GRAHAM Beer was only 49 when he was diagnosed with bowel cancer.

Despite thinking the spots of blood he noticed when going to the toilet would not be anything serious, his worst fears were confirmed in 2006, after a series of tests were carried out.

Now he wants to raise awareness of the disease and encourage others to get checked out, on behalf of charity Beating Bowel Cancer, as it marks its Be Loud Be Clear campaign with a week of events, ending on Sunday.

Graham, 52, of Woodfield Drive, West Mersea, first realised something was wrong when he spotted blood while he went to the toilet.

He said: “I wasn’t in any pain, so I just thought it must be piles or something like that.

“I am lucky enough to be able to talk to my parents about things like this and they said other people suffered from that in my family.

“But I decided I needed to get it checked out when I began to get quite unwell with it and was losing a lot of fluid. I knew it wasn’t right.

Graham, a father-of-three, underwent blood tests before a colonoscopy revealed he had a tumour.

“I knew even when they did the blood tests. Then as soon as they found the tumour, they had me straight down in theatre to have it removed.

“The treatment I had at Colchester General Hospital was like going private. It was brilliant.

“I went down straight away and they operated to remove the tumour.”

Despite being confident they had removed all of the tumour and then ruling out chemotherapy, Graham was left in agony. This was because his bowel was not working, meaning he had have a diversion fitted in his stomach.

His wife of 27 years, Marina, learnt how to take care of this, so she could take over from nurses.

Graham could not cope with the trauma of looking at it. He said: “It is very difficult to see something coming out of your stomach that should not be there.

“Marina had to look after me for five months before I could think about doing it myself.

“She was brilliant. I would not have got through any of this without her.”

All three of their children are now to be screened for bowel cancer, as they stand an increased risk of contracting the disease.

Graham is in remission, but for the past three years he has been unable to return to work as a glazier as he remained in considerable pain.

He has also undergone a successful operation to reverse the diversion.

“I did not get up off the sofa for about 18 months,” he said. “It hurt to stand and it hurt to sit, so I had to lie down.”

Because of his experience, Graham is keen to speak out, in a bid to help others.

He is urging people to see their GP as soon as they spot any tell-tale signs, such as blood when they go to the toilet, or recurring bouts of chronic diarrhoea.

He said: “People should not be embarrassed about talking about it.

“Catching it as early as possible is the key. If they take it out before it has developed into a tumour, then they could avoid it getting to like it was with me. That is why I have taken so long to recover, because the tumour was so invasive.”

Rugby star Matt Dawson launched the Be Loud, Be Clear campaign.

It is urging people to raise funds, while wearing loud outfits, and join a parliamentary campaign pressing the Government to improve the uptake rates of the screening programme.

Bowel cancer currently claims almost 50 lives every day and will affect one in 18 people. Graham added: “I have also been involved in a group which asks sufferers in north Essex what they did not have when they were going through their treatment that they needed.

“Many, including me, said they wanted other people to talk to who were going through the same thing.”

For more information on the campaign, go to www.beating bowelcancer.org