The sensation was intensely itchy and irritating, as if I had fallen face first into a really nasty patch of nettles, or maybe had some kind of chemical burn. It began to abate after about 30 minutes in the shop, and I set out to walk back to the Underground station. I hadn’t gone 100 yards before the other side of my face started to sting in exactly the same way. It was then that I twigged the sun, now on my left, could be causing the reaction.

My GP sent me to St Thomas' Hospital, which specialises in skin conditions. I walked across Westminster Bridge to see the specialist, and walked back with titanium barrier cream all over my face and a diagnosis of "solar urticaria" - an allergy to UV light. I had been told the chances of cure were small or none. Normal life would involve keeping out of sunlight and wearing broad-brimmed hats...a depressing piece of advice that turned out to be only too necessary.

I spent 10 years avoiding sunlight on my body, not because I believed in mainstream medicine, but because it was too painful. After that, I slowly became able to tolerate some on my face - apparently due to 'partial desensitization'.

During a Master Practitioner training at NLP Academy led by Michael Carroll, I volunteered for a class demo on NLP allergy change-work. When you've got what everyone believes is an incurable allergy to the sun, what’s a little embarrassment. I spent less than an hour on stage with Michael in front of the class. I'm very familiar with trance, don’t ask me to recall what he did! I know it included a dialogue, negotiation between, and integration of the parts involved. I was so spaced out at the end of the demo that I could only make a thumbs-up sign.

A few days later into the training there was a sunny day, and I picked a seat near the window to test what had happened (solar urticaria can still affect sufferers even through glass). I rolled up my sleeve and waited. There was a bit of a reaction, about 30%, but it faded slowly away over the next half hour. I didn’t have to cover up my arm as I would normally have done. I told everyone about this, but since I'm a scientist, I also wanted to test it out over time in different situations. It's almost a year later as I write this, so I have tested the work out thoroughly. I have no more fear of the sun.

There is some minor reactivity for a while, but it fades and thereafter, I can even sunbathe. It's wonderful to be able to enjoy the sun again. It’s amazing that there is a way to communicate directly with the unconscious mind to resolve auto-immune disease."

I dived straight back into the Cancer prevention Diet and reconnected with my menus and cancer regime. It was back to basics. Meanwhile my Doctor had organised for me to have a biopsy on myprostate and also a bone and MRI scan as it was most likely with that level of reading the cancer had metastasised to other parts of the body in particular the bones. The results were dreadful, full blown prostate cancer, which had spread to the seminal vesicle and bone. It couldn't have been much worse with a life expectancy prognosis of between 3 and 5 years.

A real mental low point which had to be addressed if I was to emerge out the other end in one piece. From the date of the test to the time I was referred to the urologist was some 6 weeks, and he again looked at me with a face of doom and basically told me there was little he could do other that put me on a course of hormone therapy.

Whilst this melodrama was unfolding I had seriously questioned myself on why the cancer had come back or was it that it had in essence never really been totally healed and thus never gone away. Had I really not nailed it the first time, and if so which part of the jigsaw had I missed. In the intervening years I had done much work on myself from a spiritual mind and body perspectiI had studied Vipassana meditation with Burgs the Buddhist monk, and also I had studied and qualified in hypnotherapy with my good friend Michael Carroll, founder of the NLP Academy, and so it was during a meditation one day the solution came to me, and it was so obvious.

This had all come back to bite me because on a subconscious level I had not given the subconscious permission to let go of the cancer and so therefore how on earth could it take control and heal both itself and the body. Q.E.D! A quick call to Michael who kindly arranged a hypnosis session in quick time and under a deep hypnosis the subconscious agreed to heal the cancer within 60 days. 2 months to day on the 14th June a PSA test revealed the reading had dropped to 4.2. Medically there was disbelief, as this was quite unknown in medical circles.