I was a pretty feisty young kid.

I was in the main draw from the start, my opening match was on Court One against Jan Eric Lundquist of Sweden who was about eight in the world at the time.

I wouldn’t, a little bit frightened but throughout my life I’d learnt that when you’re in the serious situations, you’ve got to try to stay calm. Because that’s the way you get out of them.

I was a pretty feisty young kid.

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.

Well, he can’t be dumb, I mean, because he’s been president for four years and he’s president again, so you’re going to get caught out if you’re really bad, aren’t you? Unless millions and millions of Americans are dumb.

That match was late evening and I had the experience of the electricity of the Centre Court because it was packed, a full house for the whole match. It had been a great year for me, first time there and I had the full taste of Wimbledon.

I had started my love affair with Wimbledon.

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.

You know, I eat, I ate pretty well anyway so, I’m basically living the same, I just curtailed the stupidity.

They wrote it that my moustache was insured for 13 million.

So there was a fire inside me. And that fire inside you, it can be turned into a negative form or a positive form. And I gradually realised that I had this fire and that it had to be used in a positive way.

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.

I chose to stay with tennis and they didn’t understand that at the school.