A cancer survivor’s song, written during his recovery, is being recorded by one of the US’s top reality stars.
With almost a million followers on Twitter, Drew Scott, better known as one of the Property Brothers, is releasing the single on his social media channels.
His cousin, Stuart Arnott, 55, from Troon, Ayrshire, almost died after being diagnosed with myelofibrosis – a rare type of bone marrow cancer.
Registers were checked for a match and finally a donor was found in the US.
But it took two stem cell transplants in Glasgow before Stuart was out of the woods and as he recovered, he rediscovered his love of music and penned A Stranger about cancer.
His body rejected the transplant and it was a race against time.
Daughter Gillian, now 29, and his son Alasdair, 23, were tested as possible donors.
Gillian proved the best match and his second transplant went ahead in February last year.
While in hospital, Alasdair brought him a keyboard, which reawakened his love of music.
From five years old, he had played accordian and by 16 he was playing keyboards in bands.
Stuart said: “I had always dabbled but I had never sat down and written anything.
"I got the lyrics and then the tune came into my head.”
Stuart wanted to use the song to raise money for Anthony Nolan – the UK’s biggest stem cell register – who found his first donor.
But before he set about getting help, he sent it to his cousins, twins Drew and Jonathan Scott, who have several successful US reality TV shows, two of which recently guest-starred actor Brad Pitt and singer Michael Buble.
The twins, whose dad Jim is from Lanark, loved it.
Drew was so impressed he asked to record it himself for the charity and it will be released within weeks.
Drew said: “I love how he’s now dedicated his strength and passion to creating music that shows anyone else fighting that they are not alone.”
To donate to Anthony Nolan click here.
