It wasn’t his first taste of mortality. And it certainly wasn’t his last. Brushes with death are an ongoing feature of Du Bois’ life.

Almost 20 years since the fall, in the wet summer of 1999, Du Bois, now 57 and only three months out of what is not-so-delicately called “double fatal chemo”, is sitting on his aluminium tinny at the Ben Buckler Fishing Club. It is a short stroll down to the boat ramp at North Bondi and just below the old penthouse rooftop.

He is talking about his new book, which I ghost wrote over the course of a dozen interviews, called Life Force: An Unforgettable Story About Living With Cancer. The title is hardly an exaggeration.

Du Bois has faced two cancer diagnoses seven years apart and supported his wife through her treatment.

But throughout his battles with his health, Du Bois says living in Bondi has helped him stay grounded.

Du Bois has been deeply involved in the area since 1992, shortly after meeting a pretty, dark-haired girl, his now wife Leonie, at Dooleys, a long-gone cafe on the corner of Ramsgate Ave and Campbell Parade.

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He bought and moved into a one-bedroom apartment at 99 Ramsgate Ave, back when “a hundred grand got you beachfront”, convinced the strata body at another building to let him develop the roof and turn it into the lavish penthouse which he would later fall off and sell at a record price and, in 1999, he and Leonie were married.

“I was drawn to Bondi because it had the same community feel I experienced growing up out west. There’s a real village feel, an openness and similarly of lifestyle. A Bondi closeness.”

Bondi, he says, has a wellness he needs, that we all need. “It’s the sea, it’s the salt and the fitness and the similarity of purpose, of good health that comes with all that,” he says.

Du Bois leans his head back and inhales the autumn southerly. “Bondi Beach is (like) a beautiful smile,” he says. “And I feel a part of this beach, this smile.”

He says these surroundings have helped him through the past few difficult years.

In 2010, Du Bois was told he had between three and six months to live. A tumour had eaten away his C1 vertebrae. According to the oncologist who had been hurriedly summoned by Du Bois’ doctor, it was only the fibre of the tumour, a vein and some muscle that was holding his head on his shoulders.

“Because of the size and aggressive nature of the tumour, you’re full of cancer,” the oncologist told Du Bois and his Leonie, who underwent radiation and a radical hysterectomy for cervical cancer in 2005. “Which means you’re in a lot of trouble. I suggest you spend as much time as you can with your family.”

At the time, they were going through the process of surrogacy that would give them their twins Bennet and Arabella, now five, who were born in India in 2012.

Du Bois survived only to be hit last June with a diagnosis of multiple myelomas, or tumours, in his thighs, pelvis, hips and lower spine.

“Doctors say the treatment, if that’s what you can call it, buys most people an extra five years of life. When they die it’s not because of the illness they had but the ferocity of the chemicals,” he says. “The chemo’s job is to wipe out as many cells as it can and in the process it’s going to reduce my immune system to nothing. No one talks about curing the cancer; this isn’t a cure.”

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Du Bois’ once-proud silver mane has just started to grow back after the aggressive treatment but he exhibits no sign that he was, or is, sick.

The idea for the book was as a way of dealing with Du Bois’ anger at being diagnosed with cancer for a second time. He was shopping at Bunnings when his doctor called and said he needed to see him, urgently

It was June 2017 and Du Bois was about to leave for a five-week holiday on his yacht in Turkey with his wife and children. He decided to go ahead with the trip anyway. “The visit and diagnosis knocked me around,” he says. “I said to my mum, when she was sick, ‘As soon as you’re better, I’m going to take you on a holiday and we’re going to have a great time together.’

“That opportunity never came because when you’re dying you don’t come good. What if it was the start of the end?”

The anger from the second diagnosis didn’t go away.

“I wanted to blame someone,” he says. But he had help from Dr Judith Lacey, head of supportive care and integrative oncology at the Chris O’Brien Lifehouse. “She convinced me the way to go was not to worry about who was to blame but how I could make this journey the best it could be for me.”

The book is part-life story, Du Bois’ ongoing struggle with depression, the death of his mother of cancer in a regional hospital, growing up on a six-lane highway in the western suburbs and learning the importance of honesty from his father.

It includes Du Bois’ The Living Room co-star Miguel Maestre’s recipes for food, which he has adapted for anyone undergoing their own cancer battle.

What has Du Bois learned from his childhood and from his bouts with cancer?

“That it’s easier to love than hate. It’s easier to smile and walk away from a fight than to get in one. But then don’t be afraid to fight if you absolutely have to,” he says. “And to live here in the eastern suburbs means you are incredibly lucky. We live 15 minutes from the best hospitals in the country. We’re surrounded by healthy people so our peers are uplifting.”

Du Bois says he and Maestre realised a book about a chef cooking for his mate would be a great way to share “all these amazing things nutritionists know but not many people do.” That’s what he thought the book would be about. But in our first interview I asked him about his childhood.

“I realised that who I am is a result of that childhood. And, being close to 58 and having five-year-old twins, I thought it wouldn’t be a bad idea to jot down some of the stories that have made me who I am today and to have that legacy, not just for my children, but for a lot of people. They can take what they see fits them and use it to their benefit.”