County Durham mums emotional speech to Parliament.
Cathy Hunt, 57, is a mum of four from County Durham. She was diagnosed with lung cancer and had half a lung removed in 2015 just two days before her 50th birthday. She underwent surgery again in 2022 when the cancer returned, and in June 2023 had a kidney removed due to cancer.
“My name is Cathy Hunt, and I am a smoking survivor.
“I started smoking when I was only 11 years old. At that time everybody did. Like other girls my age I thought it made me cool and grown up to smoke.
“Obviously at the age of 11 I was not aware when I took that first draw of a cigarette how addictive and harmful smoking is. Nobody who tries smoking ever means to get hooked and smoke for life.
“Soon, before you know it you are addicted and time has flown. Many times, over the decades I wished I had never started and I tried to stop many times. I never had any money, hated the smell, my clothes and hair smelled stale, but even though by now I knew know the health implications, I thought it would never happen to me.
“Then at 49 – just days before my 50th birthday my world was turned upside down. I was given the news I had lung cancer. There are no words that can describe the fear, sorrow and shame I felt.
“Telling your children, you have cancer from smoking is the worst conversation a person can ever have, watching the fear and uncertainty wash over them and knowing you have changed their world forever.
“I was fortunate, and I was told I could have an operation to remove the infected lung.
“It was one of the most painful operations you can endure, breaking my ribs and cutting into my lung. For a long time afterwards my 15 year old daughter had to take care of me night and day, while in the middle of her GCSEs. That’s not anything a parent wants for their child.
“The surgeons advised me that if I stopped smoking for a few weeks before the operation my chances of survival increased massively as smoking can cause infection and hinder the healing process. So of course, I stopped.
You would think that would be it, but no after smoking for 40 years my addiction was so strong that a few years later I started smoking again.
The result? In November 2022 I had another part of my lung removed and in June 2023 my kidney removed due to Cancer.
I will never smoke again. You think it won’t happen to you, but it did twice.
When I was an 11-year-old child, when my addiction was formed, I was not slightly aware of the harm that smoking would cause myself and my family.
You blame yourself. But knowing now more about tobacco companies I blame them. When you smoke you did yourself it’s a choice, but that’s the addiction talking.
They lied to people that smoking low tars was less harmful. They got more women like myself hooked on smoking with all the glamorous advertising, the boxes, the slim cigarettes. Thanks to them women are now overtaking men for lung cancer.
And they continue to get more and more young smokers hooked on tobacco to replace people like me. I find it so sad that there will be some kids starting to smoke today who won’t quit, and who will end up with cancer or COPD as a result.
When I look through family pics of my grandchildren, it reminds me of all the happy times that smoking did its best to take away. I’m one of the lucky ones to still be here. Many of us have lost loved ones who didn’t get to enjoy these.
I want to ensure my children and grandchildren; your children and grandchildren will never become addicted to this disgusting poison and go through what my family and many other families have gone through.
There is no argument in the world that can defend the rights of a 15 year old child walking to school this morning to die in the future from lung cancer. And raising it to 21 is no answer either – people start in their 20s as well. I know plenty of people in their 20s who smoke and they regret it.
This is why I am writing this today, to beg the Government and MPs from every party to commit to a smoke free generation and raise the age of sale. Too many people are becoming ill and dying from smoking. We now have a chance to stop the start. Do the right thing.
This is a version of a speech Cathy gave to the All Party Parliamentary Group on Smoking and Health in London on March 13 2024.