UNDER a stricter form tutor Bob Champion, who paid a return visit to his old school yesterday, might never have gone on to win first his battle against cancer then the Grand National.

But, as it was, Mr McKenzie took a shine to the young sportsman, and turned a blind eye when he played truant from school to go riding, turning up the next day with a note feigning sickness.

While Len McKenzie, former head of English at Laurence Jackson School, Guisborough, may not have realised it at the time, young Champion's passion would take him to the height of his sport.

His determination would help him beat testicular cancer and win the Grand National 18 months later.

Mr Champion, 50, who lives in Newmarket, remembers his schooldays fondly.

"Mr McKenzie gave me a lot of support," he said.

"He knew I was interested in riding and that I was forced to have days off because of it.

"I would come in with a sick note saying I'd had the flu, and he would ask me what sort of day I'd had racing."

Mr Champion, who last returned to Laurence Jackson to open a school fete in the 1970s, arrived yesterday as part of a schools tour to promote the Northern Racing College, in Doncaster.

He had thought of visiting staff and pupils before, but was put off when he contacted a local careers office.

"The person in the careers office had never heard of me," he said.

This time, after ringing the school direct, he was welcomed with open arms, spending the morning talking to year ten and 11 pupils in assembly and classes.

A frequent question was how it felt to win the 1981 Grand National on Aldaniti.

"Winning the Grand National was always an ambition from when I was eight or nine," he said.

"It became my goal after the treatment. If they hadn't given me odds, I think I would have given up. I thought getting fit again was going to be easy, but I was wrong."

After cancer was diagnosed, Mr Champion, then 31, opted for experimental chemotherapy as his only chance of survival.

Part of the treatment was the removal of one of his testicles and part of a rib to prevent the disease from spreading.

It came as a shock for the veteran jockey, who had by then won more than 350 races.

But he fought back from depression and septicaemia following the surgery to ride to glory watched by 750 million people.

Mr Champion, now president of the Bob Champion Cancer Trust, said a determination to succeed, which he hoped to inspire in the students, was his driving force.

"I have been telling the students not to give up in whatever they want to do. At school, I wasn't the best at everything, but I always wanted to do well.