Christine Hamill’s The Best Medicine: Strong backing from TV comic

Christine Hamill has just received a strong endorsement from comedian Harry Hill for her funny book about, as she says, the unfunny subject of cancer.

The Best Medicine, published by Little Island, is aimed at boys and girls from the age of nine and into adolescence. It will also strike a chord with adults, particularly those who are going through or have gone through the trauma of suffering from cancer.

Most particularly, it will make an impression on parents who are befuddled about how to explain to children that they are suffering from cancer or other life-threatening illnesses.

Which is where Harry Hill comes in - he of the distinctive bald head and nerdy appearance, old-fashioned specs, high shirt collars, breast pocket lined with ballpoint pens, and utterly daft but contagious line of humour.

Hill, who is best known for programmes such as You’ve Been Framed and Harry Hill’s TV Burp, reckons The Best Medicine is “wonderful”. Why wouldn’t he, considering he is a pivotal character in the book.

Autobiographical well

The Best Medicine is a work of fiction but there was a deep autobiographical well for Hamill to draw from.

It tells the story of 12-year-old Philip Wright, a wannabe comedian who always seems to be in the wrong, and his adventures and misadventures with a school bully called the Yeti, the young love of his life - a "goddess" called Lucy, and his best pal called Ang.

With a light touch, it also tells the story of how his mum has breast cancer and the consequent frustrations, bewilderments and comedies of errors and hormonal horrors as the mother first conceals this information from Philip, and then finally breaks the bad news to him.

To try and handle the pressure, Philip sends off a series of plaintive letters to his favourite comedian Harry Hill, asking him for advice on crazy mothers, fickle goddesses, dangerous bullies and fairweather friends.

It all drives the story along at a rollicking pace - the comedy and the serious matter of potential tragedy harmonising nicely.

Hamill, a single mother, was diagnosed with breast cancer over eight years ago when she was in her mid-40s and her son Callan was aged 10.

As well as the shock of the news, she suffered deep anxieties around her concern for herself and Callan, how she could tell him she was ill, and the uncertainties over what the future would hold.

“One Saturday night during my cancer treatment and not long after surgery I was in the kitchen struggling to make the dinner - close to tears with the effort,” she remembers.

“Just then, I heard my son laughing hysterically in the living room - this was falling off the couch laughing. I peeped in and saw that he was watching Harry Hill on TV.

Regular viewing

“I sat down and watched with him, and Harry Hill became regular viewing for us. It was a relief and a respite to be laughing. And of course it gave me the idea for this book.”

That little cathartic moment also helped the pair settle into a method of coping with her illness and all it would entail. During her treatment, Hamill had a mastectomy and axillary-node clearance, followed by radiotherapy, hormonal therapy and reconstructive surgery.

Hamill is a woman who subscribes to the notion that whatever doesn’t kill you makes you strong.

A native of Dungannon, Co Tyrone and an English teacher at Belfast Metropolitan College, she used her experience to write an earlier book, the successful - and also funny - B is for Breast Cancer: From Anxiety to Recovery and Everything in Between - A Beginner’s Guide.

That title was published two years ago, five years after she got the all-clear. Thankfully, she now remains cancer-free and is enjoying seeing her first novel coming off the presses.

Callan, who is now 18 and in the middle of his A-levels (and still a Harry Hill fan), acted as a sort of early editor of The Best Medicine, guiding her on the mysteries, confusions and experiences of young adolescent boys.

Hamill was uncertain how Hill would respond to being mentioned in The Best Medicine, conscious that comedians can be an unpredictable and capricious bunch. But there were no prima donna objections - Hamill got the go-ahead from Hill’s agent to use him as a character in the plotline.

And even better, after The Best Medicine was published - with an outline image of Hill on the cover - the comedian sent her a warm handwritten letter of approval and appreciation.

She also got a rave review from John Connolly, author of the Charlie Parker series of detective books, and who has also written young adult fiction.

He described it as “funny, moving and strangely empowering in its determination to laugh in the face of the seemingly unbearable”.

Hamill says if the book has any message it is to say to young people who have a parent who is sick - and to the parents themselves - that no matter the challenges, “it is all right to have conflicting feelings, and that you must keep on living, keep on laughing”.

The Best Medicine will be launched at the Belfast Book Festival on June 18th and will be published in the US and Canada early next year.