“Doddie Weir: Six Feet Seven Inches of Joyful Chaos”

The images of Doddie Weir’s playing years have a glorious consistency; he soars on a lineout or carries the ball like a mad giraffe, as Bill McLaren once described him. He is a very tall and smiling giant. Naughty, charismatic, funny.

From Melrose, where he won a league title as a youngster, to Newcastle Falcons where he won another. In Scotland for a decade and the Lions in South Africa – his tour was cut short by a horrific act of foul play by a local axe-man – and back to the Borders, where he started and where he ended.

For every minute I was 6 feet 7 inches of joyous mayhem.

In spaces like this there is a reluctance to refer to athletes by their name or nickname – they called him George – because you don’t want to seem too familiar, but there are exceptions.

Even people who didn’t know him felt like they did. Even those who were never in his company automatically referred to him as Doddie and considered him a companion.

Some people just have it, whatever it is. And Doddie was one of those. He brought out the best in people. He saw it as a personal mission to make you smile and leave his company feeling better about yourself.

There is a photo of a 20-year-old Doddie celebrating that league title with Melrose when league titles really mattered in Scottish rugby. It was 1990 and Jim Telfer was the coach. Telfer always said the triumph with Melrose meant more to him than the Grand Slam with Scotland that followed a week later, a victory he helped create as Ian McGeechan’s assistant.

This photograph is of Doddie with his Melrose mates, a smile as wide as the Tweed on his face. He was in his element. His 10-year, 61-game international career had just begun and was split between the amateur and professional eras, but there’s no doubt which he preferred.

He was a social animal, not a gym monkey. He liked talking more than training. Lift a comb or lift a weight? There was no decision to be made.

He once said that no beep test, no such device for monitoring the fitness of the first wave of professional players, could judge a guy’s personality when the chips were on the court and when his colleagues needed me to make an extra effort. There was no machine to measure character. He was one of the greats.

His view of rugby was that it was a vehicle for making friends and memories. I wanted to win, of course. No prouder Scot has worn the shirt or paraded the tartan with such gusto, but most of all he wanted to laugh. And that’s what he did.

“His relentless energy was impressive”

As great as he was, his aura was never greater than when he had to use a wheelchair due to the effects of motor neurone disease (MND). He was never stronger than when his body was breaking down, never more commanding of the world’s respect than when he had lost the ability to speak and could only communicate through a voice application operated with his eyes around a letter screen

His relentless energy to fight an incurable disease was impressive. He said the only medicine available was positivity, and he gleefully stuffed himself with it. The many millions of pounds he raised for research through his My Name’5 Doddie Foundation, the money given to families suffering as his family suffered, the lives he improved along the way. His legacy could circumnavigate the rugby world many times over.

In December 2016, he was diagnosed and told he probably wouldn’t be able to walk within a year. He beat that prediction to begin with. Medical experts say that on average, a third of MND sufferers die within a year. He saw it too. More than 50% of people die within two years of diagnosis.

Three years after his diagnosis, Doddie still brought the weight of personality and his wonderful dark humor to the table. “The only people I think are upset about staying three years are my administrators [of his Foundation]”, he joked. “They thought they were only signing up for six months.”

His attitude was rooted in a gritty realism. This thing had happened to him and it’s better than “crack on” as he said. “I never, ever thought ‘Why me?’ It was, “Oh, let’s fix it… it’s like rugby. If you don’t make the team, do you give up your shirt or do you fight?”

After being the star of a stuffed animal charity gala – there were many in his honor and many awards, too – he said: “In a strange way I’m living the dream because I’m having a living kite.” People laughed and maybe some cried at such indomitable courage.

He was still doing interviews five years after he got the news, riding his mobility scooter on his farm near Galashiels like he was on a Harley Davidson ready to go out into the world. “I’m still alive and I’m still smiling,” he said.

And still campaigning. He was critical of the government because, as he saw it, it failed to deliver on promises made about MND research funding. He was questioning that medical experts were not moving fast enough in testing new drugs.

His movement was engaged, but never his mind or passion. Other people with MND, without any profile or influence of his, must have seen him as their champion, fighting the good fight for something to stop this disease from being a death sentence.

He did it with wisdom and humor as he knew his life was coming to an end, as he knew his time with his wife, Kathy, and three sons, Hamish, Angus and Ben, was coming to an end.

When his sons carried him pitchside at Murrayfield before the All Blacks game earlier this month, the atmosphere inside the stadium was an extraordinary amalgam of happiness and sadness and wonder. More than six years have passed since the diagnosis.

He won 33 of his 61 games at Murrayfield. He had made his debut there, scored his first international try and played a World Cup semi-final there.

Many would say his most memorable appearance of all was his last, on the chair with his children by his side, two sets of players cheering him on and the love of 67,000 beaming like the sun.

No one imagined the effort it must have taken to be there, but then not many of us have ever met a character like him. Gone, yes. Missed, deeply. Forgotten, never.