Ivan Noble (June 1967 - January 31, 2005) was a British journalist working for BBC Online News. He was married with two children, a son and daughter.

Born in Leeds, he lived in East Germany working as a translator between 1988 and 1990. He then joined the BBC, originally working for them as a translator, then as a sub-editor in Nairobi, before working in the Science and Technology section of BBC online, where he was known for his love of complicated gadgetry.

He was diagnosed with a malignant brain tumour (specifically Glioblastoma multiforme) on August 29, 2002 and wrote about his battle against the cancer on the BBC News website until January, 2005. The series is entitled "Tumour Diary". The tumour left him with serious visual problems on the right side. In December, 2004, having completed several courses of chemotherapy, and after a brief remission, his tumour started to grow again. A book chronicling his fight with cancer will be released in May, 2005.

He was an inspiration to many other sufferers and their families and enjoyed a huge amount of public support. For him his greatest achievement was not surrendering to his fear around cancer. He felt it was so important to fight against cancer, that although it would kill him eventually it should not prevent him from living. His final comment was that if his column could help 2 or 3 people give up smoking (he had been a non-smoker) then one of them would avoid getting cancer, making the diary worthwhile.

He died in a London hospice aged 37.

External links

• Tumour Diary.
• BBC writer Ivan Noble dies at 37, includes a link to a 2004 videotaped interview
• Ivan Noble: An appreciation
• Reuters: Tumour-Diary BBC journalist at Age 37

Quotes

• "It delights me that I am part of a species so far apparently unique in its ability to create culture and preserve memory. Our marks endure and what ever happens to me, a tiny part will be mine."

• "Cancer succumbs all the time both to the incremental improvements of science and the determination of those of us living and surviving the disease day by day. Cancer will lose and people will win."

• "I have not been defeated ... If two or three people stop smoking as a result of anything I have ever written then the one of them who would have got cancer will live and all my scribblings will have been worthwhile." (Final entry)