WE have all been guilty of taking a friend or family member for granted.

But 'People's Tenor' Russell Watson treats each moment with loved ones as a gift after surviving not one, but two brain tumours.

The 48-year-old battled an aggressive tumour just before his 40th birthday.

Then a year later he was in intensive care when it came back and haemorrhaged. A seven-hour operation saved his life.

Understandably he began to look at things a bit differently.

Dad-of-two Russell said: "It’s funny. For the first week or so there’s this massive euphoria and you want to do everything and go everywhere and be everything to everyone.

"You think: ‘I’ll never take anything for granted again’ and then six or seven months down the line you’re back to how you are again.

"But then it happens again and that feeling doesn’t go away. It stays with you. Life is a precious gift.

"At the time I didn’t find it at all amusing in any way, shape or form but six or seven years down the line I can look back and take some positives from it

"It kind of added a layer and a foundation to me that if it hadn’t have happened I wouldn’t have had and wouldn’t be who I am today.

"And who I am today is a much more grounded, focused and affable person. There was a period I went through in the early stages of my career when it was just all about the industry and nothing else mattered.

"A lot of things went by the wayside that shouldn’t have done. For me now, friends and family are more important than anything."

Russell, a former bolt-cutter from Salford, was discovered while singing in a working men's club.

His swift rise saw his debut album, The Voice, hold number one slots in the US and the UK simultaneously – a world first. It also spent a record-breaking 52 weeks at number one in the UK.

Russell has since performed for the likes of the Queen and Barack Obama.

He added: "When I first started I did the Michael Parkinson radio show and I remember him saying to me: ‘You’re so lucky because you’re in a queue of one'.

"There was only me doing this classical crossover and combining it with pop music and duetting with the likes of Lionel Richie and Lulu."

Other collaborations have included Pavarotti, Meatloaf, Cliff Richard, Alexandra Burke and Michael Bolton but perhaps the most bizarre was Happy Mondays' Shaun Ryder.

"It was one of those things that just happened," said Russell.

"My manager at the time was mates with Shaun’s manager and they had a chat. He told him we were putting all these different tracks together and Shaun said he’d be interested.

"Shaun likes to live life on the edge and do things that are slightly different from the norm and he thought it’d be a cool idea to do something with an opera singer from Salford.

"Then we met at a pal of mine’s called Alistair Gordon, who was doing some production for me at the time.

"Shaun came round to Alistair’s house and we all had a big Chinese takeaway together. Shaun and I got on like a house on fire from the moment we met.

"Before we knew it we were up in Alistair’s bedroom studio working on Barcelona and that was it."

But not everybody was convinced.

"The classical world hated it," added Russell.

"There were certain areas of the industry at that time that frowned upon me because I didn’t come from the right background and hadn’t had the correct amount of formal training

"We came in for a lot of flak in the early stages. The Shaun Ryder thing wasn’t meant to be but when I look back on it now it was a blatant two fingers high in the sky.

"Back in those days I was a bit impetuous and didn’t really care. It was fantastic having that care free attitude and it was totally tongue in cheek."

Changing perceptions of operatic music has not been Russell's only challenge.

After opening the door to classical crossover, a lot of rival artists have swooped in.

He said: "As a result of that the genre has expanded but in some respects it has expanded to the point where it has diluted. Some of the stuff out there isn’t very good.

"I’ve been around and doing it for a long time and achieving the success in the early stages is the easiest part of it.

"It’s sustaining your career and maintaining it through a long period time is the real struggle."

But after 25 years as a performer and 15 years as a recording artist that is exactly what Russell has done and this Christmas marks another first with his candlelit cathedral and monastery tour.

He added: "I wanted to do something more intimate and personalised with the Christmas tour.

"If we’re abroad and we see a church or a cathedral we’ll always go in and have a look. But every time I walk into those types of venues my immediate thought is: ‘I want to sing’.

"We did a survey online recently to find out what the favourite Christmas piece was of fans and O Holy Night came out on top so I’ll be performing that.

"There will also be the likes of Silent Night and the types of songs that immediately spur the memories of Christmases gone by."

- Russell Watson will perform at Manchester Monastery on Monday, December 15

DAVID MORGAN