My dad was born into one of pit villages of the English Midlands in the 1930s. He was the fifth of six children. This was a place where men were men. As it transpired and rather obviously in these more enlightened times that turned out to be a very bad thing.

He reached his fifties having spent most of his working life in factories coupled with some spells of unemployment when recession hit in the 80s. It was in his early fifties that the first signs of what turned out to be prostate cancer must have been apparent to him.

Despite this as men were men he put it down to advancing age, never told anyone and certainly never troubled a doctor. It took until his mid sixties when the associated problems became unbearable for him to finally make a visit to the GP surgery at which stage the cancer was too far advanced and he died from it a few years later.

I’ve reached my fifties now and as a consequence of the above can’t recommend the NHS Health Check highly enough. Looking at the associated webpage it’s actually for anyone between the ages of 40 and 74 and is absolutely brilliant. You talk through general health with a nurse, have your blood pressure and height and weight checked and are then sent for some blood tests that take only a couple of minutes.

Most crucially for me I was able to explain my family history of prostate cancer and have that risk checked as one of my blood tests. That was fine but the tests did flag up high cholesterol and high triglycerides. So at the very least you have the information available to do something about it if you want to and before it becomes a more serious problem. Nobody is going to preach to you about it.

Beyond that you will be the envy of your friends as you confidently discuss your eosinophils count, haemoglobin a/c and serum creatinine level. More seriously this is a simple process where you have everything to gain for ridiculously little effort.