The nurse answered, tears coming down her face: "His son died yesterday in a road accident, he was in the burial when we called him for your son's surgery."

Stocky and tough-looking (his face bears the legacy of a car accident at 18, which required extensive plastic surgery), Sorrell is a coiled spring - restlessly shifting while we talk.

And so it was every Thursday, or sometimes Tuesday, until my accident and my four months in hospital and the complications after surgery.