THE rain pours from the dark cloud cast over Turf Moor, but there is sunshine in Barry Kilby’s smile.

“This is proper Burnley weather!” beams the 66-year-old during a photoshoot in which he is asked to sit in the director’s box.

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The seat the photographer points to, as it turns out, is his – formerly Bob Lord’s viewpoint – and one which he never changed, even though his role did.

After 13 years as chairman he stepped down in 2012 following a diagnosis of prostate cancer, and stepped back.

With ‘the big C’ comes a big battle – one that through regular check-ups and medication Kilby is thankfully on top of.

So much so, that he has increased his commitments on a daily basis to the Clarets by accepting chairman Mike Garlick’s invitation to be his right hand man.

“Mike kindly asked me to come back as vice chairman, and I thought about it and I am ready for it,” said Kilby. “Although I’ve never really been away.

“I still went to games and still go to games. I wasn’t persona non grata.

“But I did divorce myself. John (Banaszkiewicz) and Mike took over with the joint chairmanship and I didn’t think it was fair for me to be hovering around. You’ve got to let them really get to grips with the day-to-day running, along with the chief executive that is the representative here. So I did step back.

“Don’t get me wrong, I went to the board meetings along with other directors and had my say on things.

“But it’s more of the day to day stuff now.

“I report back to Mike and the rest of the board.

“Anything I can do, hopefully I’ve got experience in quite a few things and that will count towards something.

“We’ve worked well together and one thing I am is on the ground up here, whereas Mike’s obviously down in London.

“I have a good relationship with Sean Dyche too so hopefully we can keep the show on the road.”

With cancer came the perspective that so many sufferers and their families experience.

“You realise your own mortality, for sure,” said Kilby.

“You realise you’re not here forever.”

He had his business, Total Gamings Solutions Ltd – a lottery management company for professional sports clubs and charities, among other organisations – and his Burnley interest; but for a man who had not visited his doctor in a quarter of a century until a prompt from a television programme, his health became the number one priority.

“It was so weird, I saw a programme on it and one of the things it said was ‘If you’re going for a pee more regularly than normal’ and I thought ‘Do you know, I’ve been doing that’.

“Normally I wouldn’t do anything about it but I did go and get checked,” he explained.

“The Almighty must have been looking after me.

“I had a PSA level of 80. They reckon four or five is not right.

“The prostate is so near to everything else and if you get it in your soft tissues like your bladder then your liver then it is a tough call.

“It did get outside the prostate but I was very lucky that it was just a bit of my pelvic bone.

“There are tough times in treatment. But luckily I’ve had some good people around me.

“Every three months I’ve got to go to get the PSA test, in London.

“Luckily I’m fortunate I’ve been able to afford to go to the very best.

“I had all the major scans last time and everything’s all right and it’s not spread. My pelvic bone is all right.

“You take medications.

“I thought I was going to have to have chemotherapy but I avoided that.

“There are various drugs you can take.

“Every three months they put a pellet inside my stomach through an injection that controls things.

“You don’t feel so well for a while but nothing like going through chemo.”

Kilby launched a Prostate Scanner Appeal for Burnley General and wrote a short story titled, As Good As Some, about a young footballer struggling with his sexuality, which is for sale on Kindle and has so far raised over £1,000 – the proceeds of which will go towards subsidising PSA tests at Turf Moor in February next year.

He considers himself fortunate, and wants others to benefit from the early diagnosis that he had.

“This is what I want to achieve with the blood tests – they found it early enough to be able to work on it for me,” said Kilby.

“Yes it had gone out of the prostate but it had only touched a small bit and they’ve been able to keep that under control.

“I’ve not needed any surgery.

“I haven’t taken any part in any drugs trials as people sometimes do.

“But I am hopeful there are things waiting in the wings that can help. Treatment moves on very quickly.”

He added: “I didn’t go to the doctors for 25 years.

“But it’s a simple blood test. Get it done!”

Kilby did, and now he feels well enough to take on more Clarets commitments.