I'm so lucky to have beaten cancer, says Python legend Terry Jones

The 65-year-old writer and director was diagnosed with the disease after a routine medical in October.

Now, after surgery and chemotherapy, he is fully recovered and enjoying life with his 23-year-old Swedish girlfriend Anna Soderstrom.

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Speaking from their home in Highgate, North London, Terry said: "I'm in great health and great spirits. I feel incredibly lucky that the illness was spotted so early.

"I urge all men over the age of 50 to go for a routine colonoscopy. This would save lives. Colon cancer is incredibly common and you don't necessarily have any symptoms; you don't feel ill."

Terry - whose fellow Python Graham Chapman died aged 48 in 1989 after contracting throat cancer - added: "At the moment I'm doing great. In some ways it seems as if I was never really ill. At least I never felt ill.

"They stuck a camera inside me and found a tumour. I was taken straight into hospital to have it removed and I recovered extremely quickly after that."

Terry's was one of the 35,000 new cases of bowel cancer diagnosed every year - the third most common cancer in men - with eight out of ten cases among the over-60s.

However, if it is caught early, the recovery rate can be 85 per cent.

Just nine days after the operation, Terry was seen strolling hand- in-hand and drinking in his local pub with Anna - his partner since he and his wife Alison split in 2005 - but he appeared tired and gaunt.

"I didn't feel great after the operation for a few weeks but I'm feeling wonderfully on top of things at the moment," he said.

Anna, who was studying at Oxford when she met father-of-two Terry at a book signing, helped nurse him back to health.

"I recovered very quickly and had a lot of support from friends and family," he said. "That, and the odd glass of beer, aided my recovery."

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