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The waiting room on a cancer ward is a long way from the lives of two 1980s outrageous punk rockers touring the world.

Yet Llandough Hospital in Cardiff is where two members of the hard-living punk group The Damned were stunned to meet each other – three decades after they last met.

Their lives in the legendary group witnessed years of boozy bust-ups, near stabbings in New York and being set alight by the group’s drummer “for a laugh”.

Yet in a twist to rival even the tallest of touring tales, the reunion of Paul Gray and Bryn Merrick came more when both men were being treated for cancer by the same consultant in the same ward of the very same hospital.

“We even had the same consultant,” said Gray, who confessed his surprise at even having made it that far given his turbulent times on the road with the crazy crew.

“Being in The Damned was the best education a boy could have - the highest highs and the lowest lows, you experienced it all,” said the 55-year-old who now lives in Cefn Mably, outside Cardiff.

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“In fact, I’m amazed I got through two tours of duty with them unscathed – that’s about 12 years in all - especially since the drummer Rat Scabies used to delight in setting me on fire for a joke.

“There were no rules, no one ever knew what was going on and we were beholden to no one – I dare say wehad more than a dozen managers come and go in the space of a few years, most of them probably ended up having nervous break-downs.”

The men were not in The Damned at the same time but bassist Merrick replaced Gray in 1984.

Gray, a dad of one, who first found fame playing on Eddie and the Hot Rods’ Do Anything You Want To Do hit single in 1977, feared his luck had finally run out upon a routine visit to the doctor last summer.

“I’d had a persistent cough for ages and kind of knew what my GP was going to tell me before she’d even opened her mouth – I had cancer of the vocal chords,” he said.

“So, seeing as the tinnitus I’d contracted from playing loud music meant that chemotherapy couldn’t be considered, I was sent to Velindre for this new type of drug treatment.”

And it was there he bumped into the man who’d taken over from him in The Damned all those years ago.

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“I probably looked awful because I’d lost a lot of weight from not eating and was covered in scabs from the medication, but Bryn still recognised me straight away – not sure if I should take that as a compliment or not,” joked Gray.

“So, every day for six weeks, we’d get together and chat about the old times, comparing notes about all the hi-jinx we got up to and whether or not Rat had ever tried to set him on fire too.”

And, quick to set the record straight, his successor revealed he had.

“Rat even did it to Johnny Rotten, but I managed to punch him in the face before he could get to me with his lighter,” said the Merrick, the 55-year -old from Barry having been admitted for surgery on a malignant tumour in his neck.

“Funniest thing was that fans, when they heard we were both in Velindre, started posting messages on Facebook saying: “What the hell were they giving the bass players in The Damned back then?’

“Seeing that state Paul was in wasn’t funny though, he looked like someone from a concentration camp – he was that skinny.”

A survivor of a run-in with knife-wielding pimps in the Big Apple and a motorbike crash that curtailed his music career for almost indefinitely –”I went the wrong way round Culverhouse Cross roundabout whilst high on LSD” – Merrick added that this latest near-miss with the Grim Reaper had finally made him rethink his freewheeling lifestyle.

“My daughter, who’s in her 20s, asked me with tears in her eyes to knock all the drinking and smoking on the head, if only for her sake,” he said.

“But I’m still gigging in a Ramones tribute act called The Shamones, so it’s a hard habit to break – but now I’ve been given the all-clear I’m going to try.”

Similarly, Gray – also cancer-free and recording an album with ex-Damned bandmate Captain Sensible – admitted to taking things easier these days too.“Our band’s called The Sensible Gray Cells and we jam in a retired doctor’s garage in Rudry – she serves us non-stop tea and cream cakes.

“I still definitely want to go for a pint with Bryn one day though – I’m just not quite ready yet,” he added.