Escape to the Country's Nicki Chapman: My brain tumour has given me time to reflect on life

It was the diagnosis of a golf ball-sized brain tumour which prompted Escape to the Country presenter Nicki Chapman to contemplate her life and perhaps even write a book about it.

“Receiving that news was, without doubt, the most shocking and frightening experience of my life – even worse than being chased by an elephant on safari with the Spice Girls,” she writes in the introduction of So Tell Me What You Want, her recollections of the crazy years she spent in the music industry.

The non-cancerous tumour was removed and, so far so good. She returns for scans every 18 months.

These days, TV viewers will see Chapman, 57, admiring country houses with prospective buyers on the popular daytime BBC1 show, or admiring the flora and fauna as a presenter of the RHS Chelsea Flower Show, some may remember her judging musical talent shows Popstars with Nigel Lythgoe and Pop Idol alongside Simon Cowell, Pete Waterman and Neil Fox, before The X Factor came out.

From joining MCA as a promotions assistant, plugging to get her artists’ songs on the radio, to working her way up the ladder to head of promotions at RCA, Chapman became a publicist tour de force in the Nineties and Noughties, promoting Take That, the Spice Girls, Annie Lennox and David Bowie, among others.

Now a TV and Radio 2 presenter, who is married to Dave ‘Shacky’ Shackleton, MD of Phantom Music, Iron Maiden’s management company, looking back at her music career there are memories of the Spice Girls’ wild auditions, conversations with a young Gary Barlow – with whom she is still friends – and accounts of managing a young Billie Piper and Amy Winehouse.

“Gary is so talented and very funny. He can literally sit at a piano and do a ditty straight away,” says Chapman.

“Looking after the Spice Girls was like herding cats, trying to keep them all together. They all had something, there wasn’t a weak one in the band.”

She still keeps in touch, often bumping into Mel B, from Leeds, and Mel C during the course of her work.

However, Chapman is also a professional coach and works as a volunteer at her local Mary Portas Living & Giving shop in London to raise money for Save the Children, and supports The Brain Tumour Charity.

Her own non-cancerous brain tumour was removed and, so far so good. She returns for scans every 18 months.

“When they took the tumour out, it didn’t all come out, and the bit that was left has disappeared, which is not rare,” she says.

Has the experience changed her life?

“The only thing it really made me do is have a greater sense of gratitude.

"I had a brain tumour. I didn’t have brain cancer, but my surgeon and the NHS had that conversation with me. I made my will. You know, nothing is given and it does give you an appreciation.”

So Tell Me What You Want by Nicki Chapman is published by Sphere, priced £22. Available now.