Pub regulars at Silverwood Miners Welfare share their health travails in ‘Prostate Corner’

And now there’s a specially commissioned artwork – featuring the King – to make it official at Silverwood Miners’ Welfare club.

Regular Alan Tunstill (64) said: “About a year ago, maybe just a bit longer, I went to hospital for a cystoscopy and they found a shadow on the scan. They said they needed me in for a biopsy.

“They thought it might be cancer straight away. But three days after the biopsy they called and said they were glad to say it wasn’t cancer, just an abnormality.

“Later, I had another biopsy and that found I’d got stones in the bladder and needed a prostate operation because it had been caused by having an enlarged prostate.

“I was talking to the lads about this, saying I was having prostate trouble, and it turned out that half of us there had all had prostate problems of one sort or another.”

The conversations in the bar led the lads to realise how they were not alone in their health complaints.

Alan had artwork done by Steve White, of Bramley-based It’ll do Art, to make Prostate Corner official.

“The idea came to me a couple of months ago, when King Charles was in the news for having his prostate treatment,” said Alan, of East Herringthorpe.

“I’ve used Steve for other art before, so I just gave him the brief that it should be the King shown as an honorary member of our Prostate Corner. I was over the moon with how it turned out.”

Steve said: “I always have a good natter with Alan when I see him and have done a couple of pictures for him. He just asked to include King Charles, he wanted it to raise awareness about prostate cancer and the benefits of talking to your mates about things which has helped them all reach out to their doctors to get early diagnoses.”

Alan unveiled the artwork to his mates and went on the stage to deliver a short speech to make the renaming of what previously been known as “bull**** corner”.

He said: “I talked about how important it is to go and get checked. You shouldn’t be embarrassed, it’s done with in two minutes.”

Alan also mentioned a friend who had been confused after turning 60 and being sent a box to return a stool sample in the post as part of a bowel cancer screening programme.

“He didn’t know what it was when it came,” said Alan. “He’s not very good at reading. He was phoning everybody up but nobody he asked knew what the box was for.

“I had a little joke about it on stage and got a few giggles, mostly at my mates expense.

“It was just another way of talking about it, and telling people that it’s always best to get checked.

“Don’t leave it and leave it because much worse could happen.”