The following year however, Johnson underwent an operation and declared himself cancer free, revealing later that he was told he only had 10 months to live and remarking: “I shouldn’t be here at all.”

In the meantime, he is focused on trying to maintain a resolution he made while recovering from his operation. He was in pain and protesting that he wanted to go home, when he had a revelation: “I suddenly realised there were all these people, that I never even saw, looking down microscopes and all that, doing all this for me. And I kind of gave myself a good talking to.” He resolved never to complain about anything ever again: to be, as he puts it, “less of a twat”. He was born John Peter Wilkinson on July 12 1947 on Canvey Island, Essex. He grew up in this below-sea-level community – at that time remote and rural – in the Thames Estuary. He went to Westcliff High School – while playing in local bands – then studied English at Newcastle University.Others to pay tribute included Sleaford Mods, who called Johnson “the unsung inventor of post Mod, Mod,” and The Stranglers.

Wilko Johnson as the executioner Ser Ilyn Payne in the HBO TV series Game of Thrones, 2011. Photograph: HBO The news of Johnson’s death was confirmed via a post on his official social media accounts, revealing that he died at home on Monday (November 21). When I was making the album with Roger, I really thought I was at the end’ … Wilko Johnson and Roger Daltrey live in London in February 2014. Photograph: Brian Rasic/RexI often say to journalists there is a bridge between the old times and the punk times. That bridge is exclusively the Feelgoods, it allowed us to go from one thing to another. That’s the connection, the DNA.” Zoe: “‘You can’t procrastinate - you’ve gotta do it!’ And I was being sensitive, wondering was this alright, and it’s Lee, and they didn’t always get on and stuff, but y’know, as Wilko is often saying, those things don’t matter anymore - you’ve got to rise above it. When you’ve got a diagnosis like that it makes you look at things completely differently. He’s been brilliant. He’s dealing with it a lot better than the rest of us are, you know? I have to say. I remember going round there once and I was just flummoxed by it and he said “Well what do you think it’s like for me?!” I said “But you’re dealing with it amazingly! You’re not the one… left behind……”

Zoë and Wilko will be in conversation on 3rd June at Stoke Newington Town Hall for the Stoke Newington Literary Festival; Wilko and his band will be performing. After being rushed to hospital in Southend for an unknown condition, Johnson was diagnosed with incurable pancreatic cancer in January 2013. He reacted with remarkable stoicism. Given 10 months to live, but having declined chemotherapy which might have given him a few more weeks, he talked frankly about his condition on Radio 4’s Front Row and arranged a string of farewell gigs that March. His philosophical attitude was perhaps shaped by the fact that Irene had died of cancer in 2004, and Johnson had never reconciled himself to her loss (“the only time I don’t feel heartbroken is when I’m playing,” he admitted). A terrific read but also troubling. Here is a man who has been a factor in my life albeit from a distance for many years letting you into his head warts and all. Not sure I could write an autobiography with anything like the candour or frankness as this one. But then my life is a much less interesting one. As the infamous phrase goes to live in interesting times or some such. This man chose to tell us how he got started, how he lost his way several times, found it again, lost his nearest and dearest and then was faced with what most of us dread, an inoperable disease. Quite how he kept going is remarkable and you can read all about it between these covers.

Tensions that had always been present between Johnson and his hard-drinking bandmates began to stretch towards breaking point. The others were content to let the guitarist handle all the songwriting, and the relentless touring schedule denied the perfectionist Johnson the time he needed to come up with new material.

Despite, or in spite of Johnson’s significant influence as a guitarist and songwriter, he is paradoxically now most well known due to his diagnosis with terminal cancer and his subsequent recovery from same. Johnson writes about this particular part of his life with honesty and it’s a particularly troubling but ultimately uplifting section of the book to read. Zoe: “It’s all a bit of a Jekyll and Hyde character isn’t it? They all drank a lot apart from Wilko – the drinking culture in the Feelgoods is one of the first things people think about. But I always think that if you are drinking that much and you are still a nice guy then you’re alright. The Jekyll and Hyde was more on-stage versus off-stage.” Playing on the now and then quality of the title, Zoë Howe’s selected melange of ‘œthe man’ and ‘the life’ from astronomy, to literature, to guns, captures the enormity of his experience and the diversity of a life lived and the power of the Dr Feelgood era: a short by intensely influential time. Wilko today is reflective, with a pragmatic manner of talking about the big incidents of his life, and the future. Johnson was born John Peter Wilkinson in Canvey Island, Essex, in 1947. He began playing guitar as a teenager, but his career began in earnest in 1971, when he formed Dr Feelgood with singer Lee Brilleaux, bass player John B Sparks, and drummer John Martin.He was born John Wilkinson on Canvey Island, Essex. One of his earliest memories was of the 1953 floods, which hit low-lying Canvey badly and caused many deaths. His father, a gas-fitter, was “a stupid and uneducated and violent person”, according to his son, and died when Wilko was a teenager. Canvey became a romantic place in Johnson’s mind, with its lonely views of the Thames estuary overshadowed by the towers and blazing fires of the nearby Shell Haven oil refinery. Johnson and his contemporaries dubbed the area the Thames Delta, in homage to the Mississippi Delta, which spawned the blues musicians they admired. He confessed that he thought it would be “the last thing I ever did”, but then later that year his story took a dramatic twist. Further tests revealed that he was suffering from a less virulent form of cancer than previously believed, and doctors were confident it could be operated on successfully. He underwent a complex nine-hour procedure that included the removal of a tumour weighing 3kg, and after a long convalescence was declared cancer-free. Always remember that all the music before punk was self indulgent and lifeless. God bless Wilko https://t.co/noA3e4wqfT As a huge fan of Dr Feelgood, it was great to read about their inception and eventual dissolution - obviously this is from Johnson’s perspective and there’s always two sides to every story. I’m not sure where or whether the other Feelgoods have given their thoughts publicly or in print in the past? Wilko Johnson started from scratch and invented a new way to play guitar. Manifesting in his rhythm hand the amphetamine intensity of an era, he inspired a generation of twitchy dorks like me. Without him, I probably play clarinet. Requiescat. https://t.co/2VwlLt05u3