‘We’re calling this the death’s door tour’: cancer and the power of sport | Andy Bull

James Howarth was diagnosed with lymphoma in 2014 and told he had six months to live. Five years later he was watching England’s journey to the Rugby World Cup final in JapanIt’s June 2014, and James Howarth is in a waiting room at Orpington hospital. A few weeks earlier, he’d been in to see the doctor about his acid indigestion. Too much beer and curry, he reckoned. But there was something there, a growth, on his pancreas. Now he’s waiting for a Cat scan. He gets talking to another patient, a cockney, Paul, who says to him: “So what cancer you got, son?” and James says back: “No, not me, mate…