Former company boss Tony Steel suffered horrific head injuries after falling downstairs eight years ago. He tells Lynette Pinchess about his remarkable comeback from the brink of death to the life he enjoys today...

"NOW here's a funny story..." is one of Tony Steel's catchphrases.

Humour is a tool the former building company boss draws upon to deal with the everyday consequences of a severe brain injury that left him on the brink of death.

A year after leaving hospital, he was invited back to meet newly-qualified neurosurgeons and the surgeon who saved his life, Terence Hope.

Tony said: "I didn't understand what he [Mr Hope] was telling them he did, but I did understand the part when he said he removed part of my brain about the size of a 50p coin.

"I said: 'You took the lot then'. Mr Hope shook his head and said: 'I think Tony's humour has got him through this'."

Tony compares his recovery to the Beatles' hit, The Long And Winding Road.

The last eight years have taught him there is no short-term solution. "You have to be patient, not give in, and carry on," he said.

Tony's life changed forever in the blink of an eye in 2002.

He and his wife, Maggie, of Wilford, had been spending the weekend at a friend's new home in Leicester.

"I got up sleepwalking and fell down the stairs. The noise woke everybody else up," said Tony, who relies on what he has been told about the incident because his memory is a blank.

Tony was rushed by ambulance to Nottingham, where he underwent microsurgery at the Queen's Medical Centre to stop him bleeding to death.

"If it had been six years earlier, I would have been dead because they didn't have that technique then," said Tony, 62.

With no history of sleepwalking, he doesn't know what prompted him to get up in the night.

"It could have been stress at work. I hadn't been drinking, other than a glass of wine with dinner," he said.

Tony, who has a son Mark, 37, and daughter Becky, 34, remained in hospital in a coma for nearly a year. When he came round, he was paralysed down his left side and unable to speak. The injury also affected his short-term memory.

"When I got home I was a prisoner. I had to learn my way around Nottingham again. I couldn't watch TV as I couldn't put together the pictures with what I heard. It was frustrating."

Before the injury he was the owner of Cromford Construction, an approved contractor used by Nottingham City Council and borough councils.

When it become apparent he could no longer run the firm, he retired. He was 54.

"I had to lay off 20 blokes. That made me really down," he recalled.

Tony was so depressed that 18 months after the fall he came close to taking his life.

"I got some rope and went to the builder's yard at the back of my house with the idea I was going to hang myself from a tree," he said.

But the gate was shut and, in a moment of black irony, Tony's memory loss meant he could not remember where the key was.

"I was in tears on the floor. I was an emotional wreck," he said.

His wife was at work so Tony rang his carer Steve Wiseman.

"He was brilliant. Within five minutes he was on my doorstep. He said he wasn't trained for this but he would find someone who was."

That turned out to be Graham Terry, a member of the brain injury team, at whose suggestion, Tony began visiting Headway, the Nottingham-based charity for people with head injuries.

Previously he had stayed in Linden Lodge at Nottingham City Hospital and visited Cedars Rehabilitation Centre, both of which have since closed. The Cedars was, he said, pivotal in his recovery.

Tony drops into Headway House, just off Mansfield Road, several times a week.

"I thought I was in a bad way but I was walking and talking. I thought 'how lucky I am'."

One of the activities he took part in was a creative writing course, where he discovered a talent for poetry.

Some of his poems have been published in the Post.

Exercise has been another key to recovery.

"It is well known that exercise releases endorphins in the brain," he explained.

Remembering the names of new people is a challenge, so Tony's system is to associate the name with something from his past.

"This is a funny story..." he said.

Trying to remember Dougal, a barman at a Nottingham pub, Tony associated him with The Magic Roundabout.

"A week later I went back and said 'Alright Dylan'. I got the letter right but the wrong character. My friend Alan was laughing his head off."

Prompted by his brother, Roger, a member of Trent Bridge Rotary Club, which has given donations to Headway, Tony set about fundraising himself by organising charity gigs featuring Colin Staples' Blues Band.

He is now setting up a new charity, The Hope Trust, in honour of his surgeon.

Before the accident, Tony had an apartment in Tenerife. His dream is to open a respite centre over there where head injury survivors can go for a holiday. "It's at an early stage. It may take a year or two. I work slower than a normal person," said Tony.

One name he has no problem remembering is that of his first grandchild, Millie, six months.

"She is a little beauty. I'm made up. If things had not gone the way they had I might not have seen her. How lucky am I?

"I used to be money-driven but now it's not important.

"I was an emotional wreck when I came to Headway. Look at me now. I love it here."