Personal Best by Adele Roberts

Personal Best is the autobiography of Adele Roberts, which was published last month. Adele used to be a BBC Radio 1 DJ and is one of my favourite celebrities, right up there with Greg James. (Yes, I really like Radio 1.) She always came across as so positive on the radio and so supportive of the listeners.

In October 2021, in her early 40s, Adele was diagnosed with bowel cancer. Just 18 months later, she set a Guinness World Record for fastest marathon with a stoma. Personal Best is her incredibly positive and life affirming take on her diagnosis and life with cancer, chemo and with a stoma, which she calls Audrey.

It is a fairly short book and doesn’t go into a great deal of detail about her childhood and early life. But Adele shares enough to know that she had a childhood which wasn’t always easy, but she was surrounded with love and support from her large family. She was determined to be a DJ, but says she was terrible at it. But she kept working at it and in the end she landed her dream job at Radio 1.

Along the way, she appeared on Big Brother, in series 3 with legends Jade Goody and Alison Hammond. In 2019, she appeared on I’m a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here and later realised that all the signs of her bowel cancer were already there.  She fails to mention in her book her absolute triumph on Celebrity Coach Trip, with girlfriend Kate Holderness, who co-wrote the book.

For most people, a cancer diagnosis would be the end of the world. But Adele saw it as a new start. She says she hadn’t always been a positive person, but getting this second chance at life changed her perspective.

Some of the descriptions of chemo in the book are tough. The descriptions of Audrey’s bad behaviour are funny, but they definitely wouldn’t have been funny at the time.

Coincidentally, I read Adele’s description of her record breaking marathon day the day before I ran Newport marathon. I took a lot of her positivity on board. If she could do it with a stoma, I could definitely do it!

If you are looking for a book to inspire you and to help you see the positives when times are tough, I can definitely recommend Personal Best. Normally I would say to avoid a book if it’s something which is too close to home, but I think in this case it would help someone goign through cancer or supporting a loved one through cancer. It’s written in a very chatty style, which might not be to everyone’s tastes. But if you’re OK with that, it is definitely worth a read!