JASON'S HERBAL REMEDY MADE HIM A MILLIONAIRE

His name may not be instantly recognisable but Mr Winters has sold 13 million copies of his book, which tells how he beat cancer using nothing but three herbs.

His discovery of the herbs in 1977 has made him a millionaire, but life was very different before his brush with death.

MATT ADAMS met the 68-year-old former Hollywood stuntman as he returned to Hove to look back at the town where his extraordinary life began.

JASON Winters was born during a spiritualist seance on September 13, 1930, to a self-proclaimed psychic on the stairs of the family council house in Stapley Road, Hove.

Young Jason grew up with his two sisters in hard times and harsh surroundings, where every day was a struggle against poverty.

Jason, whose father was a painter for the council, learned to survive.

He worked before and after school delivering the Argus and as a shoeshine boy at Brighton's Royal Crescent Hotel.

His only escape was to sit on the beach and dream of far-off lands, and of happiness.

Speaking outside the house where he grew up, he said: "I can remember it all like it was yesterday.

"It was very hard. The only way out was to cast my mind to better places.

"I had a map of the world and I used to think of Bombay and dream."

He attended nearby Knoll School, where he was regularly caned across the hands.

He said: "They caned us until we bled.

"I used to go home and show my father, who would hit me again for getting into trouble."

Jason had his first drink at the May Tree pub, opposite the school.

It was VJ Day, and Jason, then 13, sipped a pint of mild beer. It was the beginning of three wild years.

He said: "I used to drink half a bottle of whisky a day, smoke 40 cigarettes and chase women all night."

But he did not escape from poverty until 1947, when his sisters married Canadian soldiers and the entire Winters family moved to join them in Vancouver.

Jason found work as a lumberjack until 1950 when he went on holiday to Mexico.

It was on the way home, with just a few dollars in his pocket, that his life changed completely.

He clambered off the bus at Tucson, Arizona, and took shelter from the heat in a local hotel.

Inside were men dressed as cowboys.

Jason said: "This one guy came over and told me to stand up, turn around, say a few words.

"I thought he was trying to pick me up. Then he led me into a room and I saw Jay Silverheels, the actor who played Tonto.

"It turned out the hotel was being used for auditions for the Lone Ranger and I was offered a part."

Jason's herbal remedy

made him a millionaire

Thanks to Jason's huge 6ft 4in frame, producers soon suggested he should be a stuntman to the stars, standing in for Tonto and Western hero John Wayne.

Early appearances led to bigger things and eventually Jason set up his own team of stuntmen.

But his new found taste for danger led to a number of daring expeditions.

In 1966, he canoed hundreds of miles along the Mackenzie River, the world's seventh longest.

Then in 1967 he tried to fly a hot air balloon over the Rocky Mountains, but crashed at 11,000 feet. He came to hours later surrounded by the smashed remains of his craft.

Undeterred, he then tried to cross the Atlantic in another balloon. But again, the pioneering voyage in 1969 ended in disaster.

He said: "We crashed in the black of night. It was very nerve-wracking."

But in 1977, Jason's action-packed lifestyle was stopped in its tracks.

The cancer which he had been already fighting for 20 years returned in his head, jaw and neck.

Doctors said it was terminal and to his horror, after intensive radiotherapy and chemotherapy, told him he had just three weeks to live.

Jason said: "When they told me, I thought I had a death wish. But then I realised I had a life wish. I didn't want to die.

"In 30 seconds I went from smoking 40 a day to none, and from being an atheist to a deeply religious person.

"I read the bible all day and recorded several references to various blood purifying herbs."

Despite being almost too weak to stand and eat, Jason set off in search of life-saving herbs.

Jason's herbal remedy

made him a millionaire

He went to Singapore, Baghdad, Europe and Mexico, but in vain.

He headed back to Canada and prepared to die. But one day, by accident, he discovered what he says saved his life.

Too weak to prepare three separate herbal drinks, Jason mixed three together - and, he says, the combination worked.

Jason said the combination of herbaline, red clover and chapparal took almost immediate effect and within nine weeks he was on the road to recovery - and to fame and fortune.

He subsequently sold the rights to the blend to an American drug firm for $17 million, two-thirds of which was his to keep.

Since then he has sold more than 13 million copies of his book Killing Cancer, which tells how he beat the disease.

While the book continues to sell, Jason spends his time travelling to and from his homes in Las Vegas and the Philippines to conferences and lectures.

But despite his success, Jason, now married with two children, does not claim to have the cure to the killer disease.

He said: "I cannot cure cancer. The trick is to purify the blood and let the immune system do its job."

Details of products, including the herbal combination and various teas, are available from Jason Winters Inc, PO Box 94075, Las Vegas, NV 89193.

More information is also available on his Internet site at sirjasonwinters.com

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