James Martin shares plans for his funeral after cancer diagnosis

TV chef James Martin has shared some plans for his funeral after being diagnosed with cancer. The ITV Saturday Morning star revealed he has already chosen the song he wants to be played at his funeral.

James, 52, was first diagnosed with facial cancer in 2018 and recently underwent surgery. He told The Guardian, when asked what song he wanted to sing at his funeral: “All my colleagues know I’m obsessed with tractors. So, Combine Harvester (Brand New Key) from the Wurzel family.

“It’s about £750,000 these days so I can’t afford one. But I could afford a tractor.”

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In April, the former BBC Saturday Kitchen host shared a health update after undergoing surgery to remove facial cancer following his first diagnosis in 2018. Appearing on ITV’s Lorraine, he was asked how he was feeling following the operation surgical.

“Yeah, the stitches fell out,” he said. “As you know, the last time I was there, I was in the middle of operations. As we speak, the stitches have fallen out of my body at this point and everything is clear. Up and up!”

James first went public with the diagnosis last year when he apologized for an audio tape that caught him swearing at his TV crew during a taping of The James Martin Saturday Movie. While Martin apologized for the tape, he revealed that his behavior followed a culmination of emotional events in his life, including the death of his grandfather and his own cancer diagnosis.

He explained that he underwent surgery after being diagnosed with facial cancer, which he “wasn’t able to do until two days before Christmas when we finished filming”. He said: “Since then (the cancer) has come back several times and I have to have regular treatments.

“After all this stress, I was in a very emotional state and when, after filming in early January 2018, I discovered that my house had been flooded during filming, I was extremely upset. I can only say that I am human and, following a build-up of pressure in my personal life, I admit that I overdid the damage to my house.”

The TV chef is currently filming his weekend program James Martin’s Saturday Morning, which he records every week at his home in Hampshire, alongside celebrity guests.