After cheating death from prostate cancer, Bob Collins is on a mission to educate men of the dangers

THE men in their flat caps and quilted anoraks, zips pulled right up to the chin, pay for their bulbs, plants and other gardening paraphernalia before shuffling past Bob Collins, steadfastly refusing to catch his eye.

Some, who are slightly less cautious as they exit Dobbies Garden Centre in Lasswade, are immediately offered the informative leaflets from his booth. There are those who willingly accept, but others decline with a polite "not today, thanks".

"Plonkers," says Bob loudly. "Absolute plonkers, what on earth are they waiting for? When is it the right day to learn something about prostate cancer?"

Collins has the righteous passion of a man who has had a brush with death and survived. He knows just how lucky he is.

A vigorous 70-year-old, he was diagnosed with prostate cancer six years ago and not only lived to tell the tale, but is now on a drive to educate men of his age group about the potentially deadly condition.

His stall at Dobbies is just one of many which will be sited throughout Edinburgh and the Lothians this month, as the Prostate Cancer Charity launches its annual drive to raise awareness about a disease which kills two men in Scotland every day.

Around 2700 Scots are diagnosed with prostate cancer every year - it's the most common male cancer - and 19,000 are currently living with the disease.

"I was lucky," says Bob, a former sales engineer from Leith. "Through my employer I had Bupa health insurance so when I was 64, coming up for retirement, I thought I'd get myself the once over to make sure everything was OK.

"I'd not thought about prostate cancer. I was aware of it as a neighbour and my father-in-law had both died from it, but I knew nothing about the symptoms. With hindsight, I know now that I was getting up through the night to go the toilet more often and there was also some sexual dysfunction, but I'd put both down to age," he laughs.

"But I think at the back of my mind I knew that something wasn't quite right. I had two prostate examinations and both were negative, but I kept pushing for a blood test just to make sure. Right enough, that came back with raised levels and it turned out the cancer was at the back of the gland where a physical exam couldn't reach."

The blood test looks for high levels of a protein produced by the gland called prostate specific antigen (PSA). While it's normal for men to have a small amount of PSA in their blood, a raised level may indicate a problem, though not necessarily cancer.

For Bob, however, it was. "After the blood test result I was pretty shaken, but the reality of it didn't really hit until I went for the biopsy," he recalls. "I think before that I just felt numb about it all, as if I was in shock. Lying on the table waiting for the biopsy really brought it home.

"I was mega lucky. The cancer was contained in the prostate. If it goes out into the bloodstream or the bones, that takes things to a whole different level. It hadn't, so that meant I didn't need chemotherapy."

It still meant radical surgery, though. Consultant urologist Prashad Bollina at the Murrayfield Hospital, a specialist in bladder and prostate cancers, had to open up Bob's lower abdomen "from willy to belly button", as he describes it.

"Afterwards, I had a lot of physiotherapy to tighten up the pelvic muscles, almost the same exercises a woman does for her pelvic floor after giving birth," he says.

While Bob is grateful that he benefited from his private health cover, he's all too aware that others are not so lucky. "A chap spoke to me today about going to see his GP as his brother had just been diagnosed with it. It can be hereditary so he was doing the right thing, but the GP refused to do an exam. Can you believe it? It's ridiculous.

"Getting men to go to their doctors is hard enough, but when someone turns up voluntarily only to be told to go away . . . well, it beggars belief."

It's not surprising to the Prostate Cancer Charity, which claims that despite recent improvements in services, many men are still subject to a legacy of neglect, ranging from difficulties in diagnosis through to limited access to information and support to help them cope with the impact of treatment for the disease.

"That's why I'm doing this," says Bob, gesticulating at his stall. "All the publicity around prostate cancer can be off-putting to blokes. They're basically told to get their prostate checked or they'll end up with cancer. It's frightening, so men run a flipping mile.

"The reality is that it should just be part of their normal health checks as they get older. It's nothing to be ashamed of, a prostate check. It could save their lives, which is why they should read the info.

"It's great that places like Dobbies are so supportive and let us have these stalls. Ninety per cent of people are very receptive, but there are the plonkers."

Now past the five-year clear mark, Bob only has an annual PSA check. But his brush with cancer has also alerted his son to the hereditary possibilities.

"He's just 30 but he knows all about it," says Bob. "There's an added issue for him too as there's West Indian blood in the family from his mother's side, and African-Caribbean men are three times more likely to develop prostate cancer, so he knows he's got to keep on top of it when he gets older.

"But hopefully he'll be lucky, like me."

n For more information, call the Prostate Cancer Charity's free and confidential helpline on 0800 074 8383. Staffed by specialist nurses it is open from 10am-4pm, Monday to Friday, and Wednesdays from 7pm-9pm. Visit www.prostate- cancer.org.uk for more information and to take part in the awareness month, visit www.prostateaware.org.uk.