Beloved Radio 2 presenter Johnnie Walker and his wife Tiggy are together accepting the reality of his incurable illness after Tiggy revealed her husband has weeks to live.
Tiggy, 63, appeared on Jeremy Vine‘s radio show on Monday and shared the sad news that Johnnie, 79, has incurable idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis.
Former television commercials producer Tiggy, who has been married to Johnnie for more than 20 years, said so many people who love Johnnie have been in touch.
‘Listeners write in even though they don’t know our address. They just put ‘Johnnie Walker, DJ, Dorset’ on the envelope, and somehow it gets to us. Ray Davies, Peter Kay, even Elton John rang the other day,’ she said in an interview of her and her husband in The Telegraph.
‘He’s a very thoughtful man. I helped him out at the start of his career, gave him a lot of radio play. He wanted me to know he had never forgotten that,’ Johnnie said of Elton.
DJ Johnnie Walker and his wife Tiggy Walker have been married for over 20 years
Radio 2 star Johnnie insisted on continuing broadcasting from home throughout his illness
Johnnie’s Sunday show Sounds of the 70s has been delighting around two million listeners a week for nearly 15 years.
The radio star is now wheelchair bound and dependent on an oxygen machine but continues to broadcast from home.
His doctor says that he could die at any moment. He was initially given two to five years to live and the five year mark is this August.
Tomorrow afternoon Johnnie will make reference to his illness for the first time on his radio show.
The song he has chosen to open the show will be Smokey Robinson’s Tears of a Clown. But he says it’s not for sentimental reasons, more because he just loves the song.
The couple moved to Dorset three years ago after Tiggy realised the damp in their adored Georgian farmhouse was exacerbating Johnnie’s illness.
Their new-build, single storey home allows Johnnie to easy access to his recording studio whenever he is in the mood to listen to some music. His favourite artists include John Prine, Jackson Browne, and Bruce Springsteen.
Tiggy is not a fan of the new home, but Johnnie spends a lot of time in the main room, which has floor-to-ceiling windows and a view of fields. They have also covered their walls with paintings.
Apart from occasionally panicking if he can’t breathe, Johnnie is thankfully not in any pain – although he doesn’t like to talk about it.
The couple have only chosen to speak out about Johnnie’s illness to bring attention to Carers Week, which ends tomorrow.
They have been co-patrons of the charity Carers UK for more than a decade.
The pair met in 2001, a year after he divorced his first wife Frances Kum, with whom he has a daughter, Beth, and son, Sam.
Johnnie married Tiggy in 2002 and fell terribly ill on their honeymoon in Kerala, India, with what turned out to be non-Hodgkin lymphoma.
Tiggy went from new bride to full-time carer. Johnnie recovered and went back to work in 2004.
In 2013, Tiggy was diagnosed with stage-four breast cancer, from which she has now recovered.
Johnnie recalled how his wife was not an easy patient as she prefers to be in control.
Tiggy said the chemo made her fat and she felt like dying.
However Johnnie too, she said, was ‘awful’ when he had chemo.
‘It completely changed your personality. I once cooked you pea soup and you screamed at me: ‘I don’t f—ing want pea soup!’
Carers UK estimates that more than 10 million people have been or are caring for a loved one, saving the NHS around £162 billion a year.
This is the equivalent, in effect, says the charity, of a second NHS, which receives about £164 billion each year in funding in England.
The Government pays carers £81.90 a week, but only if they earn less than £150 a week.
According to Tiggy, the whole healthcare system is outdated and wants people who are dying to be cared for at home.
The job is so demanding six out of seven carers give up their jobs entirely. Tiggy quit her well-paid and successful career to look after Johnnie.
Tiggy is now Johnnie’s part-time manager, she has a column on the local paper and she is developing a film based on Naomi Jacob’s 1964 novel Antonia.
‘There are a lot of people who are suffering. The NHS and the government need to be much more aware of the impact of all this on the carer,’ Tiggy said.
Tiggy and Johnnie fell in love at first sight. She was the career woman with her own production company, he was the laid-back DJ whose Radio 2 show had become the most listened to drivetime show in the UK.
When Johnnie developed cancer she felt very alone because he hated being ill.
Johnnie is prepared for death and says he’s not afraid and believes in life after death
The couple are looking forward to being reunited after they have both passed away
Tiggy has support from Johnnie’s daughter Beth, a website designer, who lives an hour away and comes over frequently to help.
The couple can also rely on friends and other family members for help, including Tiggy’s brother, a chef, who often comes over and cooks dinner.
They have a carer who comes on Wednesdays allowing Tiggy some time to herself which she sometimes uses to day trip to London to watch a play or have some down time.
The couple still have dinner together and try to maintain a normal life. They say it’s like their own mini lockdown.
Much as Tiggy fears Johnnie’s death, the idea she’d have to care for him for another six months is equally scary due to the exhaustion it’s caused her.
Tiggy said after falling in love as equals, it was hard to have a new caring relationship because of the parent-child dynamic.
Johnnie agreed that the caring aspect of their relationship killed the romance a bit.
The couple now sleep in separate bedrooms, don’t travel. and hardly make it out to the pub.
The couple talk with astonishing frankness about the inevitability of what is about to happen. Tiggy is looking forward to fulfilling the plans she has made for her life after Johnnie dies.
When Tiggy married Johnnie, his career definitely took priority.
She was enraged by the fact some BBC producers implied she should feel lucky to be Johnnie’s wife.
While it’s hard to imagine life without Johnnie, she is looking forward to the empowerment that will bring and taking control of her life.
She has already contacted an estate agent about the bungalow the two of them currently reside in.
She has her eye on a cottage a couple of miles down the road. She is certain she won’t have another relationship.
Johnnie is just as matter-of-fact. He says he needs to die quickly so that she can get on and make her film.
His son Sam came over from Australia in November and Johnnie has prepared for the fact he probably will never see him again. He has moved all his streaming accounts into Tiggy’s name and paid off the credit cards.
The couple have even started selling Johnnie’s clothes online through the secondhand marketplace Vinted.
Johnnie is mulling over whether to sell his vinyl collection to put behind the bar for the wake. The funeral is finalised but the pair won’t reveal the details yet.
After the service Tiggy has said she wants the hearse to go up the high street to Springsteen’s Born to Run.
Tiggy says the BBC has always underestimated Johnnie, that it has never fully appreciated his talents, although she is quick to point out they have been brilliantly supportive since he became ill.
When he was first diagnosed, Johnnie was fearful that listeners would hear there was something wrong with his breathing, even though everything was carefully edited.
Sir Elton John and Johnnie Walker together in 2004
Johnnie Walker told his two million listeners he could die at any moment
He wanted to keep broadcasting to give him purpose and to ensure Sounds of the 70s remained a part of his fans’ Sunday afternoon.
For Johnnie, Cyndi Lauper’s Time After Time brings back memories of Tiggy. The lyrics ‘If you fall I will catch you, I will be waiting, time after time’ are especially meaningful to him.
Both believe in the right to assisted dying, although Johnnie has a few more reservations than Tiggy. It is not, though, an option for him.
Johnnie has said if he gets a chest infection he would not want to go to hospital, but remain at home. He is hoping he might die in his sleep.
‘I’m not afraid. I believe in life after death. I know I’ll be able to look down on Tiggy. She’ll go through loss and sorrow but she will also be free.’