ‘If your insides are totally screwed, just work on the outside and fake the rest.’” During her illness, she often spoke about the jewellery and clothes she was buying to leave to her daughter.
After moving into hospice-at-home care in early May – at her parents’ home in Woking, with all the family around her – she looked increasingly frail in her social media updates. But her style did not slip. “I’ve found I need a routine,” she said. “Most days, I sit in the conservatory for at least an hour, in my wheelchair, brushing my hair and putting on mascara and lippy. I’ve found it’s really weirdly important to me, more so than ever.”
Around the same time, she launched the Bowelbabe Fund to support clinical trials and awareness-raising campaigns. “Please buy me a drink to see me out this world,” she asked her followers. She set her target at £250,000 but within two days she’d raised over £2 million. The total now stands at £6.9m. She was then honoured with a Damehood by Prince William, who visited her at her parents’ home. He later said, “I was very honoured to be able to speak to her – it felt like a very personal family moment.”
She did a last spate of interviews in May, telling one journalist, “Getting cancer and campaigning made me realise you can do anything in life: I felt so alive, strangely, just making a tiny impact.” In her final weeks, that impact continued: she launched a fundraising fashion collection with In The Style, with £650,000 of profits going to her Bowelbabe Fund within the first few days; she also celebrated her brother’s engagement, visited the Chelsea Flower Show, to see a rose named in her honour, had one last night at Glyndebourne with her husband and had a flutter at Royal Ascot. Thanks to her final push of publicity, cancer charities reported a huge spike in visits to their websites, with ‘tens of thousands’ searching for bowel cancer information.
James also recorded a farewell episode of You, Me and the Big C, filming herself on video at the same time. The episode is entitled Deborah James’ Last Dance. In it she is uncharacteristically emotional, describing how she is finally grappling with the certainty of death after years of avoiding it. She explains that despite every possible effort on the part of her medical team, her liver has failed – but then, in the midst of this awful thought, she pauses. “[I’m] currently now drinking champagne with rosé,” she confesses, and brings a fluted glass into view, finding a reason to smile despite it all.
