'Life is a great gift. Perhaps I didn't appreciate that until I nearly lost it'

In the space of decade, which began with him taking on the mantle of the People's Tenor, Watson has undergone a career-threatening operation on his throat and not once, but twice, battled back from a potentially fatal brain tumour.

Life he admits has been nothing if not eventful.

"I've always been the kind of person who likes to take things to the max," says the Salford-born singer as he heads back home to Lancashire. His career may have taken him around the world, but his heart still belongs very much in the North West. "It's all good, it's certainly a lot better than it has been. I'm on the road and that in itself is something I am incredibly grateful for."

In 2006 when the headaches began, Watson already had five bestselling albums under his belt and a trophy cabinet full of awards. He still remembers the pain, which he describes as being "like a knife being pressed into the bridge of my nose". Despite his obvious discomfort, doctors initially put the symptoms down to stress and keen to keep an increasingly busy schedule of commitments Watson flew to Los Angeles to record yet another album.

However, when his vision began to deteriorate, he was taken to hospital and an MRI scan revealed the tumour the size of two golf balls.

Alone in California, he faced an anxious wait to hear if the growth was malignant. It wasn't, but no one could guarantee he would survive the operation. Flying back to the UK for five hours of surgery, he awoke grateful to be alive, but barely able to walk and his hormone levels in freefall.

He admits the moodswings, a side-effect of the operation, often made him difficult to be around and worse was to

come. A little over a year later, just as he was getting his life

back on track, Watson was told the tumour had returned and was bleeding into his brain. It was, he says now, the ultimate wake-up call.

"I remember early on in my career when doctors discovered the lump on my vocal cord," says Watson, who had divorced his wife, with whom he had two daughters, some years earlier. "I said to myself then that if my voice survived I would never take anything for granted again. But I'm human and a few months later you find yourself slipping back into your old ways.

"After surviving the second operation to remove the brain tumour, that was it. I just thought, 'Right, Russell, how many chances do you want?'

"I never want to have to sign another medical disclaimer again, but it made me appreciate the importance of relationships, most importantly with my two daughters.

"Being close to death has taught me that life is a great gift – maybe I didn't appreciate that fully until I nearly lost it.

"Selling records is great, but my children's love and friendships are the most important thing. I'm incredibly grateful that I'm still here."

If Watson's priorities had been skewed it's easy to see why. Leaving school at 16 with no qualifications, he found a job as a bolt cutter earning 90 a week on a Youth Training Scheme. Life seemed destined to be an endless round of long hours for little pay, until on a whim he entered a talent competition on a local radio station.

He won, and it suddenly dawned he might be able to supplement his factory wages singing in working men's clubs. Having made a name for himself on the circuit, he sang the national anthem at the 1999 Rugby League Challenge Cup Final and found himself one step away from what would be his big break.

That same year he went to Old Trafford on the day Manchester United won the Premiership title. His performance of the World Cup crowd pleaser Nessun Dorma won him a standing ovation and a five album deal with Decca.

"For five or six years I had been working 12-hour night shifts in the kind of jobs no one really wants to do for a living," he says. "What happened was completely unbelievable and I still have to pinch myself. There was no way that I could have predicted 10 years on I would have performed in front of the Pope and the Prince of Wales. Those kind of things don't happen to a working class lad from Lancashire."

Except they did. His debut album, The Voice, was released in 2001 with an eclectic track listing which included the anthemic Barcelona alongside collaborations with Happy Mondays' hellraiser Shaun Ryder and a duet with Cleo from the girl group Cleopatra. The mix of operatic arias and pop songs proved popular with the public, but his success inevitably stuck in the throat of traditionalists.

When four more albums followed in much the same vein, many said his voice fell well short of operatic standards and when one critic called him a "karaoke crooner" it summed up the thoughts of many. But Watson has never been short of self-confidence and, while he admits some of the criticism was founded, he has never felt any need to apologise to the establishment simply for

being successful.

"In some circles, popularity is seen as a crime," he says. "I was always aware that I was doing something that hadn't been done before. I knew there were some people who would think it outrageous to put Nessun Dorma and vocals by Shaun Ryder on the same disc. But it was about changing the landscape of classical music."

With tongue slightly in cheek, Watson now refers to himself as the Godfather of the crossover artist. It might be overstating the point a little, but those early albums did alert record labels to a previously untapped and potentially lucrative market for mainstream classical recordings.

"The classical world has to embrace acts like me or it will fade and die, at least in terms of a mainstream audience," says Watson. "Ten years ago, I kick-started something. I got some flack for doing it. I admit I wasn't at the top of my game, but my vocal coach William Haywood always says, 'Russell when you started out you weren't on a par with a classically trained singer, but now you have surpassed them'. That's good enough for me."

For all their squawking, Watson's detractors have had little impact on his career. It's the public who buy records and the singer has attracted a peculiarly loyal fan base. On his website there are daily postings from fans checking on his health and the lively online community is keen to promote the Watson etiquette among those lucky enough to meet the star. The rules go, if you have met him before, stand back and let others have a chance. They don't say what the penalty is for breaking the guidance, but they don't sound like women to be crossed.

"The fans have been incredibly supportive and they've had to put up with a lot of stuff over the years," says Watson, whose current album With Love From is in part a thank you letter to those who have stood by

him. "I really hope this record will re-establish myself and draw a line under all the health problems."

His own illness is also reason why he's keen to support other good causes and this summer he will take part in a series of concerts organised on behalf of the Muscular Dystrophy Campaign, including one at Harewood House, an event which is also being supported by the Yorkshire Post.

"The voice is working well and I feel at the peak of my career. I love entertaining and if I can help other people at the same time so much the better," he says. "For me singing comes pretty close to therapy. I can walk on the stage and feel rubbish, but then the adrenalin kicks in and I always walk off with a smile on my face."

* Russell Watson will be performing at Harewood House on Saturday, June 26, as part of the Glorious Noise concert alongside Camilla Kerslake and the SoundPower Orchestra. Proceeds from the concert will help to support the Muscular Dystrophy Campaign. Tickets cost 27.50 plus booking fee and to buy call 0113 218 1000 or visit www.muscular-dystrophy.org/ thatgloriousnoise