Rabbi Lionel Blue has skin cancer

Broadcaster Rabbi Lionel Blue said today that he had been diagnosed with the most lethal form of skin cancer.

Rabbi Blue, 73, a well-known presenter of the Thought for the Day slot on BBC Radio 4's Today programme, fought off prostate cancer in 1998. Today he announced on air that he is having a second "brush with mortality".

He later told the Evening Standard he had consulted his GP after a year-old lump behind his knee he had presumed to be a cyst began to grow rapidly. After a biopsy found it was cancerous, further tests revealed it was a rare form of skin cancer, a merkel cell carcinoma.

This is 100 times more rare than melanoma and kills 26 per cent of sufferers. He will have more tests before his 74th birthday on Friday.

Rabbi Blue, who lives in Finchley, with his gay partner of 22 years, said: "I will need another operation and more tests before we have a proper prognosis. I have had cancer before and two heart attacks and got over it.

"I have already been thinking about my 75th birthday. I shall have a party on the beach in Benidorm and shimmy in my zimmer frame."