About Getting Men Talking
You, Me and the Big C: Putting the can in cancer
BBC
4.8 • 3.1K Ratings
🗓️ 15 July 2021
⏱️ 66 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Steve Bland is flying solo this week as he asks why men sometimes find it hard to talk and to share their stories. He’s joined by Danny de Brabander, who has stage four bowel cancer, and Joe Bellman, whose mum died from cancer in late 2019, to talk about the challenges and benefits of taking your story public and leaning on mates for support when the going gets tough.
Steve also asks grief expert and counsellor Jenni Thomas OBE if and why men find it harder to open up – and whether actually they might just take a different approach to grief and the trauma of cancer and serious illness.
Don't forget, you can get in touch by using the #YouMeBigC across all forms of social media - spread the word and share the positive support.
Email youmebigc@bbc.co.uk
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | BBC Sounds Music Radio Podcasts |
| 0:04.7 | The best way for me to approach this, I mean it's not an issue but this difficulty was |
| 0:16.8 | to set off a podcast where I talked to other young adults about loss, humorous and just |
| 0:23.1 | trying to talk about the reality of what is losing someone at such a young age but also just |
| 0:30.8 | breaking down the stigma because it's something that will affect all of us and having the |
| 0:36.3 | tools to handle it and be able to interact with anyone just makes life that much more |
| 0:42.5 | manageable. |
| 0:43.8 | Hello and welcome to You Me and The Big Seat. I'm Steve Bland, also known as just Steve |
| 0:50.2 | Bland and this week you've just got me for company and my slightly husky voice, I do |
| 0:55.3 | apologise, I've lost my voice a little bit, I think I shouted a bit too much at the football |
| 1:00.8 | but I'm on my own because in this series we wanted to do some podcasts on subjects there |
| 1:05.6 | are especially close to our hearts and talk to people who have direct experience of |
| 1:10.5 | those subjects. |
| 1:12.0 | Now one of my big passions is getting men talking about difficult topics because let's face |
| 1:18.0 | it, we're not always that good at it, are we, are we chaps? |
| 1:21.7 | So I did a talk the other week with a group called Make Seconds Count and as I was talking |
| 1:26.2 | about how important it was to have tough conversations early, a lovely lady with stage 4 breast |
| 1:33.7 | can said put a hand up and said well that's all very well but my husband doesn't want |
| 1:38.9 | to talk about it at all, he just shuts down conversation. |
| 1:42.9 | So this week we're going to explore a little bit about why that might be, what's going |
| 1:47.9 | on, what can we do to help? |
| 1:49.8 | A little later I'll be speaking to Jenny Thomas OBE who's a counsellor and expert in grief, |
... |
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