Rugby World Cup winner says he feels like he is picking up the fundraising baton from people such as Doddie Weir and Rob Burrow

Sunshine streams into Lewis Moody’s conservatory near Bath as we share a sofa with his dog, Ziggy, who has swapped his usual cheerful bounciness for a peaceful snooze. Moody has already explained how Ziggy licked away the tears rolling down his face, and the face of his wife, Annie, when they told their teenage sons that he has motor neurone disease. And now he says something extraordinary with a certainty that feels far stronger and more enduring than the mid-afternoon sunlight.

“It is a gift and a privilege,” Moody says of the lesson he has gleaned from the terrible diagnosis he received last October. “I’m not sure if privilege is the right word but MND helps you really understand what you love and what makes you happy. So you learn to apply your time in that direction and, invariably, being happy is about doing things that feel purposeful and spending time with the people you love and doing things that help others.”