NODDY Holder’s wife Suzan has spoken about her husband’s diagnosis and treatment for oesophageal cancer as they raise awareness of this rarer type of cancer.

Speaking to GB News, she said: “Five years ago, Noddy was diagnosed with oesophageal cancer and was given six months to live, which, as you can imagine, was terrifying and horrifying.

“But the good news is, five years later, he’s had a form of chemotherapy that was very targeted, very intense.

“When he was given it five years ago, they told him that it was something that they hadn’t really given to anybody. He was 72 when he was diagnosed and when they gave it to him, and they never make any promises with any cancer treatment, but he’s doing great.

“We’ve decided to talk about now to raise awareness of oesophageal cancer, which is not the same as throat cancer. It’s one of the gastric cancers and it’s not something that gets a lot of attention.

“We also want to help The Christie with the work they’re doing and the amazing treatments that they have.

“We know we shocked some people, that’s not what we meant to do, and we don’t want to upset anybody.

“We’re very aware that a lot of people are going through all sorts of different things and all sorts of different illnesses and we don’t have a magic answer, but we’ll do we can say to people, even with a devastating diagnosis like that, there is always hope.

“They’re bringing on treatments all the time and this treatment that he had, has kept him healthy now for the last four and a half years.”

“One of the reasons we kept it private was because Noddy wanted to deal with it in his own way, which was to focus and to concentrate.

“He’s done it all with good humour, that kind of same naughty, that mischievous person has always been like that all the way.

“But telling other people is one of the hardest things because you see the pain you’re causing other people and the worry and we didn’t want to do that.

“We’ve had amazing messages, lots of wonderful, wonderful supportive messages and we don’t want to keep on talking about it forever.

“I want to be able to do the work we want to do with The Christie Hospital and raise some funds for the gastric cancer research fund.”