Timothy Spall: Wine binge & my life-saving epiphany

Star hails miracle cancer survival

- NICOLA METHVENT

ACTOR Timothy Spall says he doesn't know if he has prayers, a bullish attitude or a vat of wine to thank for helping him recover from leukaemia.

The Wolf Hall star's first reaction to being told he had the cancer in 1996, aged 39, was to seek divine intervention.

He said: "I got down on my hands and knees immediately and prayed to God. 'Please God, don't let me die.

I've got three children, two of them are young. Please. Please"." At the time, Timothy should have been celebrating the release of his latest film, Secrets & Lies.

But instead of going to the Cannes Film Festival, he was sent to hospital - where they discovered that 80% of his blood was leukaemic.

The actor started chemotherapy the following morning and was told that had he gone to France, he would probably have collapsed and died.

"The prognosis is that it's going to kill you quick but if they get rid of it, it's going, and you stay in remission," he told Gyles Brandreth's Rosebud podcast. "You've got a very strong chance if you don't get it back after a certain amount of time."