DEBBIE MCGEE REVEALS THE HEARTBREAKING FINAL WEEKS OF PAUL DANIELS’ LIFE — ‘I STILL TELL MYSELF HOW LUCKY I WAS’

Debbie McGee has opened up about the devastating final weeks she spent with her husband Paul Daniels, revealing how she forced herself to focus on every precious moment they had left together.

Ten years after the legendary magician died aged 77, Debbie, now 67, has laid bare the agony and tenderness of their final days in her new autobiography, A Magical Life.

After almost four decades together, Debbie was determined to be beside Paul when the end came.

She had been in bed for barely half an hour when a nurse woke her to say that her “wonderful, magical husband” was nearing the end.

“I got up and went to him, laying alongside him on the hospital bed, just cuddling him,” Debbie recalls.

“Paul always used to tell people that I was the best thing that happened to him. I wanted him to know that he was the best thing that ever happened to me.”

And despite the unbearable pain of watching the man she loved deteriorate, Debbie says she kept returning to the same thought.

“Even though I was losing him, I just kept telling myself – I still do – how lucky I was.”

FROM A MAGICAL ROMANCE TO A TERRIFYING CHANGE

Debbie first met Paul during a summer season in Great Yarmouth in 1979, the same year The Paul Daniels Magic Show began its hugely successful 15-year run on BBC1.

The couple married in 1988. Although they never had children together, Debbie became stepmother to Paul’s three sons, Paul Jr, Martin and Gary.

Their personal and professional partnership endured long after Paul’s television heyday, with the pair still touring together in 2015.

But later that year, Debbie began noticing worrying changes.

Paul, who would normally have several projects on the go at once and spend his mornings immediately working on his laptop, suddenly seemed exhausted and uninterested in everything around him.

He struggled to learn his lines for a pantomime. He began missing parties, leaving Debbie to attend alone, and when she returned home, he was often already in bed.

Even Christmas presents — something the couple usually enjoyed wrapping together — no longer interested him.

“Paul would usually have six projects on the go at any one time,” Debbie writes.

“But now he didn’t seem interested in anything. He would just sit in front of the TV until he fell asleep.”

His balance also appeared to be failing.

“When he was up and about, his balance seemed to have gone. He kept falling over.”

Blood tests initially led doctors to suspect pernicious anaemia, and Paul was prescribed a course of injections.

But Debbie knew something much more serious was happening.

Eventually, she called the surgery in desperation and told the doctor: “I can’t describe what’s happening but this isn’t my husband.”

‘TELL DEB’

Paul was eventually referred to a neurologist, but before they could attend the appointment, he became sick after breakfast.

Debbie called an ambulance.

A CT scan delivered the devastating answer: Paul had a glioblastoma that had spread across much of the left side of his brain and was extending towards the right.

The consultant asked Paul whether he wanted to be told what was wrong.

Paul’s response was simple.

“No. Tell Deb.”

While Paul waited in the hospital corridor, Debbie stayed behind expecting to hear how doctors would treat him.

Radiotherapy was discussed, but there was no guarantee it would improve his condition. Paul’s severe claustrophobia also meant that the mask required for treatment presented another daunting obstacle.

Desperate for another option, Debbie asked whether he could receive treatment in America.

Then she put the question in the starkest possible terms.

“If this was your spouse, what would you be doing?”

The consultant promised to discuss Paul’s case with oncologists, but gave Debbie an answer she would never forget.

“In all honesty, if this were my spouse, I would be taking them home and making them as comfortable as possible.”

Debbie was eventually told Paul might have just two months to live.

She went home to prepare for his return.

‘MY PAUL’ AGAIN

Yet when Debbie returned to the hospital, she was greeted by a sight that momentarily made the diagnosis almost impossible to believe.

Paul was wearing his Crombie coat and favourite trilby — and dancing with a nurse.

“In that moment it was hard to believe there was anything wrong with him at all,” Debbie remembers.

“He seemed like himself again. The man I loved. My Paul.”

After the couple publicly announced his diagnosis, around 800 emails and letters arrived in a single day.

Paul’s sons and grandchildren came to visit, while Debbie’s sister Donna moved into the home to help care for him.

With the tumour leaving Paul prone to falling, Donna’s support finally allowed Debbie to get some much-needed sleep.

Debbie says Paul never wanted to know the full truth about his condition.

“I think he knew that he was dying but he couldn’t discuss it,” she writes.

“I didn’t try to press him. There was no benefit to distressing him.”

THE MONTH THEY CHOSE TO STAY IN THE MOMENT

The couple spent their remaining time together watching Only Fools and Horses and taking short walks when the weather allowed.

Paul had a Magnum ice cream every afternoon.

For Debbie, those ordinary routines became extraordinarily precious.

“It was a very loving, peaceful month,” she recalls.

“I couldn’t deny what was happening, but I really forced myself to stay in the moment and not look forward and not look back.”

She would wake up, put on her make-up and smile, even though she admits the smile was sometimes “sort of fake”.

Each morning brought the same promise: Paul was still alive that day, so they would make the most of it.

But one film they watched together would eventually become too painful for Debbie to see again.

THE FILM THAT BROKE THEM BOTH

Debbie says she only cried in front of Paul once — and only saw him cry once.

It happened while they were watching one of the Best Exotic Marigold Hotel films.

At the end, the young couple at the heart of the story get married.

Debbie turned towards Paul and saw tears streaming down his face.

“I can’t watch that movie any more,” she says.

As his condition deteriorated, nurses began sitting with Paul overnight.

On March 14, Debbie’s mother visited for her birthday and went to say goodbye.

Paul could barely speak by then, but he whispered a rendition of “Happy Birthday” to his mother-in-law.

It was the last day Debbie remembers her husband being conscious.

Afterwards, she remained beside him, talking to him even when she struggled to speak without crying.

‘WE REALLY WERE A TEAM’

Looking back a decade later, Debbie does not describe their life together only through the pain of its ending.

Instead, she remembers the years they shared.

“Paul and I had a fairy tale life,” she writes.

“Through the good times and the bad, we had faced every challenge together. We really were a team.”

And after almost 40 years of love, laughter, work and life side by side, Debbie is left with one final hope.

“I hope he knew that I was with him, loving him until the very end.”