Bangers and Mash - A Tourist's Guide to Cancer

Bangers and Mash is no ordinary life story - it's a tourist's guide to cancer treatment in pictures. "Being treated for cancer is like being in a foreign country," is how author Keith Hern puts it, "and what you really need is a guidebook." Early on in Keith's battle against throat cancer he began to keep a diary but, being a photographer, Keith's diary is in pictures as well as words. Recruiting amused nurses and tolerant radiographers to hold the camera, Keith's book de-mystifies cancer treatment and chronicles every step of the way back to health. Not always a comfortable read, Bangers and Mash is fast-paced and completely compelling. Most importantly, it is intended to help patients and their families understand "what they are in for." The big lesson is that it's not all bad. The book doesn't pull any punches, but you do learn how it is possible to live through the treatment and get on with your life. Keith being Keith, he tends to do it with a smile, so those pictures are very reassuring. Bangers and Mash has already been widely circulated through the nursing staff at the Royal Marsden hospital where Keith was treated, is one of the best-selling books in the hospital's bookshop and Macmillan cancer support have bought a dozen for their researchers.