One day separates itself from the rest. It was a Friday morning in January nine years ago, a bright sunny day that made him think winter wasn't as bad as people made out. He was in a consulting room at the Southmead Hospital in Bristol. Some strange things had been going on with his body but he was a get-it-sorted bloke.
"So, doc, what do we have?" "Have you ever heard of MS? What you have may not be as bad as you think."
It wasn't, it was worse. Alastair Hignell had a progressive form of an incurable disease and after almost a decade of continuing on as a BBC radio rugby commentator, he did his last match at Twickenham yesterday. His listeners never knew