WHO is a family's greatest fighter: the athlete son who becomes the North-East's only world boxing champion or the disabled son who has to battle for every breath to stay alive?

There was no question when former IBF world cruiserweight titleholder Glenn McCrory was advised to tell his unique life story. He decided to create a musical play to be seen through the eyes of his disabled brother David, who died in 1996 at the age of 29.

The pair grew up together at Annfield Plain, County Durham, after Glenn's mother Gloria decided to adopt David and add the otherwise unwanted slightly-handicapped child to six children already growing up in a three-bedroomed house.

By the age of seven, the newcomer could hardly walk and big-for-his-age Glenn, eight, carried his brother on his back every day to Dipton St Patrick's RC School. It was only at 14 that David's muscle-wasting condition (similar to muscular dystrophy) was diagnosed and a grim forecast given of about 12 months more life.

"I was proud to carry him. My brother was different to everyone else's brother and nobody was going to pick on him," recalls the giant-sized Glenn who is determined to raise £110,000 so that his and David's story can be told properly in a new work called Carrying David.

"Sometimes I wonder who was carrying who. He was bright and intelligent with a great sense of humour, but he had quite a temper. I reckon if things had been different, and David had been able-bodied, he'd have been a better boxer than me," laughs McCrory.

The Sky Sport boxing analyst embarked on the Carrying David project soon after launching his own production company, Two Triangle Productions, last year. Gosforth scriptwriter and friend Arthur McKenzie quickly agreed to take on the project and says: "This is an awesome responsibility because it is a true story which could run to four episodes."

The boss of Durham City's Gala Theatre, Rob Flower, switched from offering theatre space to insisting the theatre became a co-producer, after realising the production was equal to hit movie Billy Elliot.

He says: "I moved from considering a ten-minute 'bugger-off' meeting to one that lasted for an hour and left me completely enraptured."

Durham County Council leader Ken Manton added his support, plus local authority resources, and agreed to launch a County Hall fund-raiser last Thursday night. He describes Carrying David as "the story of one brother fighting to be champion of the world and the other showing an equal amount of strength dealing with an illness".

Audiences will see Glenn's story told by actor David Whittaker as David with songs by Newcastle performer Brendan Healey.

Most important to McCrory has been gaining permission from his mother, father, Brian, and brothers and sisters - Gary, Karen, Neil and twins Shaun and Kelly - to allow this insight into the life of a family dubbed the "battling McCrorys".

He says: "I was frightened how the family might react, but they are all behind me because David became such an important part of our lives. I do carry a sense of guilt about him because at one time we prayed for him to live and then, when we saw how painful it was, we prayed for an end to his suffering. When he died, I wondered if it was very selfish for me to think like that. David fought for every last breath and I wondered if I was the one who was weak because I couldn't bear watching him, but he fought on."

Teddy Kiendl has agreed to direct the play and confesses it's an opportunity to confront his own demons after he opposed his wife's suggestion that the couple should adopt a handicapped child.

He says: "I see a boy who had to use every bit of his cunning, charm and guile to become part of a family and then he particularly befriended his complete antithesis, the athlete of this very religious family."

McCrory, McKenzie and Kiendl are agreed that this is a tale to be told with mirth rather than morbidity and brass bands rather than heart-strings.

Sister Kelly Cardwell remembers that on the day that David was buried in Burnhope cemetery, near where his parents now live, the heavens opened and it never looked like it would stop raining.

Later, after a discussion with sister Karen, she returned to recall that when David began to find walking difficult he used to tie lengths of string between pieces of furniture so that other members of the family would fall over as well. She says "We're so glad Glenn is doing this because it puts David where he deserves to be - centrestage."

Brother Glenn fights on by releasing a pop single he's written called We Will Stand featuring big boxing names like Lennox Lewis and Joe Calzaghe. It's raising money for charity following the death of McCrory's 17-year-old nephew.

A counter-punch is McCrory's, American girlfriend Miranda Ives and acting pal Mike McNally making a series about the top ten cities to party in the world. "Some people have said I only came up with the idea so I could include Newcastle," roars McCrory.

l Carrying David is due to run at Durham's Gala Theatre from August 29 to September 8. Tickets went on sale last Friday. Box Office: 0191-332 4041