If you are a man who experiences the urinary symptoms associated with prostate cancer and you avoid going for the test because it’s embarrassing, you’re a fool.

That’s what Wishaw grandfather John Morgan thinks. And he should know.

It was an unlikely set of circumstances that led to John making an appointment with his GP to start the process that would eventually lead to a diagnosis of prostate cancer.

When John retired from his job as a Shotts Prison officer at the age of 55, he wasn’t yet ready to put his feet up and so trained as a driving instructor.

One of his students in 2005 was an Iraqi doctor who was on a six-month contract at Wishaw General Hospital.

John met his student at the hospital and the pair drove as far as Bonkle when John says he got “caught short” and had to stop and make a dash to the toilet.

Towards the end of the lesson, they stopped at Newmains to fill the car with fuel – and the doctor noticed that his instructor made another visit to the loo after paying at the kiosk.

“He asked if that happened a lot,” remembers John, of Stornoway Crescent, Cambusnethan.

“I said: ‘I think I have a bit of a weak bladder.’ It had been a running joke when my daughters were kids and we were on family holidays and dad was always running to the loo.”

When they pulled back up at the hospital, John’s student turned to him and said: “See you Brits. You can walk into a hospital at any time. You do not realise what you have in the NHS. It is free. You can walk in there and be treated. Tell me what the doctor says when you phone him in the morning.”

John took his student’s advice and made that call.

“I was very lucky,” says John, then aged 63. “My doctor was clued up and even nowadays many GPs are not. Some dismiss the possibility of prostate cancer because they think a patient is too young. I explained I was passing water frequently and could hardly last an hour without the urge to go.”

His GP then performed a digital rectal examination – a procedure in which the doctor inserts a finger into the rectum.

“It is the only test there is to check for an enlarged prostate,” explained dad of two, John.

“That is the reason men do not go to their doctor because of the embarrassment of that test.”

Within 10 minutes, the examination was over and blood had been taken to measure the level of prostate-specific antigen, or PSA protein, which is produced by normal, as well as malignant, prostate gland cells.

Ten days later, John’s GP called to break the news that there was a chance he had cancer.

He was referred to Wishaw General Hospital consultant eurologist Mr Khan who repeated the digital rectal examination and referred him for MRI, full body and bone scans and a biopsy.

A month later, John and wife Cathy returned to the consultant who delivered the news they had dreaded: John was diagnosed with prostate cancer.

“He started thinking about treatment.

“It had gone slightly out of the prostate sack and into the lymph glands. In those days you could not have an operation and that cut down my options for treatment,” explained John, who was referred to a multi-disciplinary team led by oncologist Dr Dodds.

“He put me on hormone treatment to shrink the tumour and kill the testosterone that feeds it and make it easier to deal with. When I was diagnosed and all the results came back, I do not remember going from his office. I remember nothing until I was sitting in the car park.

“I felt absolutely numb. Then I went into ‘Why me?’ mode. When I was a kid, if anyone said ‘cancer,’ you never saw them again. It was a death sentence.”

John, whose initial PSA test level was 44, had 12 weekly injections of hormone therapy Zoladex.

When it was revealed that his PSA had dropped to 4.6, the team abandoned a plan to administer Zolidax for two years before starting radiotherapy, with his consultant reassuring him: “I think we can cure this.”

On Boxing Day 2006, John began 37 treatments of radiotherapy over the course of seven weeks at the Beatson, where he was taken every weekday by volunteer drivers from the Lanarkshire Cancer Trust.

“The radiotherapy didn’t hurt or make me feel ill. Other than the terrible tiredness was the wondering at the back of your mind if it was going to work,” said John, 75, whose large bowel was damaged during the radiotherapy treatment and had to be removed five years later.

Along with fellow prostate cancer survivor Neil Armstrong of Hamilton, John runs the Lanarkshire Prostate Cancer Support Group, which meets at the Maggie’s Centre in University Hospital Monklands from 10am to noon on the third Thursday of every month.

Neil was diagnosed 20 years ago, aged just 46.

And he and John are seeing an increasing number of younger men in their 40s and 50s and their families coming through the doors of the Prostate Cancer Support Group drop-in centre who want to share experiences, gain information or simply get things off their chest.

“I’d advise anybody who is diagnosed with prostate cancer not to keep it from their family,” said John. Tell everybody. It affects all the family. You’ll need help from them being taken for treatments.

“They are all involved. It can be hereditary. Any sons in the family could be in line for it.

“When I found out, I emailed all my male cousins and told them to get checked. And when you are going for appointments, always take someone with you because you don’t take a lot in.

“When it was me, I didn’t know what I needed to ask, so it’s a good idea to make a few notes before you go,” advised John, who will be urging his 14-year-old grandson to be prostate-aware when he reaches adulthood.

John’s message is simple: put your stubborn male pride aside and take the test.

“Because of the embarrassing test, men will not go and be seen. It is actually very silly,” said John, who is under no illusions that his cancer could return at any time.

“What I’d say to them is: it will not go away. Okay, you might be lucky and it might take a long time to develop. Everyone is different. There are some schools of thought that say that if you are going to get cancer, that is the best one to get because it is not generally aggressive. But we are all different. The secret is to go and get tested.”

For more information on the Lanarkshire support group, email Neil Armstrong: n.s.armstrong@blueyonder.co.uk, or simply drop in for a chat.