FORMER bank manager Dennis Broadhurst thinks he got skin cancer between his ear and eye from years playing cricket in the sun.

The 76-year-old was a former opening batsman for Poole cricket team and umpired for another 10 years.

"I love the sun," said Mr Broadhurst, from Whitecliff. "I liked to go to Crete and places like that."

He came back from the holiday of a lifetime in Australia with a lump by his ear. After it began to weep, he received the "stunning" news it was a malignant tumour.

Mr Broadhurst said: "The doctor said it was serious, there's already a lesion and we have got to get on with it."

He needed a 45-minute operation under local anaesthetic that left him with 45 stitches.

"I looked a bloody mess at first. It wasn't pretty," said Mr Broadhurst, who used to manage Natwest at Castlepoint when it was the Hampshire Centre. "My wife Jill called me Boris after Boris Karloff."

But 10 days later, he was able to attend his daughter's graduation - all he had to do was make sure the photos captured only the right side of his face.

"I was a very proud man. There's no way I was going to miss that," he said.

"I am so grateful to Dr Ilankovan. He is a wonderful man, the best in his field."

Mr Broadhurst has areas on his face that are still being monitored for cancer, and always wears a broad-brimmed hat and at least factor 20 sun cream - and warns his family to do the same.

COLIN Martin-Ashwell loves to sing and loves to talk - so what could be worse than throat cancer?

The 74-year-old former car sales promotions man from Bournemouth was diagnosed in 2003.

His wife Chris, a 67-year-old former secretary, knew someone who 13 years ago had endured a disfiguring operation for cancer.

"We knew it was going to be pretty horrendous," said Chris.

They were told the worst things that could happen - Colin could lose his voice, his appearance could be affected, he could lose movement in his arm.

But two years later he was able to sing at his 36-year-old daughter Jane's wedding, serenading the audience and the tearful bride with Ain't Misbehaving and I Can't Give You Anything But Love, Baby.

"It was brilliant," said an Colin, looking emotional. "It was a really magic day."

Far from being put out that the cancer was in such a sensitive area, the couple liked the fact they could see the "enemy".

His trademark beard was shaved off for the 14-hour operation, which involved cutting open his face from the lips down, and cutting through his jaw and swinging it to one side.

Today, the beard covers a scar running down from his lip and over his chin, and there is another area of scarring and missing tissue under the left hand side of his throat.

The surgeon kept the scar in the natural skin folds, and he doesn't bring the issue up with most people - only close friends and family know what he went through.

A muscle from his arm was used to fix his throat.

The cancer has not returned and this summer is the last check before he is given the all-clear.

He has suffered no long-term side effects, although hair won't grow where he had radiotherapy.

Sipping a glass of red wine in his Throop garden, he said: "It took a long time for the taste sensitivity to come back, but back it has come."

Sitting in the sunshine with this wife, he added: "When you are older, you think you probably aren't going to survive cancer.

"I got as high a standard of care as you would get in any private hospital.

"Thanks to Mr Ilankovan, I have had another five years and hopefully a few more."