At the age of 85, and suffering from Parkinson’s, one of the diseases he specialised in as a neurologist, Bannister has now written his memoir. One reaches the final page feeling, if anything, even more impressed by him; not least the extent to which he has lived his thoroughly decent life in the service of others – whether as the first president of the Sports Council, or as Master of Pembroke College, Oxford, or as a doctor at the National Hospital and St Mary’s, conducting out-patient clinics and ward rounds, twice a week, for 25 years. Unaffiliated to any political party, although with a softness for royalty, Bannister is his own man. He sums up his achievements succinctly: “Sport and medicine have a vital and expanding role in improving the lives of individuals around the world. They are the twin tracks which have run through my life.”