Mike Tindall: No one should see their dad suffer like mine

BRIDGET Jones star Celia Imrie confesses surprise at being offered the film role of Hugh Bonneville’s mother — since at 67, she is only 11 years his senior. ‘It’s a witty animation called Mummies and I play Hugh’s mother,’ she says, adding she ‘couldn’t agree more’ that she’s too young for the part. ‘Funnily enough, Hugh and I began at the National together years ago, so we have a very good relationship.’

He put his body on the line during his england career, sustaining a punctured lung and a lacerated liver in the process.

But, though long since retired, Rugby World Cup winner Mike tindall, now 41, will push himself to the limit this weekend, getting on his bike to cover more than 100 miles in a day — with over two miles of hill-climbing thrown in.

Yet, from tindall’s perspective, it’s a trivial challenge by comparison with the trauma experienced by those, like his father, suffering from parkinson’s disease. ‘My dad has had parkinson’s for the past 17 years,’ he tells me.

‘Over the last few years, I’ve really seen him deteriorate.’

this has been especially hard for the former international to bear, since it was his father, once captain of Otley rugby club in Gloucestershire but now weighing barely 8st, who inculcated his love of the game — and who taught him to tackle.

‘It’s about other sons and daughters not having to see their dad go through what I’ve seen mine go through,’ adds tindall, explaining his role as patron of the Cure parkinson’s trust and why he began training to take part in the legendary Raid Alpine.

the coronavirus outbreak caused the event’s postponement. But rather than squander the hard yards, tindall and the Cure parkinson’s trust have switched from the Alps to the uK, devising this

Sunday’s ‘Raid Local’. So tindall’s been hitting the roads close to the Gloucestershire home where he and his wife Zara and daughters Mia and Lena live on the

Gatcombe estate owned by Zara’s mother, the princess Royal. tindall, though, is no novice on a bike. He competed in the Kindrochit Quadrathlon five years ago, running 15 miles over the Highlands, swimming half a mile, kayaking for seven miles and completing a 34-mile bike ride — all in one day.

But perhaps his most vivid memory of his time in the saddle dates from his days doing a paper round as a boy, when he flew over the handlebars and knocked himself unconscious. ‘All I can tell you,’ he assures me, ‘is that when I came to, it hurt!’

Fans willing him on can show their support via www. cureparkinsons.org.uk.