Johnnie Walker’s wife says ‘we’re openly confronting’ fact that radio star has only weeks to live – and reveals she is already selling his clothes on Vinted

Beloved Radio 2 presenter Johnnie Walker and his wife Tiggy are together accepting the reality of his incurable illness after Tiggy revealed her husband has weeks to live.

Tiggy, 63, appeared on Jeremy Vine‘s radio show on Monday and shared the sad news that Johnnie, 79, has incurable idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis. 

‘So many people who love Johnnie have been in touch,’ says former television commercials producer Tiggy, who has been married to Johnnie for more than 20 years. 

‘Listeners write in even though they don’t know our address. They just put ‘Johnnie Walker, DJ, Dorset’ on the envelope, and somehow it gets to us. Ray Davies, Peter Kay, even Elton John rang the other day.’

‘He’s a very thoughtful man,’ Johnnie of Elton. ‘I helped him out at the start of his career, gave him a lot of radio play. He wanted me to know he had never forgotten that.’ 

Johnnie’s Sunday show Sounds of the 70s has been delighting around two million listeners a week for nearly 15 years.

Johnnie is now wheelchair bound and dependent on an oxygen machine but continues to broadcast from home. 

His doctor says that he could die at any moment. He was initially given two to five years to live and the five year mark is this August.

His doctor said that he could die at any moment. He was initially given two to five years to live and the five year mark is this August.

Tomorrow afternoon Johnnie will make reference to his illness for the first time on his radio show.

The song he has chosen to open the show will be Smokey Robinson’s Tears of a Clown. 

‘Not for any particular reason except that it’s a great song. I’m not yet at the stage where I’ve become sentimental about my choice of records. When I realise that I’m broadcasting my very last few shows, it might happen then,’ Johnnie says.

The couple moved to Dorset three years ago after Tiggy realised the damp in their adored Georgian farmhouse was exacerbating Johnnie’s illness.

 Their new-build, single storey home allows Johnnie to easy access to his recording studio whenever he is in the mood to listen to some music. His favourite artists include John Prine, Jackson Browne, and Bruce Springsteen.

Tiggy is not a fan of the new home, but Johnnie spends a lot of time in the main room, which has floor-to-ceiling windows and a view of fields. They have also covered their walls with paintings.

‘I panic occasionally when I can’t breathe. But the good thing is I’m not in any pain. 

‘I feel like an old man in a pub talking about what’s wrong with me. I’m not at ease talking about it really,’ Johnnie says.

‘The spotlight doesn’t seek me out. I don’t like fuss. I’m a modest man.’

The couple have only chosen to speak out about Johnnie’s illness to bring attention to Carers Week, which ends tomorrow.

They have been co-patrons of the charity Carers UK for more than a decade.

The pair met in 2001, a year after he divorced his first wife Frances Kum, with whom he has a daughter, Beth, and son, Sam.

 Johnnie married Tiggy in 2002 and fell terribly ill on their honeymoon in Kerala, India, with what turned out to be non-Hodgkin lymphoma. 

Tiggy went from new bride to full-time carer. Johnnie recovered and went back to work in 2004. 

In 2013, Tiggy was diagnosed with stage-four breast cancer, from which she has now recovered.

‘She wasn’t a very good patient. Because, of course, she wasn’t in control. And Tiggy loves to be in control,’ Johnnie says.

‘I was fat and bloated on steroids. The chemo was so bad it felt like dying,’ Tiggy says.

Tiggy also says in front of Johnnie that he was ‘awful’ when he had chemo. 

‘It completely changed your personality. I once cooked you pea soup and you screamed at me: ‘I don’t f—ing want pea soup!

‘We were not long married, I was terribly insecure and like a terrified rabbit. I was no longer sure who I had married. After you went back to work I sank into a dreadful depression,’ she says to Johnnie.

Carers UK estimates that more than 10 million people have been or are caring for a loved one, saving the NHS around £162 billion a year.

This is the equivalent, in effect, says the charity, of a second NHS, which receives about £164 billion each year in funding in England. 

The Government pays carers £81.90 a week, but only if they earn less than £150 a week. 

The job is so demanding six out of seven carers give up their jobs entirely. Tiggy quit her well-paid and successful career to look after Johnnie.

‘The whole system is out of date,’ says Tiggy. ‘The way healthcare is going, [the NHS] doesn’t want to take people who are ill into hospitals or homes or hospices. 

‘They want these people to be cared for at home. The NHS bring you the equipment – the bath lifts, the wheelchairs, the oxygen machines. But it does depend on one person to do it all – a spouse, a mother, a daughter.’

Tiggy has since become Johnnie’s part-time manager, she has a column on the local paper and she is developing a film based on Naomi Jacob’s 1964 novel Antonia.

‘I’m not of the belief that the government should support everyone in every situation. I don’t believe in victim culture, no one ever said life is fair. 

‘But there are a lot of people who are suffering. The NHS and the government need to be much more aware of the impact of all this on the carer,’ Tiggy says.

Tiggy and Johnnie fell in love pretty much the day they met. She was the no-nonsense, glamorous career woman with her own production company, he was the laid-back DJ whose Radio 2 show had become the most listened to drivetime show in the UK. 

