Actor Timothy Spall has told how his wife helped him beat cancer.

The star was told that he had leukaemia on the day he was meant to fly to Cannes, with his wife Shane, in 1996, to celebrate Secrets & Lies winning the film festival's Palme d'Or.

Spall, 57, who plays JMW Turner in the new Mike Leigh film about the British painter, told how his wife helped him.

"I thought I'd be on the red carpet, not lying in hospital with a raygun up my a**e!", he said of missing the festival.

The father-of-three added: "You never know what is going to happen to you in life. I'm lucky because I have Shane. She's my Rock of Gibraltar.

"When I was ill and she stood sentinel. We were in it together. I do believe in the power of love."

Spall, who is being tipped to get an Oscar nomination and won the best actor award at Cannes this year for his role in Mr Turner, said of his wife: "She wasn't having it.

"One day, after the doctors thought I'd relapsed and I was about to have a bone marrow transplant, I watched Shane pegging up the washing in the garden. She was just carrying on.

"All of a sudden I thought, 'I'm having people tell me I might not... live'.

"I went down there and said to her, 'I'm going to tell you something, darling. I'm not going to die. I just decided. It's tough, but I know you know I'm not'."

He added: "Surviving a serious illness gives you an understanding that life is very much about other people. I don't think Turner, a genius who was obsessed with his work, did that as well as he wanted to."

"I'm lucky. I've learnt that there's no point in just living for yourself."