Relative Values: Beverley and Adrian Turner

Don't get me wrong. He's got a real competitive heart. You don't get to his level in a sport like swimming without having loads of drive and ambition. In the four years leading up to the Athens Olympics, he was totally focused, but he's never been bigheaded or arrogant. Some people would say that if you want to be the best, you have to be arrogant, and maybe that means Aidy will never be Olympic champion. But I think he's realised that some things are more important than swimming. And I think that makes him a better person.

That ability to balance swimming with the other things in his life came about after he got over his illness. He'd just won the British National Championships and he went off on holiday with a few mates. It was December 1999 and they were staying at a cottage in Scotland. First, it just seemed that he'd got flu, but then I got a phone call saying he was peeing blood. The next I knew, he was in hospital and they were testing him for Aids, hepatitis and leukaemia. His body was rejecting his own blood.

That's when I mobilised the Turner troops. Cal went straight to Scotland. I drove up to Manchester and got my parents — they'd both got flu — and then went to Glasgow, where Adrian was in hospital. When I saw the look on the faces of my sister and Aidy's girlfriend, Nicole, I thought he'd died. He was slipping in and out of consciousness. He was having blood transfusions. They said his liver might pack up; his kidneys might pack up. My poor mum and dad weren't allowed in the room because of their flu. They had to look at him through a window. We did shifts. Two of us stayed at a hotel while two of us were at the hospital. That is how our family works. Protect each other. I would die for my siblings. I really do feel that.

The doctors never worked out what it was, but they found that if you heated the virus up, it seemed to turn things around. So they stuck Aidy under this heated blanket and his blood count switched. He turned the corner.

A couple of days later, he was well enough to sit up. So we wheeled him into the family room. It was millennium New Year's Eve and we'd done it all out with bunting and decorations. We popped over to M&S for a bit of buffet spread. Me, Cal and Nicole got matching outfits. It was the best party I've ever been to.

Unfortunately, that illness stopped him going to the Sydney Olympics in 2000. He only just missed it, though. That's how hard he fought to get back to fitness. But he had a completely different view of things. The reality check. This voice says to you: "The medals don't matter. This is what matters — the people around you." He'd become a member of the Second Chance Club. It was like Aidy had been given a new lease of life.

I can still see the change in Adrian. Flashes of maturity. That's why he got involved with the Blood Donation Service. He'll often say to me: "Bev, these people saved my life. How can I ignore that?" I am so proud of him.

ADRIAN: I'm quite glad that I had older sisters and not brothers. It's very comforting, because you get this extended support network. There was always somebody to fuss over me. Frankly, it was a brilliant way to grow up. You also get this wonderful insight into the female mind. I remember when I started being interested in girls, I used to sit around and listen to Cal and Bev talking to their mates about boys: "Ooh, he said this and I said that..." They knew I was listening, but they would just think: "Well, it's only Bev's little brother." Meanwhile, I was picking up tips and taking notes. No 1: don't use your tongue too much when you're snogging. That's priceless advice.

I think some of my girlfriends got a bit jealous of my sisters. Naturally, I would go to Bev or Cal if I was having a problem, and any girl coming into that atmosphere was bound to feel a bit threatened. A few times I had girls moaning that they could never come up to the standard of Cal and Bev. I wasn't trying to make them jealous: that's just how things were when I was growing up.

If there was any trouble, it was usually me and Cal ganging up on Bev. Because we had that bigger age gap, we seemed to get along much better. Bev got pinched in the middle. One thing that used to drive me mad was Bev blowing kisses at me in public. I'd go running to my mum. "Mum, she's doing it again." Eventually, I started whacking them back at her. We'd sometimes spend whole days doing it to each other, like some sort of tennis match. Totally ridiculous.

Bev can be a bit of a handful. A bit gobby. We know where she got that from: Mum, the driving force of the Turner family. In a different era, Mum would probably be running some big international company, but because of the different attitudes back then, she never got the chance to achieve everything she wanted to achieve. I think that's why she pushed us so hard.

We had the chance to do something with our lives, and she was going to make sure we took that chance.

Thank God my dad was around to balance things out. He was the rock. A ridiculously hard worker. He's lived locally all his life, but he's not got a local mind. His mind is open. He sees the bigger picture. For instance, if I ever lost a race when I was younger, Dad would always manage to put a positive spin on things. He'd say: "That lad beat you, but he got a lucky turn. And his stroke wasn't as good as yours." He provided the counterbalance to my mum's drive. Without him, it wouldn't have worked. And I think that combination has made me, Bev and Cal unique people.

I could really feel Dad's influence when I was in hospital. The competitive side of me was devastated that the illness was going to stop me from going to the Olympics. Come on! It was everything I'd ever dreamt of since I was a kid. But after you've had five blood transfusions, you tend to look at the world in a very different way. You realise how wonderful life is. I know that sounds like a cliché, but I don't care. In my head I was thinking: "Well, I missed Sydney, but there's always Athens." And I did make Athens. The dream still came true.

Bev was there virtually every day I was in hospital. Organising everybody. When it really comes down to it, I know she is somebody I can count on. Where family is concerned, Bev's always there. Like Mum, she's a real fighter. I don't know if many people know this, but she got bullied quite a bit at school — and girls can be pretty nasty when it comes to bullying. But she didn't give in, and she didn't change how she was. It just made her work harder. Same as when she got that job presenting Formula One and she was getting loads of hassle from all the blokes in the industry.

I get the feeling that she enjoys the risk. She enjoys the fight. Even if she is scared, Bev will always push on through till she gets to the other side.