Veteran DJ Johnnie Walker and his wife Tiggy brought radio listeners to tears as they shared how doctors warned the BBC icon to ‘prepare to go at any moment’ amid his battle against a terminal illness.
Johnnie, 79, has been suffering from Idiopathic Pulminary Fibrosis – an inflammation of the lungs – for the past four years – but has been left housebound and needing round the clock care since January.
The radio personality made listeners emotional as, in a special programme broadcast on Monday, he thanked Tiggy for ‘saving his life’ after he was diagnosed with cancer immediately after returning from their honeymoon in India around 20 years ago.
Johnnie said: ‘I’ve only got a finite amount of time left here in the physical, before I pass over. It’s a very reflective time for us.’
He continued: ‘Here we are at the end of my life when you’re having to care for me all over again.
Tiggy Walker (pictured right, with husband Johnnie), herself a broadcaster and long-time producer, has said their lives have changed beyond ‘all recognition’
Veteran DJ Johnnie Walker, 79, is now so unwell that he has been completely housebound since January, with wife Tiggy acting as his round-the-clock carer
‘You definitely saved my life when I went through cancer, I’m positive I wouldn’t have made it without you. Your love was just so sustaining, it gave me so much to look forward to. And your caring for me now makes my life so much better.’
The couple were reflecting on their 22 years spent together and the prospect of death with unusual candour for a special version of Johnnie’s show, which he has been making from home for the past four years.
Comparing her caring responsibilities now with when her husband had cancer, Tiggy said the big difference is she is now ‘twenty years older’.
‘I’m so tired,’ she said. ‘Sometimes I find it hard to go on.
‘When you had a Zoom consultation with the doctor from London recently, and he said “You should be prepared Johnny to go at any moment, is everything in order?” and he then went “Equally, you might be around for six months.”
‘And internally I thought, oh my goodness, how can I keep up this level of caring for six months? Because it’s just about my own energy. Caring is hard.’
She added that for the first six weeks of the year, she was ‘grieving’ the life she and Johnnie used to share, but after beginning a course of antidepressants, she is now ‘coping really well.’
‘It’s only by going to the doctors and going on antidepressants that I have kept going, because I was crying every single day and I was overwhelmed,’ she said.
Tiggy also said this time around, she has far more support from friends and family, who ensure she is also taking care of herself.
The couple revealed in a heart-wrenching radio programme that doctors had told Johnnie he should be prepared to ‘go at any moment’
For his part, Johnnie told his fans his wife is a devoted carer, helping him with all his everyday tasks.
He revealed they now sleep in separate rooms as he constantly relies on oxygen tanks and an oxygen machine to keep breathing.
‘Obviously we’re in separate rooms because the oxygen machine is quite noisy, it would keep Tiggy awake. She has to wonder whether I’m still going to be alive in the morning which must be very hard for her.’
Speaking about his approaching death, Johnnie revealed he has faith there is another world awaiting him, but confessed he is scared of how he might pass away.
He said: ‘The illness I’m dealing with is a fibrosis of the lungs so they gradually become more and more scarred, and less and less able to do their job of sending oxygen around the body and into my bloodstream.
‘So I do worry about becoming more and more breathless and suffocating as a way of dying.’
He continued: ‘I think there’s a world there and they’ve referred to it very often as the other side of the veil. I think it’s so close to the world in which we live but it’s at a much higher vibration, so it’s invisible.’
Johnnie added: ‘I’m more interested of the people I might meet.
‘There was the most beautiful little dog who was in our life for 14 years called D’arcey, and I adored her, and I think it was mutual, she adored me, I think she might be there with tail wagging, it would be lovely to see her again.’
His wife added: ‘I believe in life after death, I believe I’ll be reunited with Johnny and D’arcey [our] dog, when D’arcey died I thought I want to die so I can see her again.
The couple said they believe in an afterlife and are looking forward to being reunited after they have both passed away
‘I believe there is an afterlife there and I believe Johnny will be there with open arms.’
Listeners were brought to tears by the honestly the couple shared in the programme, with one writing: ‘This will take some time to finish listening to. You are both amazing. Sending love and hugs.’
Another said: ‘I listened in floods of tears love Pirate Johnny he has been with me although my married life the best DJ ever. Sending him and Tiggy lots of love.’
A third added they listened to it in the car: ‘I as so moved had to stop and pull over. I don’t know how Jeremy does it.’
Johnnie has been battling his illness for the past four years, but a trip to London to broadcast from Wogan House on New Year’s Eve had devastating effects, meaning he has not left his house since, according to his wife.
Tiggy, herself a broadcaster and long-time producer, has said she now acts as her husband’s ‘carer 24/7’ and their lives have changed beyond ‘all recognition.’
She said her husband has recorded his Radio 2 shows ‘wearing PJ’s, sat in a wheelchair with a nose canula feeding him oxygen.’
Tiggy said that the ‘shock’ she has experienced has been ‘profound’ and she was left ‘overwhelmed’ by how much support he needed, ‘how little’ she had and the fact their home was ‘starting to resemble a hospital.’
She has had to care for her husband before, when he was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma in his colon just after their honeymoon in 2003.
Johnnie then had to care for his wife when, in 2013, she was diagnosed with breast cancer.