Water rights advocate Feargal Sharkey has opened up about his prostate cancer diagnosis, discovered inadvertently following a visit to his GP for an unrelated sore throat. The 66-year-old former Undertones frontman declared he’s in good health and remains committed to the fight for cleaner waterways, having had the issue “resolved” a year ago.
Speaking candidly on the state of UK rivers beside the River Lea in Hertfordshire, Sharkey recounted to the Express: “About a year and a half ago, I randomly went to see my GP with a sore throat.”
His long-trusted doctor, after a characteristic grumble, decided to run full tests, considering the singer’s age. He continued: “Now I’ve known him long enough but he goes ‘no no, you’re that bloke that used to sing. So if you’re telling me you’ve got a sore throat, there’s something going on’.
“So my doctor, being the beautiful, wonderful, awkward, cantankerous old man that is went ‘oh Feargal, by the way, you’re 65 now, I’m going to run the full battery of tests.”
Sharkey revealed: “Two days later, it turns out, I began a journey which led to the [diagnosis] of prostate cancer. “Fortunately, Sharkey reported that the issue was settled a year prior, and his life took a turn for the better. He shared this personal story to encourage other men to undergo cancer screenings and acknowledged the pivotal role his routine GP visit played in detecting his illness.
“The reason I’m very happy to talk about it is because if there’s one man out there over the age of 45 go and see your GP. Go and get the blood test done.”, reports the Express.
Making a heartfelt plea to men across the nation, the Teenage Kicks singer urged: “Now, for one in eight of you, you will be put in the same journey I’ve had and it’s quite astonishing to think that in this country right now, one in eight men have prostate cancer. Most of them don’t even know it. So go and have the blood test and if you’re lucky, you’ll walk away. If you’re lucky, like me hopefully, you’ll have caught it early on and you can deal with it and get on top of it. But, and I have such unbelievable admiration for Chris Hoy over the last couple of months, if you end up where Chris is, well you’re now looking for a very different outcome and not the one you were expecting for your life, my friend. So, for a blood test – go get it done right now.”
Six-time Olympic gold medallist Sir Chris Hoy, aged 49, revealed in February 2024 that he was fighting prostate cancer.
He delivered the gut-wrenching news that in October his prognosis had turned terminal after the cancer spread to his bones, with medics predicting a life expectancy of two to four more years.
Speaking from the historic Amwell Magna Fishery, Feargal Sharkey remarked: “I’m very well. I’m still here and I’m still going to carry on this [clean water] fight until it’s resolved and everybody can come down to beautiful places like this and get access to these kinds of rivers and go ‘it’s a hot day, I think I’ll go take a dip in the river’ without having to worry about the last time the local water company dumped poo into the river.”
2024 has seen record pollution levels with a shocking 3.6 million hours of raw sewage discharged into England’s rivers and the sea by water companies.
Sharkey didn’t mince words criticising the Labour government for indulging in “an awful lot of performative politics” since they took the reins last July.
Environment Secretary Steve Reed is spearheading an initiative to clean up Britain’s waterways, clamping down on water executives with measures that include a ban on bonuses and tough new penalties, potentially including imprisonment.
The music legend expressed his frustration, saying: “There’s an awful lot of people running around getting busy but actually nothing has changed.”
He quipped: “There’s an awful lot of pantomime going on. I’ll give you a couple of examples. ‘We’re going to send people to jail’. Actually, when I look at the detail, it’s specifically only for obstructing an investigation, not for just being a crude, abominable, greedy, self-interested, profiteering monopoly. Only if you obstruct an investigation, but by the way that’s actually been the law for the last 30 years anyways. So what have you done other than re-arrange the deck chairs?’Oh we’re going to ban bonuses’. The chair of Thames Water seems to have made his view clear ‘I’m just going to put the salaries up. You go right ahead’.
“In terms of actually dealing with the issue, little if anything has changed and I think an awful lot of people, particularly in the environmental world, already use the word betrayal. And those people do feel that they have been betrayed – and perhaps they have.”
Feargal declared that Ofwat and the Environment Agency (EA) “have all the teeth they could ever want”.
Nonetheless, he added: “The fact they refuse to close their mouths and bite, that’s a whole other story.
“The simple truth of the matter is the whole regulatory system needs utter reform.”
In reminiscence, Feargal, who blasted the privatisation of water as “an utterly failed experiment”, recounted how throughout his “remarkable” life, individuals would often engage him in chats about music and gigs.
The former frontman spoke out, “For the last four or five years, people now want to talk to me about shite in rivers. So can we fix this as quickly as possible? Cause I’d quite like to go back to talking about music and nice things again as opposed to other people’s poo.”
Feargal, who hails from Derry, Northern Ireland, grew up amidst the Troubles, influenced by his trade unionist father Jim – chair of the Old Derry Labour Party – and Sibeal, his mother, a key figure in the civil rights movement.
Reflecting on his childhood activism, Feargal recalled as a 10 year old boy attending the People’s Democracy march in January 1969, carrying what he later learned was an anarchist flag.
He shared how his background fuelled his environmental crusade: “When I realised the injustice that was being perpetrated on water bill payers and the great British public and the environment, and in the world I grew up in, if you saw what you perceived to be an injustice, it was demanded of you that you actually confronted it and did something about it. So once I’d worked that out, I had no choice. It’s in my DNA. I was going to have to stand up and do something.”
Officials at the Government have been solicited for their take on the matter.