When Johnnie developed cancer she felt very alone. ‘He was still in his 50s, with everything to live for, he hated being ill. 

‘I’m of the generation where you just get on with it, but I also felt terribly ignored. There was no recognition back then of carers at all,’ Tiggy says. 

Tiggy has support from Johnnie’s daughter Beth, a website designer, who lives an hour away and comes over frequently to help. 

The couple can also rely on friends and other family members for help, including Tiggy’s brother, a chef, who often comes over and cooks dinner.

They have a carer who comes on Wednesdays allowing Tiggy some time to herself which she sometimes uses to day trip to London to watch a play or have some down time. 

The couple still have dinner together and try to maintain a normal life. ‘It’s a very tender time for us,’ she says. ‘It’s like our own mini lockdown.’

‘To be honest, Johnnie could live for another six months and, on one level, the thought terrifies me. I am utterly exhausted.’ 

‘You meet and fall in love and you are equals,’ says Tiggy. ‘Then when Johnnie went to hospital after our honeymoon, it was as though I had become a mother and Johnnie was the child, because of how the illness had affected him, some of the caring I had to do was repulsive.’

‘That’s a bit personal,’ chips in Johnnie. ‘I’m not sure I want to talk about that. But it’s true, this illness is a bit of a downer on the romance side of things.’ 

The couple now sleep in separate bedrooms. ‘We used to travel an awful lot, go to parties. Now, we can’t even go to the pub.’

 The couple talk with astonishing frankness about the inevitability of what is about to happen. Tiggy is looking forward to fulfilling the plans she has made for her life after Johnnie dies.

‘When I married Johnnie, his career definitely took priority. There was even an infuriating perception among some BBC producers that I was lucky to be Johnnie’s wife. 

‘Now as I move into my 60s and Antonia is coming together, I feel I’m coming back into my power. I can’t imagine what it will be like with Johnnie not being here, but I will also be in charge of my life again. A bit of me is excited about that.’

She has already contacted an estate agent about the bungalow the two of them currently reside in.

‘The brochures are ready to go,’ Tiggy says. She has her eye on a cottage a couple of miles down the road.

She is certain she won’t have another relationship. ‘There will be no one after Johnnie. Because how could anyone follow him?’

Johnnie is just as matter-of-fact. ‘I need to die quickly so that she can get on and make her film,’ he jokes.

Sam came over from Australia in November and Johnnie has prepared for the fact he probably will never see him again. He has moved all his streaming accounts into Tiggy’s name and paid off the credit cards. 

The couple have even started selling Johnnie’s clothes online through the secondhand marketplace Vinted. 

‘We have a right laugh about it,’ says Tiggy. ‘Some people have got absolute bargains – the other day we sold a lovely Richard James dinner suit for a song.’

Johnnie is mulling over whether to sell his vinyl collection to put behind the bar for the wake. The funeral is finalised but the pair won’t share their exact plans yet.

‘I don’t think we want to reveal the details. We need to keep a showbiz element of surprise,’ says Johnnie. 

‘Although Tiggy has said that after the service she wants the hearse to go up the high street to the crematorium blasting out Springsteen’s Born to Run.’

‘You’ll be on your own then, Johnnie,’ she reminds him. ‘I’ll be with our guests. I don’t believe in holding your hand until the very last minute.’  

Tiggy says the BBC has always underestimated Johnnie, that it has never fully appreciated his talents, although she is quick to point out they have been brilliantly supportive since he became ill.

When he was first diagnosed, Johnnie was fearful that listeners would hear there was something wrong with his breathing, even though everything was carefully edited.

‘For many people, Sounds of the 70s is part of their Sunday afternoon. As long as I can keep doing the show I will. It gives me a purpose,’ he says.

‘If I stopped doing it I’d probably die a lot sooner. Anyway, when you play records you are bringing back memories for people as well as playing records that they love.’

For Johnnie, Cyndi Lauper’s Time After Time brings back memories of Tiggy. ‘She had Terry Wogan play it for me when I was first ill with cancer. ‘If you fall I will catch you, I will be waiting, time after time’. That sums it all up, really.’

Both believe in the right to assisted dying, although Johnnie has a few more reservations than Tiggy. It is not, though, an option for him. 

‘I’ve even said, if I get a chest infection, which would kill me in two or three days, I don’t want to go to hospital. I want to remain at home.’ He is hoping he might die in his sleep. 

‘I’m certainly spending more time in bed. I’ve got a hospital bed arriving on Monday, which will help with when I start to struggle with sitting up.’

‘I’m not afraid. I believe in life after death. I know I’ll be able to look down on Tiggy. She’ll go through loss and sorrow but she will also be free.’ 

Johnnie says he will miss ‘a decent glass of red’ and Tiggy’s ‘most beautiful blue eyes.’ Tiggy says she’ll miss Johnnie’s ‘incredible sense of mischief.’

‘I never quite understand what Tiggy means when she says I’m a fighter. I’m just trying to live life. It’s the simple things I treasure,’ Johnnie says.

‘Tiggy brings me a little tray with some breakfast, we get up, admire the view, talk about what we’re going to do with the day.  

‘Sharing time together is the most important thing. As you get near the end, the conversations become better and better. Our caring journey, it’s a love story.’