Some of us are more naturally healthy than others some with the resources can maintain that level of health or perhaps counter some of the disadvantages inherited genes have produced.

I count myself among the healthy, if not fully fit section, but I am not allowed to give blood.

Why can't I give blood, well on two occasions, I caught malaria, the only two periods of illness in my life as I reach the later stages of middle age.

In the 70s, I worked in Nigeria, a country developing quickly as it used its oil to develop its infrastructure. Business here was profitable and hectic but the environment of crowded cities and open sewers meant that many diseases were common, and malaria was close to the top of the list.

I have to say I became complacent, never having had illness in my twenty odd years. Malaria pills were finally discarded in my second year in Ikeja, the airport town just outside Lagos.

At then it struck, almost before I knew. I was travelling to Holland via Dusseldorf, en route to see my girlfriend when I felt really awful. Shaking, with a temperature at fever level, I had little recollection of how I managed to get to my destination. She thought I looked alright, after all coming from near the Equator, the sun tan masks many things. And then I started to shake uncontrollably.

It lasted three weeks in all, a week in Holland and after a risky trip home, two weeks in the North East of England. It was a matter of letting it take its course, no real treatment whereas some medical problems can be solved by tablets, creams, colon cleansing and oxy powder.

It never recurred as it often does but I am one for travelling and twenty years later I went to Zimbabwe, taking all the precautions about pills, starting the course the specified time before departure, and still taking tablets after my return.

I had been back for three weeks, and Christmas Day passed uneventfully but Boxing Day is one of the social events of the local calendar, whether a rugby follower or not because thousands go to the derby match, with everyone coming home for the holidays knowing that if they had missed their friends up to that point, they would be there for the game.

I wasn't being struck down with those similar symptoms as twenty years before. It lasted for just a week, with my doctor confirming a different strain. They don't want my blood as a consequence. It is a good way to lose weight, getting malaria, but it is not a way I would recommend. And as a friend of mine says when I'm dieting, you always get a return ticket. Perhaps it's better not to diet but just to take care of myself, get treatments that are relevant at the time, colon cleansing and oxy powder when needed, healthy food and lifestyle.