Broadcaster Clive James ‘getting near the end’

The Australian star, best known for his hit show Clive James On Television, was diagnosed with leukaemia, kidney failure and lung disease in 2010.

He told Radio 4’s Meeting Myself Coming Back: “I’m getting near the end. I don’t want to cast a gloom, an air of doom, over the programme but I’m a man who is approaching his terminus.”

In the show, to be broadcast on Saturday, James said he has “been really ill for two and a half years” and “almost died four times in that period”.

James was born in Sydney and came to England in 1961, where he made a career in journalism including a successful stint as a prominent literary critic and then television columnist for The Observer.

The father of two, who is married to academic Prue Shaw, said he was facing the fact he might never see Sydney again.

He said: “I’ve been so sick since January 2010, especially my lung disease, that I’m not allowed to fly. You couldn’t get enough oxygen aboard a plane for me to get me to Sydney.”

James also spoke about the “defining event” of his life – the death of his father who survived a Second World War prison camp only to die on the journey back to Australia. He said: “I never saw him. I think I was in his arms as a baby for one day before he sailed away.”