A music teacher was told that he would only have two weeks to live unless he had his voice box removed.

Marc Valentine-Morton, 48, was told that a rare form of thyroid cancer that had spread to his larynx in 2020.

He was told that the only way to keep him alive was to lose his voice box.

Marc, a former music performer and teacher, was also the only patient on his ward to survive at the beginning of the pandemic after other patients died of Covid-19.

He said: “I used to sing and be a performer, a coach and a teacher, all led by my voice, so this news was devastating but they told me that removing my voice box was the only way to keep me alive.

“The day lockdown was enforced, me and other throat cancer patients were all pushed into a side ward to separate us from the rest of the hospital.

“I was due to stay in hospital for two weeks, but my surgeon suggested I was well enough to leave after eight days which I did.

"I am the only one from my ward who survived. The others died of Covid. My surgeon saved my life twice in just over a week.”

After only seeing his husband and his dog while doing radiotherapy due to self-isolating, Marc, from Hove, joined a support group run by charity Macmillan.

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After losing a friend he met at the group to cancer, Marc decided to set up his own group, called Mick’s MOT (Men’s Only Tuesdays).

The group, which meets at the Macmillan Horizon Centre in Bristol Gate in Brighton, gives men suffering from cancer a place to chat to other people going through the same thing.

Marc added: “All men and people who identify as men are welcome of all ages and those either living with cancer or caring for others who are.”

“We need to acknowledge that men’s needs can be different from women and sometimes men only spaces can be really beneficial to them.

Mick’s MOT meets twice a month ,from 5pm to 6.30pm. More information can be found by emailing micks@macmillan.org.uk.