Michael Murphy on his diagnosis: 'Death has taken up residence in my blood'

In his taboo-breaking book At Five In The Afternoon, Michael Murphy wrote with brutal honesty about prostate cancer. Recently diagnosed with chronic lymphocytic leukaemia he talks to Noel Baker from his new home in Wexford with the same trademark openness

Michael Murphy: "I think there’s a sort of a wisdom that has gathered over the years, to be more accepting of mortality and what I’m facing at my age". Photograph: Patrick Browne

In a lifetime of revelations, many of them his own, another arrived unannounced for Michael Murphy recently — he might be old.

The much-loved former newsreader and TV producer says it came not long after he and his husband, Terry, a founding member of the Rutland Centre, had relocated to rural Co Wexford from Dublin.