My father didn’t know what prostate cancer was.

That’s the thing I keep coming back to.

He was a working-class man who worked hard, looked after his family and got on with life. He wasn’t somebody who spent his time thinking about his health.

Like a lot of men of his generation, he simply assumed that if something was seriously wrong somebody would tell him.

But nobody did.

When he started having ‘accidents’, he didn’t understand what was happening. None of us did. There was confusion, embarrassment and concern, but no sense that this could be the beginning of something that would eventually kill him.

By the time he was diagnosed, the cancer had spread to his bones. It was terminal.

People often talk about cancer in terms of death. What I remember is the suffering. Death comes at the end. Suffering can last for years. My father lived for another six years after his diagnosis at 61. What followed was not simply a battle with cancer. It was years of pain and uncertainty.

Sir Steve McQueen lost his father to prostate cancer. Like a lot of men of his generation, he wasn’t aware of the symptoms, so was diagnosed too late. (Pictured with his parents in 1999)

One of the hardest parts about his father’s battle against the disease, Sir Steve says, was watching a strong man slowly lose his independence

Medicine gave him more time, but it couldn’t give him back the life the cancer had taken away. It couldn’t restore the dignity, freedom and quality of life the disease stripped from him.

What stays with me is watching a strong man slowly lose his independence. Watching somebody you love endure pain that you cannot take away.

There is a particular kind of helplessness that comes with that. There are moments when all you can do is watch. You want to fix it. You want to protect the people you love. You want to believe that somebody, somewhere, has an answer. Instead, you find yourself powerless.

For years, my family lived with a sense of helplessness and hopelessness. Cancer does not only happen to the person who receives the diagnosis. It reaches into every corner of a family. It changes conversations, plans and relationships. It sits at the table with you whether you invite it or not.

That is why I find it difficult when discussions about prostate cancer focus only on statistics, costs or policy papers. I understand those things matter.

But when I think about prostate cancer, I think about my father and my family. I think about what we endured, the damage done to him and to all of us who loved him.

Most of all, I think about how different things might have been. If my father’s cancer had been found earlier, he would still be here today. Because my own story turned out differently.

The death of my father taught me to pay attention. Through my profession and the circumstances of my life, I gained access to knowledge, testing and medical care that he never had.

I was able to stay on top of my health. I was able to detect problems early. I was able to receive treatment for my prostate cancer, which was diagnosed when I was 53, before it was too late. That knowledge changed my outcome. It saved my life. And, if I’m honest, there is a guilt that comes with knowing my outcome was different. The only reason it was different is because I had opportunities that he never did.

I know where I come from. I know that the opportunities available to me today were not available to my father. We were a working-class family. We didn’t have the means, the information or the access that I am fortunate enough to have later in life.

‘I know the opportunities available to me today were not available to my father. That knowledge changed my outcome. It saved my life’. (Pictured with his mother, receiving CBE in 2022)

My father did not have those advantages. He did not have the information. He did not have the opportunity to act early. And he paid the ultimate price.

Too many men still don’t. That is why I struggle to understand the position we find ourselves in today.

We know that some men face a significantly higher risk of prostate cancer.

We know that black men are more likely to develop the disease and twice as likely to die from this disease. We know that family history matters. We know that finding prostate cancer early dramatically improves outcomes.

And yet we continue to accept a system in which too many men only discover they have the disease after it has spread. We continue to leave men to find out by chance.

I simply cannot comprehend that. What makes this even harder to understand is that the decision not to offer targeted screening to black men was made by a committee that did not include a single black member.

I cannot help wondering whether a decision affecting so many black men might have looked different had there been someone in the room who understood, from personal experience, what this disease does to black families.

I ask myself, if we know who is at highest risk, why are we waiting? Why are we allowing more families to experience the same helplessness and hopelessness that mine did? Why are we accepting years of suffering for thousands of men and their families? Suffering that could so often be prevented.

I find that indefensible. And I find it indefensible because I watched what happened to my father. And I know how it devastated our family.

And I find it indefensible because there is every reason to believe that if my father’s cancer had been found earlier, he would still be alive today. That is not wishful thinking. That is what the evidence tells us.

I cannot change what happened to him. I cannot give my family back the years that prostate cancer stole from us. But I also cannot ignore what that experience taught me. My father suffered and died because his cancer was found too late. I survived because mine was not.

Knowing that, I refuse to accept that other families should be forced to walk the same road when we already know who is most at risk.

Sir Steve McQueen CBE is a British artist and filmmaker.