[1] He was a team-mate of Rik Van Looy and of Jacques Anquetil and, in the Tour de France, of Tom Simpson.

He had his first bike at 12, a black Hercules Falcon borrowed from his brother and with wooden blocks fitted to the pedals to make it smaller.

He was inspired by his French teacher at school, who had lived in France, whose hero was Jean Robic and who gave his class Miroir du Cyclisme to study.

He said: My best memories of those days are of the club runs in Cheshire and Wales – loading someone's saddlebag with horseshoes at the Bangor-on-Dee blacksmith's, fording rivers then lighting fires round which we singed our socks and shrivelled our shoes; riding out to races on Saturday afternoons through busy Liverpool and getting digs[4] on say the L1 or L6,[5] then going to the Green Man [pub] for a singsong pint.

[7]Then, when my wounds were healing nicely, on the eighth stage, in Poland, dozens of riders fell in front of me at a tramway junction where the lines seemed to go in all directions.

[7]Denson failed to make the British team for the Olympic Games[8] and took out a licence as an independent, or semi-professional, for Temple Cycles in 1961.

In March 1962 they decided to return to France, travelling to Paris and then to Troyes, where Denson joined the UVC Aube club, sponsored by Frimatic.

He won a stage of a professional race, the Circuit d'Aquitaine in France and came sixth in the Grand Prix des Nations despite being led off course and twice losing his chain.

Baldassaroni told me it was all right, he wouldn't be contesting the sprint, and maybe he genuinely meant it, but I said to myself 'I've heard that one before', and on the final hill I jumped away – and stripped my sprocket.

Although not a strong sprinter, I threw all I had into a sprint from the back, and on the line I got the verdict from Thiélin and Le Dissez – it was a photo-finish, in fact.

De Muer promised him a contract if he won a stage of the Circuit d'Aquitaine and rode well in the Grand Prix des Nations.

[2] Denson signed with Pelforth in October 1963, when he was 27, riding in the yellow, white and blue of the French brewery and its cosponsor, a bicycle factory.

It can be really disastrous for a pro in a big team to miss the Tour, for it means no after-Tour criteriums, where a lot of money is made.

Instead, he is a forgotten man, his only hope the end-of-season classics and semi-classics, like the Nations, Paris–Tours, Giro di Lombardia, the Grand Prix de Fourmies and others, but what a fight it is to do a ride in these hotly-disputed rat-races!

In races, however, they would be rivals; Denson was to ride for Rik Van Looy in the Solo team,[7] sponsored by a margarine company.

There was no teamwork as such, no plans made at the start of a race, the only standing order being that we all rode for Van Looy, who was the real power behind the team as well as in it.

[6]That autumn, at the world championship at Sallanches, France, Jacques Anquetil and his directeur-sportif, Raphaël Géminiani, said they had been watching Denson and wanted him for a team they were creating, sponsored by Ford-France.

Denson stayed with Anquetil when the sponsor changed to Bic, opened a bar in Ghent, and had what he called the happiest years of his racing life.

Denson said of a day spent chasing Gianni Motta through Naples:"They were chucking rubbish at us from balconies: tomatoes, spaghetti, old newspapers, anything.

[6]Denson said Italian fans often made a pretence of helping push foreign riders up hills while pulling at their brakes to slow them down.