This month sees the start of MS Awareness Week and with that in mind we have chosen Alastair Hignell as our Inspirational Diversity Champion of the month.

Alastair is a former rugby player, cricketer and broadcaster who was diagnosed with MS in 1999 and is now the Patron of MS-UK.

Alastair attended Fitzwilliam College at the University of Cambridge and won Blues in both cricket and rugby and was only the second man to captain Cambridge in both sports. By the time he graduated from the University in 1977, he had played rugby for England several times. After university he continued to play rugby for Bristol and England in the winter, played cricket for Gloucestershire in the summer whilst working as a teacher.

Alastair continued to teach until he moved into journalism full-time and he became a respected reporter, as well as working extensively on BBC Radio commentating on both rugby and cricket. He has also written for Wisden Cricket Monthly, Rugby World, the Wooden Spoon Yearbook, Lawrence Dallaglio’s “Rugby Tales”, International match programmes, and New Pathways magazine. When broadcasting duties allowed, he also contributed to the Sunday Telegraph and the Daily Telegraph.  His autobiography “Higgy…Matches, Microphones and MS” was published in September 2011 and was named the Rugby Book of the Year at the British Sports books Awards in May 2012.

Alastair became Patron of Multiple Sclerosis UK (MS-UK) in 2002 and has since been active in raising funds for the charity.  In 2008, inspired by Alastair’s heroic achievements on and off the pitch, Higgy’s Heroes, a fundraising body linked to MS-UK was created. Initially a one-off idea by a group of ex-teammates and opponents who decided to run the London Marathon in tribute to Higgy, the name and the idea continued beyond this one event. Since then there have been a number of Higgy’s Heroes fundraising events largely based on physical achievements or sports activities.

In 2008 Alastair won the BBC Sports Personality of the Year Helen Rollason Award  for his work in spreading awareness of multiple sclerosis and in 2009 he was awarded a CBE for services to sport and for his charity work.

For more information about Alastair and his work go to his website at http://www.alastairhignell.com/