I HAVE HAD A FEW LAUGHS AT DEATH’S EXPENSE. BUT I DON’T WANT TO GO JUST YET... I HAVE SO MUCH STILL TO LIVE FOR

IN A POWERFUL AND DEEPLY MOVING INTERVIEW, DODDIE WEIR TELLS ROB ROBERTSON HE HASN’T LOST HIS LUST FOR LIFE (OR RED WINE)... AND WHY HE WON’T STOP FIGHTING FOR ALL MND SUFFERERS

THOSE famous hands and arms are no longer working properly. The feet, by his own admission, struggle to take more than a few steps before he needs help. Thank God, then, to see that at least one thing hasn’t changed when Doddie Weir greets me at his beautiful home in the Borders... the unmistakable twinkle in those mischievous eyes.

‘Rob, my boy, my favourite,’ booms the great man, eyeing the packet of white chocolate buttons in my hand as I walk through to his den where he’s sitting in his favourite chair. ‘Bring them in here and let’s get stuck in.’

My relief at finding Weir in this kind of form is almost palpable. It’s now more than four years since he was diagnosed with this cruellest of conditions... motor neurone disease.

The toll it’s taking on him is obvious. It’s unbearable to see how MND is stripping away this giant who once strode the world’s rugby fields like a colossus. Yet the good humour, the sheer love of life, never seems to disappear.

I look down at the chocolate buttons. To think it had briefly crossed my mind before I walked in the door that he might not be able to eat them.

His medical team, he explains, have recommended he eats a highcalorie diet to keep the weight on him. ‘So it’s lots of cream in my porridge, lashings of butter on my toast and pints of Guinness,’ he says, ‘and I drink my body weight in red wine. I’m not sure it’s medically proven to help but, what the hell, I’m loving it.’

His kitchen table is full of a variety of tasty treats like shortbread and other biscuits which his beloved dogs Zena, a seven-month-old black Labrador and 14-year-old terrier Mavis continually try to grab, only to find just out of their reach.

In the den just off the kitchen, Weir is sitting with a smile on his face and a glint in his eye. In front of him is a massive television screen.

‘You’ve just missed my favourite TV show, Hawaii Five-O,’ he says. ‘And The Professionals. Love The Professionals. Bodie and Doyle. Martin Shaw and Lewis Collins. Great actors. Top stuff. I love that and all the sport. My emails are shown up there, too, on the TV and I get help replying to them. That television is my mission control centre.’

On the windowsill is a picture of Weir with Billy Connolly and Gavin Hastings at a charity dinner in Hong Kong. On the wall, a picture of a Highland cow done up in Doddie tartan. There’s a photo of a rugby referee with Weir’s head superimposed, sending somebody off. Nearby is a fireman’s helmet, again covered in his own tartan.

In the cupboard he tells me to open, there is a magnificent whisky collection. ‘I’m proud of that lot, Robbie boy,’ he admits.

His Guinness is on a table. ‘Told you I was on a drink-all-theGuinness-I-can type diet,’ he laughs. ‘I have to drink it through a straw that’s held for me but it’s my favourite tipple. And the red wine is over there somewhere. I used to go for the £3 to £6 bottles. Now, with time not on my side, I go for the £6 to £9 bottles. I’m going posh and expensive. Enjoy the best while I’m still here.’ Who can blame him for looking to enjoy the good things in life as his battle continues with a disease for which there is no known cure. ‘Can I ask about your thoughts on dying?’ I offer, uneasily. ‘On you go, Rob. It’s going to happen to us all,’ replies Weir. ‘I don’t mind at all. I understand the reality of the situation although, in saying that, I’m not accepting I am going to die anytime soon.

‘I’m quite stubborn and a couple of years ago it was suggested I get a peg, a sort of feeding tube, in my tummy but I didn’t want it. The same with sleeping with oxygen. That was suggested to me, but not for me. I am still in the game. Not at either stage yet.

‘I haven’t arranged my funeral or anything like that but I have had a few laughs at death’s expense. I am big mates with Robbie Brown who’s an undertaker down in Melrose and he’s doing my funeral. When he was up, he asked me if I wanted to lay down flat in the back of his hearse to see if it was big enough for me to get in.’

The conversation is non-stop. Weir needs help to walk and, whenever he has to get to his feet, devoted wife Kathy (left, with Weir) comes to his aid.

I’m reminded that Doddie needed stitches in his head after a fall following a visit to his chiropractor back in February.

He knows he is dying but has no desire to gently go into that good night: ‘I’ve had a good life, I’m still having a good life. I am blessed. I have a fantastic family and friends round me all making my life better. Who could ask for more?’

The day I visit, his niece has come all the way down from Cupar in Fife to help out. His son Ben is also on hand. In one of the barns on the 300-acre family farm there are two ladies helping Kathy before she goes up the fields to look after the sheep. Wearing a British and Irish Lions T-shirt, she is the glue that holds Team Doddie together. Kathy is his rock and the couple celebrated her 51st birthday recently.

‘My arms might not work really anymore, my feet struggle to take a few steps without help and my head is at a jaunty angle as my neck isn’t terribly strong, but look around you, Rob,’ he says.

‘These people, and lots like them who work for the charity to raise funds for MND, I have so much to thank them for.’

A tear appears in his eye as he finishes his sentence.

‘I do get emotional about it all.

It’s humbling to see the love out there,’ he adds.

We’re here to ostensibly talk about his new book — written with close friend Stewart Weir — which chronicles the last few years in diary form.

‘I look back in the book but look forward in life,’ insists Doddie. ‘For me, these books are chronicles of my life. One day my family will look back at them, get them down from the shelf and I like to think feel proud of me, but I’m not going anywhere for a while. I have so much to live for.’

Then the face beams as if a light has been switched on when he suddenly says: ‘In fact, come and see round the farm on my buggy. It’s my chariot. Let’s go and see how I live in such a beautiful place. It’s one of the reasons why I don’t want to die anytime soon. You’ll have to drive, though.’

He gives a call through to the kitchen to Kathy