My fight with cancer, by Sheffield MP Harry Harpham

Harry Harpham, 61, was diagnosed with the illness just a week after the Labour Party conference in September 2015, thwarting the very beginning of his political career in Westminster.

With hospital appointments in his home city of Sheffield, this ex-coal miner turned politician said his first few months hadn’t quite gone to plan.

However his constituents have been very well looked after by his team and as soon as he’s fully recovered he said he wants to get on with his second fight - helping his party tackle, what he believes is a ‘lousy Government’.

The Sheffield Brightside and Hillsborough MP said: “I’m having treatment, I’m fighting the cancer. Since I’ve been diagnosed my office both here in Westminster and in Sheffield have worked very well, and the constituents have been well looked after and we are still dealing with their issues.

“I have been spending as much time in Westminster as my constituents would expect. My illness has interfered with that but the chemotherapy seems to be doing its job and I will be increasingly trying to get to Westminster to hold this lousy Government to account.”

Mr Harpham could be the last deep pit coal-miner in Britain to take up a seat in Parliament, and of the 2015 intake just 4% of those elected as MPs come from an industrial background.

He worked at Clipstone pit in Nottinghamshire, where he is keen to point out he was on strike for a year, and said despite years of hard graft, he had never been ill.

He said: “All my life I’ve been in good health. I had been to the doctor was when I trapped something at the pit and split my finger, but I’d never been to a doctors for years and years.”

After getting repeated pain in his side he got medical help, and he can’t praise highly enough the support he’s had from Firth Park Surgery, Weston Park Hospital in Broomhill in Sheffield and the city’s Northern General Hospital.

“Firth Park Surgery on Firth Park Road have bent over backwards to help and have been brilliant. The care that I’ve had and the expertise, and just the specialist way that they treat people is absolutely fantastic.

“It’s the best health care in the world which is one of the reasons I want to stop the Conservatives ruining the health service,” he said.

His treatment started in November and he was still in hospital on Christmas Eve, but was let out later that day for a family Christmas with his children and wife Gill.

He’ll slowly return to work in Westminster where he’s keen to get stuck into his role as Parliamentary Private Secretary for Labour’s shadow energy secretary Lisa Nandy.

As a former miner, the energy sector is an area he feels he can offer a his expertise.

Within days of returning to work he’s fired off as series of letters to the Energy Secretary Amber Rudd asking for an explanation on why the Government decided to end its funding for carbon technology, and what discussions she has had with the EU on the future of the White Rose Carbon Capture and Storage project at Drax in North Yorkshire.

The Government had previously said how vital decarbonising technologies are, however in the Autumn Statement it was revealed they had scrapped a £1bn funding pledge that the White Rose project was hoping to win.

He also wants to know which coal fired power stations are closing before 2020.

He said: “It gives me a unique perspective and a different voice that we don’t ususally get in Westminster. I didn’t come up through the usual ranks.”

After leaving school at 16 he started working at Clipstone pit and became involved in the National Union of Mineworkers as a rep, and later went on strike between 1984 and 1985, despite the vast majority of Notthinghamshire miners not taking industrial action.

He said: “The first day down the pit I met this old bloke, who was probably only 30, but I was 16 so I thought he was ancient.

“I just had a quick chat with him and the next day I bumped into him again and he gave me a copy of the Ragged Trousered Philanthropist by Robert Tressell. That fired me up.

“I will be the last deep coal miner ever elected to this place, there will be no more coal miners to follow me because there will be no more pits. I’m very proud of where I’ve got to, because I left school without any qualifications at all.”

He later studied at Sheffield University as a mature student and became a city councillor for Manor, and then Darnall, eventually becoming deputy leader of the council.

When former Home Secretary David Blunkett stepped down at the 2015 General Election he was asked by the Labour Party to put himself up to be selected as the candidate.

“I thought you’re mad! But actually I was quite proud that people thought I was able to do that job so I talked it over with my family and decided to go for it.

“I heard all the time how I’ve got huge shoes to fill.

“And I haven’t given up, I’m going to fight this cancer and do the best for the constituents that I can, and try and get rid of this stinking Government.”