[1] Worsnip attended Monmouth School and after two years service in the RAF as a Photographic Intelligence Officer he graduated from St John's College, Oxford, with an honours degree in English.
In his autobiography, Up the Down Escalator, he mentions being diagnosed with multiple system atrophy (MSA) at the National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery.
[2] MSA is a progressive, adult onset disorder characterised by any combination of parkinsonism, autonomic failure (see nervous system) and cerebellar ataxia.
In 1982, Worsnip wrote and presented the critically acclaimed documentary ‘The Paras’, which charted the progress of the young recruits of 480 Platoon attempting to become members of the Parachute Regiment on the eve of the Falklands War.
He made the programme, A Lone Voice, about his struggle with the disease, which would claim his life in 1996 at the age of 57, and which was broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in March 1988.