Musical theatre star Alfie Boe was 23 when his dad (and namesake) Alfred died of a brain tumour.
He became a patron of Brain Tumour Research 27 year later – a charity that raises funds to find a cure. Naturally, Alfred’s diagnosis had a momentous impact on his son. His response to it surprised him, too.
Alfie – on Michael McIntyre’s Big Show tonight (February 15) – told his beloved’s story last summer…
Singer Alfie was 23 when his dad died (Credit: YouTube)
Alfie Boe on early signs of dad’s illness
Alfred Boe first started having conspicuously bad headaches in his early sixties. Alfie was 40 years younger than his dad, and “feels his loss very deeply even now”, nearly three decades after his death.
His headaches were accompanied by problems with his eyesight. A GP dismissed them as symptoms of the flu, and sent him away with some antibiotics, Alfie wrote when he took up the mantle at Brain Tumour Research.
An optician had a very different opinion, and urged him to get a brain scan immediately. They thought he might have suffered a stroke; but a biopsy proved them wrong.
Doctors explained to Alfie, his siblings and their mum that Alfred had an “aggressive, inoperable” brain tumour, “and there was nothing they could do”.
“It was a very intense, awful experience and I remember even to this day how Dad was so apologetic,” Alfie wrote.
“It was crazy,” he said. “He was the one who had been told this dreadful news and yet there he was saying sorry to us and feeling guilty because he was unwell.”
He has since decided to team up with Brain Tumour Research to help improve the funding landscape for researchers of the disease (Credit: YouTube)
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