I'd also made the first tennis team. I was number two player in the school at 11 years of age and that didn't sit very well with people.

I was a pretty feisty young kid.

I had started my love affair with Wimbledon.

At Wimbledon, the ladies are simply the candles on the cake.

You know, I was a regular on the Friday afternoon drill squad. Um, which... The year after I left school, I went back and thanked the sergeant major because I was so fit.

A few of us who are around the sixty mark don't play that much these days and if you are taking on a couple of guys in their forties it is very difficult.

By the time I got to the hospital, I certainly realised that I had a problem because I couldn't write or print at that time, which lasted luckily only about four months. I'd gone numb here and on my tongue and the right foot a little bit.