Michael was a quiet, timid boy. If you had told me when he was growing up he would become a boxer I wouldn’t have believed you. He was a very soft boy.

Just about anything would set him off crying when he was little. A grazed knee or a fall out with a friend would set Mike off – I’ve always called him Mike. To tell you the truth I was a bit worried about him then. I didn’t want him growing up soft. But as it turned out I needn’t have worried.

My late husband James would take a back seat in his upbringing but a great family friend of ours, Joseph White, we call him Uncle Joe, treated Mike like his own son and showed a great interest in him.

We took him along to the sea cadets to toughen him up a bit and it seemed to work. By the time he was 14 he had joined a local boys club near our flat in Hackney, north London, and before I knew it he was talking about boxing. I was so pleased. My boy wasn’t going to be soft at all and in fact it was the opposite. Uncle Joe and I would go and watch him and we started to get reports that he was good, very good.

I have always liked boxing and I felt so proud of him. Not only was the boxing stopping Mike getting into trouble it had given him a purpose. And everyone needs a purpose in life, I believe.

I am a member of the Pentecostal Church, as is Mike, and I know that boxing was making him very happy. And that made me happy. I supported him 100 per cent. We still watch boxing together and both still love the sport.

As a young boy he travelled the world and won all sorts of amateur titles. I used to go and watch him when he was fighting in London and was always there at ringside – preying for him and cheering him on.

Then of course he turned professional. That was a big, big decision because it is such a tough, hard sport. They call it the toughest sport there is and that is the truth.

But I was so proud of him and so was Uncle Joe. From being worried about him as a little boy we had seen him grow into a strong, confident young man.

When he won his first professional fight at the Royal Albert Hall in London in 1984 it was a great day for all of us.

And the thing about Mike when he boxed was that he looked so good doing it.

He used to enter the ring to a tune called Can You Feel the Force and that was his ring name – Michael “The Force” Watson.

But Mike was too nice to be a boxer to be honest. There is no cruelty in him. And you could tell that about him in the way that he boxed. He was a beautiful athlete, not a cruel man.

Everything was going well in his career and then came the first really big night against Nigel Benn in 1989.

Nigel was knocking everyone out and all the critics didn’t give Mike a chance but I had faith. We believed he could do it. Nigel was strong and fast with a biog knockout punch but Mike was too good a boxer. He kept his cool and stopped Nigel in the sixth round. I was so proud of Mike that night. He overcame the odds and showed the world what he was made off just as he is still doing today.

It was a great feeling to see Mike succeeding. And the whole evening was very exciting.

When we got home everyone on our estate was cheering and waving flags. There were thousands of people. I think it was Mike’s greatest victory in boxing. It is a night none of use will ever forget. And millions had watched it on TV.

Things got difficult after that for Mike and he couldn’t get the fights to take him to the next stage of his career.

But eventually he challenged Chris Eubank in June 1991 for the world middleweight title. Everyone thought he had won but the judges favoured Chris and he kept his title.

Mike was very upset and down after that but because everyone apart from the judges believed he had won the fight a rematch was made in September later that year and of course that is the fight that everyone remembers.

Millions were watching again on TV and as usual I was there with Uncle Joe at ringside in London.

Mike was well ahead going into the 11th  round when Chris mounted a comeback but Mike fought back and knocked him down near the end of the round.

The funny thing was though that the referee didn’t count. Then Chris got up and landed a big uppercut and knocked Mike down at the end of the round. Mike came out for the 12th round but he didn’t look right and the referee quickly stopped the fight.

We were very disappointed because Mike was winning the fight when it was stopped but we had no idea how badly hurt he was.

We made our way to the changing rooms and when I saw him come in on a stretcher I knew how bad it was.

Uncle Joe and I went to St Bartholomew’s Hospital with Mike – he was in a coma! After 29 professional fights and at the age of 26 his boxing career was over and he was fighting for his life. They operated to remove two blood clots on Mike’s brain.

The hospital gave us a room and I spent all my time at there along with Uncle Joe and Lyn, another good friend of Michael’s, who he had known for a long time. We lived in the hospital.

I tried to do what I could. I talked to him. Preyed for him. We were there night and day and there were visitors all the time. I gave him pillow cases and pyjamas from home and made all his food for him with my liquidiser. He never ate hospital food, I made everything for him. I wiped his face with a sponge and held his hand all the time. We just willed him to come out of it but he stayed in the coma.

Every day the newspapers and the TV carried the story, day after day. And it was always quite bleak because Mike never showed any signs of coming out of the coma.

Then after 40 days Mike flicked his eyes. Uncle Joe saw it and rushed to my room in the hospital to tell me. My boy was fighting back, at last.

Muhammad Ali came to visit him and that inspired Mike a lot.

At first the only way we could communicate was by talking and asking him to blink in response.

It took years for him to recover to the point where he is now. He has come from a long, long way back. Like a little baby he has had to learn everything again.

He had to learn to do everything including even eating. Everything you would do for a baby you would have to do for Michael.

He is paralysed on the left side and now he can walk because he is determined to be independent. It took him years to walk again but he did it. Then three years ago he did the London marathon – it took him seven days but he did it and that tells you everything about Mike’s iron will power.

And he has learned to talk again.

The hospital staff were brilliant and they never gave up.

We owe so much to his surgeon Mr Peter Hamlyn and the rest of the team.

Mike and I have never blamed Chris for what happened. We both know it could have been Chris who got hurt and Mike and Chris are still good friends.

But it grieves me to think about what my son has gone through. Particularly learning to walk again and the pain he had to go through. I cannot talk about it too much. It is too difficult. But Mike has accepted it because he is a good man with no bitterness. If he had not taken it the way he has I could not have coped. He has helped me. The way he has dealt with it has made me more proud of him than I was when he was fighting.

With Mike I give God thanks because he could have taken it harder. But thank God he doesn’t dwell on it. But when I see where he was – he was fit and strong he was – and where he is now, it is upsetting sometimes.

But mostly Mike is cheerful. Sometimes he sits and thinks but there is no bitterness. He amazes me to be honest. If he had taken it any other way I don’t think I could have coped. I think it is the gentle side of his nature, the lack of bitterness, the soft side of his nature that was so obvious as a little boy, that helps him so much now.

He is very busy and does a lot of work for charity particularly the Teenage Cancer Trust of which he is a patron and the Brain & Spine Foundation.

He has a great sense of humour and he has us all laughing.

He is busier and more active than he has ever been and he comes to visit me all the time. He is a wonderful son.

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