The late Peter West wrote our appreciation of Alastair in the Autumn of 1998, and typically highlighted the outstanding all round attributes that we readily recognise in a sportsman gifted to grace cricket and rugby fields in a manner that we now rarely witness.
Alastair himself would probably downplay his sporting prowess now, and maybe even his broadcasting career, in comparison with the experiences that have evolved since the diagnosis of M.S. in 1999. Life-changing would be an understatement.
So, never mind that he strode the Gloucestershire fields with Zaheer, Sadiq and Mike Procter, or shared rugby battles with Bill Beaumont, John Pullin, Mike Rafter and Paul Dodge, because his dedication to the M.S. cause in the past decade has been exemplary and way beyond the call of duty or expectation. Alastair’s story has the indelible stamp of sport being put into perspective in the face of life’s other challenges.
His active fund-raising, the role of patron of the M.S. Resource Centre, and of the appeal to build a new therapy centre in Bristol, amply demonstrate why he was honoured with the Helen Rollason B.B.C. Sports Personality of the Year in 2008, and then a C.B.E. in 2009, “for services to sport and charity”.
Little wonder then that Peter West described Alastair as a pugnacious sportsman – he has been precisely that in coping with health problems through the latter days of his broadcasting career, and fighting for “Higgy’s Heroes” in recent years, in the M.S. cause.
Lest we forget, our man captained Cambridge University at cricket and rugby, piling up the Blues, played for Gloucestershire for nigh on a decade (1,000 runs in 3 seasons and 11 first class centuries), and represented England at full-back on 14 occasions, in addition to being a Bristol stalwart.
Just imagine a 19 year old, in his first international, being involved in that infamous match in Brisbane in May 1975, only to return to that summer’s varsity match to face Imran Khan! That story could well be retold when we welcome Alastair again, and there’s little doubt that the Hignell autobiography, due in 2011, will have us rushing to the bookshops to find out even more about this remarkable man.