‘I have terminal cancer. My best friend is a war correspondent. And we’ve bet on who will die first’
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Gary Lovelace and John Sweeney were close school friends in Eastleigh, Hampshire. Gary, now 66, went on to become a headteacher: John, now 65, became an investigative journalist and war reporter who worked for Newsnight and Panorama.
Three years ago, Gary was diagnosed with untreatable kidney cancer and the childhood friends set up Laughing at Death: a crowdfunding page for their favourite charities. At the same time, they conjured up a bet: the man who lived longer would give some of their donations to the charity of the one who had died.
Former headteacher Gary Lovelace, 66, lives in Leeds. He has incurable kidney cancer
When I was diagnosed with cancer in 2021, I found it difficult to tell people, initially. I had slipped when getting out of the bath seven months earlier and found a fleshy lump below my left ribs.
I thought it was the injury but when it hadn’t gone away, in February, I went to the GP – who was concerned. Despite Covid, I was seen within the two week cancer referral and a scan revealed a 16cm tumour. They operated and removed the cancer but a further scan revealed five more tumours on my liver.
On my birthday that year, June 17, the consultant confirmed I had inoperable, stage four cancer. She asked if I wanted my prognosis but I made the deliberate decision not to find out. I couldn’t imagine what I would do with that information. I kept it quiet for a few months, and didn’t tell many people.
Then, last November, my old school friend – the war reporter John Sweeney – invited me to a book launch in London. I was determined to attend, but as a result of the tablets I was taking to shrink and stabilise the tumours, on the day I felt too ill to go.
John called and told him I had kidney cancer. He asked about my prognosis. When I told him I didn’t know, he joked, “Well, I might be killed by a missile first.” John was returning to Kyiv a week later and came to visit me in Leeds before he left.
Over pints of hand-pulled Yorkshire bitter in the pub, we realised there might be something in his throwaway comment. So we decided to formalise it into a charity bet with the simple wager: whoever dies first, wins.
John and I first met at Barton Peveril Grammar School, in Eastleigh, Hampshire. Growing up, I was quiet and he was larger than life; I was from a working class family and he was from the posh part of town. He was also a year below me but our worlds collided in sixth form when I retook my A-levels and we immediately hit it off.
It turned out we both had a common interest in making people – and each other – laugh. We’d go to the pub together every Friday and Saturday night and stop for fish and chips on the way home.
John became a journalist and I married my wife Fiona, moving up to Leeds where I worked as a teacher then a headteacher. Years would pass where we wouldn’t see each other but, like all great friendships, it was all there when we came back together. Whatever we did together as pals, whether we were with mates on a canal boat trip, camping in the New Forest or at a pub singalong, it was always full of fun and laughter and a fair bit of mischief too.
There was a trip to a windmill in Norfolk where he fell into the canal and lost his glasses during a barge holiday. His stag do and the wedding, in Northern Ireland, which involved a group of us in a B&B walking in the day and drinking at night.
John and I have always shared a sense of humour, and it’s this we have imported into our bet. We set up a fundraising page and asked friends and family to donate to my chosen causes, cancer and mental health charities, including Yorkshire Cancer Research, and John’s causes, Ukrainian charities. The “winner” gets 51 per cent of the pot for their charities and 49 per cent goes to the loser’s.
In the meantime, I have made a decision to live a normal life, as much as I can. I do what makes me happy: spending time with my wife of 34 years and two children, seeing live bands, looking after our three-year-old grandson, chairing the local grassroots football league and even playing football, badly, as ever.
I get hit by the fatigue that goes with the cancer but I try to do a lot. People say to one another, “You could get run down by a bus tomorrow.” Well, I can see the bus coming now and John spends half his time working in a war zone.
The situation we’re both in gives us permission to laugh about it and people seem to think it’s brilliant and inspirational. It keeps us more connected too – I like to remind him that more of my friends, even former pupils, have donated than his.
John’s already told me that if I go first, he wants to speak at my funeral – I was incredibly touched by this. What we are facing could be bleak but I couldn’t imagine a world where I wasn’t laughing with a pal. It’s an unusual approach to incurable cancer but I’m all for it. Remembering all the merriment and laughter that John and I have clocked up over the years has been wonderful for me.
War reporter and author John Sweeney, 65, lives between London and Kyiv
I’d better get on with seeing Gaz because one of us could die before I’m next home. It is unlikely you’ll die as a journalist in Ukraine – I’ve been living and reporting from the centre of Kyiv since February 2022 – but it’s not an exaggeration to say that it’s not impossible.
There’s constant humour in Ukraine too, people laugh in the face of danger here just the way Gaz and I approach the idea of death, with the kind of laughter we’ve always enjoyed.
When I took the call from Gaz last year, we hadn’t seen each other for almost a decade. I’m 65 now and the melancholy thing about growing old is that your friends start slipping away, but Gaz had always been so full of life and laughter and fun – the idea of him not being around was just so horrible. I knew I wanted to see him so I changed my plans and went up to Leeds the next weekend.
Like many male friends, we’d go long stretches not seeing each other but whenever we came back together it was as though we’d never stopped talking and the jokes and laughs came tumbling out. So when we met in the pub, following his diagnosis, we invited a third friend along and it was exactly like we were 18 all over again.
I discovered that Gaz had this awful cancer and didn’t know how long he had, I was devastated and awed by his courage. “Seriously,” I said, as we moved from pints to red wine. “Who’s to say you die first?” The best way to settle it was with a bet that did some good for others too.
We set up the wager then and there and got a third school friend, who was with us, to record a video for our fundraising page. We’ve raised over £5,000 so far by sending round our crowdfunder, for charities we really care about. Gaz was a much-loved headteacher who has generated lots more comments and donations from well-wishers on there than I have mustered. He’s won the personal vote.
People might think it’s unusual and flippant to look at death and illness this way but I don’t think it is unique to us at all. I think lots of people find ways to laugh in our situation; to stick it out there in the form of a bet might be a different thing.
The best part is that it’s typical of our friendship and we have an entirely shared goal: neither of us wants to win, and neither wants to lose.
Donate to Gary and John’s chosen charities via their fundraising page: www.crowdfunder.co.uk/p/laughing-at-death
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