JOHN Myers insists he is optimistic as he prepares to begin treatment for throat cancer.

The Carlisle-born broadcaster has a tumour on his tonsil which has spread to his tongue.

On Tuesday he is due to begin six weeks of treatment at the Bobby Robson Cancer Centre in Newcastle's Freeman Hospital. Staff have told him there is an 80 per cent likelihood that the cancer will be eradicated.

John told The Cumberland News : "They never give you 100 per cent. But they're extremely confident.

"Eighty per cent is the best figure they give for anybody. This is right up there as a very curable disease.

"But because it's inside the throat the road to curability is much more difficult than some other cancers. Especially for someone who has spent a lifetime using his voice to earn a living.

"I'll have radiotherapy every day of the treatment programme and chemotherapy once a week. I'll be fed through a tube in my stomach. They'll pop me full of drugs and painkillers.

"They expect that I'm going to lose the ability to talk, my sense of taste, my saliva glands and the ability to swallow. They expect most of these to return. I won't lose my hair, but my sunroof will still be there!"

John, 58, has been told that recovery should take about six months. "The next six months is going to be hard. But it's curable - they are adamant about that. The bottom line is that I’m not dying, I may just feel like that for a few weeks."

John was diagnosed on January 4. His specialist thinks the tumour has been present for at least a year.

"I first noticed something when I presented the Carlisle Living Awards last September," said John. "Usually when you host an event your voice is a bit hoarse afterwards for a couple of days.

"This sore throat just wouldn't go away. I went to Mauritius on holiday for a couple of weeks. I came back and it was still there.

"I saw a specialist. They stick a camera up your nose and down your throat and do a scan and a biopsy.

"The shock at finding out is greater than the realisation that you're going to have to deal with it. It gives you a moment of pause and reflection. You have so many things planned for the year. You just have to put them on hold.

"For about a week I was thinking 'Why me?' Then you say to yourself 'Why not me?' I'm no one special. One in two people are going to get cancer at one time or another. I've never smoked. I don't drink. It's just bad luck.

"You have a week of 'How am I going to deal with this?' Then you resolve to just get on with it. I'm done with feeling down and being negative. That's not me. I'm extremely positive now.

"I've always had a very cheerful disposition. The glass has been more than half full. It's almost been overflowing.

"There's a lot of people a lot worse off than me. At the Bobby Robson Cancer Centre, seeing some of the people who come in and out of those doors makes me glad I've only got what I've got. Some people go in and are told that their cancer is incurable.

"Macmillan Cancer Support nurses have been very positive, encouraging and attentive. And very confident that I'm going to make a full recovery. I'm running towards the treatment now because I want to get through it."

John grew up on Carlisle's Harraby and Belah estates. In the 1980s he was a hugely popular continuity announcer on Border Television, often appearing with his puppet sidekick Eric the Monkey.

He then launched CFM Radio in 1993 and became a radio executive, buying stations worth more than £100m.

He and Linda have been married for 35 years and have two children, Scott and Kerry, and two grandchildren. They live in Northumberland.

"It will be unusual for my family when I'm not able to speak for a few weeks," said John. "They'll make the most of it!

"Linda is my rock. When you’ve had decades together as we have, you take great comfort just being together. There doesn’t need to be words, just a look or a touch that means so much to both of us as we go along this journey. The whole family have been enormously supportive and positive.

"My columns in Carlisle Living will provide updates, along with the humorous side of dealing with this thing called cancer. I'm booked to host the Carlisle Living Awards in October. I'm going to be ready for that.

"I don't want people to think they're reading an obituary here. I've been handed a problem and I'm dealing with it. I’ll be back giving people more than a little stick and good-natured banter for many years to come."