Dame Julie Walters has "changed" since having cancer

She said: "It seems unreal now, it seemed unreal at the time, but it was very real. Very real. It's changed me because it's changed the way I live my life. I'm the same but different. I'm not rushing about all the time, getting up at 5am and coming home at midnight...

"I've made changes. I saw a doctor about what food I should and shouldn't eat. I was told not to go vegetarian, but I avoid red meat and I have lots of greens. I try not to eat sugar because it's cancer's best friend, but that's hard."

Julie feels "lucky" she had a treatable form of cancer, and had been living with the disease for some time before her diagnosis.

She said: "Apart from that I just think I was lucky that I had bowel cancer because it is one that there can be very good results with. I was told that I had had it for four years before I was diagnosed. Four years."

The 'Secret Garden' actress kept her diagnosis so secret, she didn't tell her daughter Maisie - who she has with husband Grant Roffey - or her older half-brothers until after she'd had her tumours removed because she didn't want people to "worry" about her.

She told the Telegraph magazine: "People deal with it in different ways. I couldn't bear the thought of everyone worrying - particularly my daughter. I told her I needed to have my appendix removed because there was a problem. I couldn't say the word 'cancer' to her. She said, 'OK, Mum.'

"I knew she knew it probably didn't sound right, but she also knew I wasn't going to talk about it and she didn't push me.

"She knows me and she understood why I waited to tell her."

Julie admitted she found having cancer "frightening" and was grateful for the support of her husband.

She said: "I didn't want to upset people around me. I wanted to keep it small. Of course it was frightening, but Grant was with me every step. I wanted to wait till I was in the right place and then I had my dramatic moments.

"If people fussed I'd shout I was fine, if they treated me like I was fine I'd complain I still wasn't totally better. But really I didn't want to have to talk about it until I'd processed it myself. I still find it a bit hard to be honest."