Transense: Automotive Sensor IPR for Honeywell, Michelin & The World.

Fabulous tale, soj.

I put on skis for the first time aged 26. The Army had sent me to Val d'Isere for some adventure training, along with 20 other soldiers. We flew there by hercules and helicopter. Great days.

I'd been less than frank about my absolute inexperience on planks and found myself on a chair lift heading high having literally only walked in the ones on my feet. I confessed my dissembling to an engineer officer sitting next to me and he offerred this advice: point the skis downhill and let gravity do the rest.

It seemed reasonable enough, so I did. I picked up speed very quickly, as one does on well-compacted snow, and I realised - also very quickly - that I was completely out of control. Screams are easily swallowed by mountains, and mine certainly went unheard as I hurtled manically past unsuspecting souls below me. Just when I thought I had reached terminal velocity another dip in the piste would propel me faster still. It was terrifying. Some English bloke mistook me for a hot dog and screamed 'You f***ing c**t', but I was way past caring.

I knew instinctively that I did not have long left in the upright position and, although rigid with the anticpation of the blow, I managed to shift my weight in the direction of the edge of the piste. The abrupt change (at such speed) from icy snow to powder (terms that I mastered only subsequently) yanked me free of my bindings, and probably saved me from serious injury - and future inhibition.