The Prince of Wales has praised Lorraine Kelly for the bowel cancer awareness campaign she and her crew are doing on her morning TV programme.
Lorraine has a strong relationship with the late Dame Deborah James, who not only tirelessly advocated for increasing public awareness of the disease but also generated millions of pounds for cancer research via fundraisers.
On June 28, 2022, she passed away at age 40.
Prince William, who presented her with a DBE just before she passed away, sent a video message of gratitude on Twitter on Thursday morning.
‘Hi Lorraine, just want to say a big thank you to you and your team for all you’re doing to raise awareness around bowel cancer through your ‘No Butts’ campaign,’ he said, addressing the camera.
‘As you know, I got to meet Dame Deborah, so I know how important this was to her – 46,000 people in the UK each year get diagnosed with bowel cancer and yet many of us don’t know the signs and symptoms of bowel cancer, particularly in us men.
‘So, if you’re watching this, please take a second to listen and learn about the signs and symptoms of bowel cancer. It could save your life.’
Following her colon cancer diagnosis in 2016, the late podcast host Dame Deborah chronicled her health journey on the show You, Me & The Big C, which she co-hosted with Lauren Mahon, Steve Bland, and his deceased wife Rachael Bland.
Through an online appeal, her Bowelbabe Fund for Cancer Research UK has amassed more than £11 million, and sales of her posthumously released book How To Live When You Could Be Dead have continued to generate income.
She cared more about the “engagement on cancer,” according to her brother Benjamin James, than the funds generated.
‘We were all focused on that first £1 million that was publicised but I remember Debs turning around and saying, “Now [there] is almost 330,000 individual donations.”
‘I think her view is all about the numbers [engaged] and she was reading the comments from so and so whether it’s £1 or £100,000, she was caring about the number of people that she was touching,’ he said on BBC Sounds live special, You, Me And The Big C: Putting The Can In Cancer in January.
‘And I think she kind of just brought home that it was about the engagement, not kind of, you know, the exact number.’
Dame Deborah’s mother Heather and sister Sarah Wieczorek joined the presenter on Lorraine on Monday to promote “No Butts.”
Sarah revealed that while her late sister was “so ill” when Prince William visited her house to give her her DBE, she made a concerted attempt to “hold conversation” on that particular day.
Recalling the surreal occasion, she said: ‘Afterwards you’re like, “Did I say anything wrong? Did I swear?” Because he just makes you feel so at ease.’
With Lorraine asking if Dame Deborah took it in her stride, Sarah responded: ‘Totally. She was so unwell but when he was there, she held the conversation.’
The women also talked about how, even though she was terminally sick, her ability for communication allowed others to talk to her more easily.
‘She made things simple, she bought the cheekiness into things and the sparkle. I think she broke communication down to a normal level,’ her sister added.