John Diamond (journalist)

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John Diamond

John Diamond (10 May 1953 - 2 March 2001) was a British Jewish broadcaster and journalist.

Diamond trained as an English and drama teacher and taught at an all-girls school before switching to journalism. He wrote a regular column for the Saturday edition of The Times from 1992 onwards called "Something for the Weekend" and worked as a presenter on BBC radio and television. He met his second wife, celebrity cook and journalist Nigella Lawson, when they were both writing for The Sunday Times. They married in Venice in 1992.

In 1997, Diamond was diagnosed with throat cancer. He wrote about his experiences with cancer in his newspaper column, for which he won the prestigious What The Papers Say award. In 1999 he was shortlisted for the Samuel Johnson Prize for his book C: Because Cowards Get Cancer Too.... A BBC documentary was filmed for Inside Story which followed him through various treatments, and showed his frustration with his speech difficulties following throat, and later tongue, surgery.

C: Because Cowards Get Cancer Too... was adapted into a play by Victoria Coren called A Lump In My Throat, which was itself later adapted for television. Diamond's second book, Snake Oil and Other Preoccupations, was edited by his brother-in-law Dominic Lawson, editor of the Sunday Telegraph, and published posthumously. It contained the six chapters of his "uncomplimentary look at the world of complementary medicine" which he had completed before his death, and some of his columns from The Times and the Jewish Chronicle.

Diamond died aged 47 leaving his wife Nigella and their two children, Cosima (7) and Bruno (4).

On 3 September 2002, his widow, Nigella Lawson, opened the John Diamond Voice Laboratory at the Royal Marsden Hospital in London, where Diamond had been treated.

[edit] Bibliography

John Diamond, C: Because Cowards Get Cancer Too..., Vermilion, 1999 (ISBN 0-09-181665-3)
John Diamond, Richard Dawkins (Foreword), Dominic Lawson (Editor), Snake Oil and Other Preoccupations, Vintage, 2001 (ISBN 0-09-942833-4).