I remain proud of my Churchill Fellowship and continue to spread the word about the Fellowship whenever the opportunity presents itself.

I visited the USA, Germany and the Netherlands in 1997 – I was just short of my 40th birthday and had barely been out of the UK. Driving on a six-lane motorway on the wrong side of the road in an automatic car in boiling heat in San Francisco is a memory that still occasionally keeps me awake at night.

I went to those countries to meet kindred spirits in my profession as a sports development officer (based in Newcastle upon Tyne) and I found the experience to be hugely beneficial. Curiously, the Recreation Department in New York closely resembled that in Newcastle and my counterpart shared many of the same frustrations – lack of support from schools, lack of empathy from self-interested professional clubs, no money... I doubt much has changed.

I retired in 2009 when the cuts hit local government and have subsequently done some teaching at Northumbria University, some consulting work and a great deal of voluntary work, primarily in cricket.

The Fellowship helped to change my life.