HE is the great-grandson of one of the Labour party's co-founders who was once set to become the chairman of Ukip, but Blair Smillie says he is now the "happiest man ever" after defying the odds to survive a year on from a terminal brain tumour diagnosis.
The 63-year-old businessman, who ran an advertising agency which counted motoring giant Arnold Clark as one of its biggest clients, saw his life turned upside down a year ago today when he suddenly fell ill at work.
"He couldn't speak," said his wife of 42 years, Eleanor Smillie. "He couldn't take down someone's telephone number so one of the members of staff thought he'd had a little stroke and I said 'just get an ambulance and take him to the hospital'."
A CT scan subsequently revealed that Mr Smillie had an aggressive and deadly type of tumour known as a glyoblastoma multiforme in the area of his brain which controls speech and memory. Doctors believe it had developed quickly over the previous four or five months, but Mr Smillie said symptoms struck "out of the blue".
He said: "There was nothing at all even the day before where you could have looked back and said 'there was a problem there'. But I was under huge stress that day and I think it was the stress that brought on the symptoms."
Twelve days later, surgeons successfully removed 90 per cent of the tumour but estimated that the aspiring politician, who stood for Ukip in the 2015 General Election and was in the frame to become the party chairman, would have around 12 months to live.
However, a year on the tumour remains the same size. Mr Smillie responded to chemotherapy so well that oncologists took the unusual decision to approve another six month course after the first six, and he says the diagnosis gave him new lease of life. He said: "The first ten days a difficult. But I decided after I had the operation that the first day after it was the first day of the rest of my life and I'm happiest man I've ever been. When someone gives you a year to live, it changes you."
Mr Smillie grew up in Ayrshire and is the great-grandson of Robert Smillie, a co-founder of the Labour party. He and Mrs Smillie, an interior decorator from Springburn in Glasgow whose clients have included Manchester United star Rio Ferdinand, moved to Chester 32 years ago but now rent a property in Glasgow's west end after falling in love with the area during a weekend visit last year.
Mr Smillie says he wants to use the rest of his life to help others cope with their own terminal cancer. He said: "I've always looked at Robert Smillie and admired somebody who spent his whole life trying to help others to have a better life. I'm fortunate. We have enough money to eat well. I have my wife. But what happens to these guys who don't have the money or anyone to support them? The Maggies centres are fantastic but they are full of women. Yet in hospital you see lots of guys there on their own. What can we do for them? Maybe there should be a buddy system? Something to bring men with cancer together to share the experience."
He added: "You can't change yesterday and you can't predict tomorrow. You have to live for today. People make plans thinking about what they're going to do for years to come. I would say to everyone: enjoy your life, do good for other people."
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