“I don’t want to build up something here just for someone else to take it over.”He did not wish to talk about the past and open old wounds, but that was a clear reference to the experience he had to endure at Williams, giving way to Alain Prost two years ago. “I wouldn’t be standing here if I didn’t think I had another championship in me.”A championship may be too much to ask this year, that is why Mansell, who said he would come back only to have a chance of the title, is looking to next year and beyond. He is encouraged by new regulations which will no longer penalise the heavier drivers and the promise of an innovative car, due to be unveiled within a fortnight.”It’s only a question of when we start winning,” Mansell enthused. Then why not give Mansell the option he wanted? “To keep you on your toes,” Dennissaid, turning to the 41-year-old former champion and only half joking.Mansell contends he has no fears about his ability, fitness or motivation. He talked of loyalty and his “family” at yesterday’s official announcement, at a London hotel. Nigel Mansell was back playing the role he revels in: centre stage, lights, cameras, the whole bit.

What is more, he plans to stay there for another two or three years yet. It seems the old warhorse is not ready to be put out to grass just yet and, significantly, Ron Dennis, having signed him for McLaren-Mercedes on a one- year contract, holds out the incentive of a further deal.
Mercedes, too, are new partners and Dennis appears intent on some stability. “Don’t worry,” he said, “It comes to us all with age.”But that isn’t the explanation. For as I walked home, I remembered vividly a keyless and penniless evening nearly 20 years ago, spent sitting in my local Indian restaurant in Croydon, being provided with curry, beer, conversation and encouragement for the four hours before my husband got home.How did people like me survive before the arrival of Asian entrepreneurs?. My host sat me down in front of his television, made me a cup of tea and in the interstices of cooking watched appreciatively with me The Last of the Summer Wine.I thanked him profusely when the keys arrived and muttered something self-deprecating about my memory.

For just the second time in six months, the layabout hadgone out socialising.Carol, mercifully, turned out to be at home, so it was arranged that she should send the keys in a taxi to the take-away. Afterfive minutes I concluded that the bell was defective and went down to the Bangladeshi take-away down the road, whose proprietor I know to be a friend of Kuku’s The proprietor rang him No answer. And his and his wife’s friendship extends to insisting that I ring their doorbell at any time of the night should I be locked out.So when on New Year’s Day I found myself keyless, I had nothing to worry about Nina was away, but Kuku would see me right. Although he had shut before 7pm – incredibly early for him – I confidently rang the bell on his residential door No answer.

Kuku played host to me for an hour or so while I awaited a locksmith, and, being a kind and practical man, suggested that I should leave keys with him henceforward and save myself irritation and expense.This system appeared foolproof, since Kuku works 14 hours a day, lives over the shop and has neither the time nor energy to go out in his spare time: several times he has saved me the price of a locksmith. And the other manifestations of the condition were no more than a minor bother either. When I’m thinking I easily forget what I’m doing, but it’s no great hardship that I go to the nearby corner shop for batteries and come home with milk. The proprietor, my friend Kuku – aka Chris (Indian newsagents frequently call themselves Chris rather than require their customers to master their real names) – grins when I reappear and says consoling things about my having a lot on my mind. And the exercise does me good.What became a nuisance were keys.