West Country nurse with prostate cancer uses his own experience to help others

New research reveals a shocking lack of awareness among men about the risk of prostate cancer, leading to thousands of needless deaths each year.

Now a former West Country nurse is using his own experience to help others, after he was diagnosed with the disease.

Peter Breslin was diagnosed with an aggressive form of prostate cancer five years ago. Since then he's taken to the road, spreading the word about the most common cancer in men across the length and breadth of the country. He currently lives in a caravan at a Devon camp site.

"As you can see, I'm a vagrant essentially. I'm of 'no fixed abode', which is what I'm classed as actually. So if I go anywhere and they ask 'where do you live?' I say 'no fixed abode."

He gives talks for Prostate Cancer UK, but also talks one-to-one with men who've recently been given the bad news.

"I think I can help by reassuring them that although they have been diagnosed with prostate cancer that this can be lived with it, as I can prove to them by relating my experience of having been diagnosed with prostate cancer and actually living with it. I can make them realise that cancer is not the end of the world and that we can deal with it."

One in eight men may have to deal with it at some time, but if it's caught early enough they should live at least another ten to fifteen years. But the Prostate Cancer charity found 92% of us don't know what it does.

Peter was a nurse in Launceston and Plymouth, and conversations around the camp site soon turn to his favourite topic. His neighbour at the Exeter Racecourse camp site has already had successful treatment for his prostate cancer.

Derek: "It's only a body, you've got to go and get it fixed. If your car broke down what would you do? Take it straight to the garage. You've got to do exactly the same with your body."

"I'm told men are often reluctant to go and see their GPs, and it takes a nag from the wife."

"True! Our daughter's a nurse and directly he told her, she had him down there like a shot."

Peter had no symptoms at all when his cancer was discovered. He says men should get checked regularly.

"Now the great thing is, the quicker you pick it up the much better the treatment is. Surgery to start with and obviously other types of therapy afterwards. So it's to get men not to be complacent really. Get them to talk to their wives because their wives will tell them, come on, you've got to do this. That's why we like to get to ladies because they will usually give their husbands a nudge - usually quite a vicious nudge - to get them to go and see the doctor."

Peter is determined to live with his cancer, not die from it. This 73 year old is now planning to learn to fly.