The diagnosis was shattering. Williams had suffered a significant injury to his cervical vertebrae and spinal cord, leaving him with no feeling in his legs or torso and barely a fraction of his former sensation in his arms. His team of doctors informed him that he would be wheelchair-bound and confined to hospital for the best part of a year. And yet, such is the mysterious potency of the human will, he resolved not to be consumed by the agonies of what was lost but to draw every last drop of possibility from what he was left with. “At first I didn’t realise how long I was going to be in hospital,” he says. “It was always the case that I didn’t want to ask too many questions. When I found out that I was likely to be there for a year, I just had to get on with it. There was no point moaning and groaning. I had to work with the doctors to make the best of what I could.”