After Dinner Speakers: Fran Cotton, Jimmy Saville, Stephen Fry

Born and raised in Wigan, the heart of Rugby League country, Cotton's father and brother were noted professionals with Warrington, and Cotton's boyhood heroes were Rugby League legends Billy Boston and Bev Risman. Yet Cotton became a major force in Union as player with England and the Lions, and as a businessman (he owned Cotton Traders, who at one stage supplied kit to half of the world's top national sides). He was also chosen to be the 1997 tour manger of the British Lions' tour to South Africa. At 6ft 2in and over 17 stones, he had all the raw materials for a prop, but it was his innate strength, inner drive and technical appreciation that helped him accumulate 31 caps. One of the fittest players of his generation, Cotton was also one of the most versatile and because of his technical acumen became as proficient on the tight-head as he was on his more accustomed loose-head. Cotton's top-level career began as a 23-year-old when he led the north to a famous victory over the 1972 All Blacks at Otley - the first time an English province had beaten the All Blacks. Over the next decade, until his retirement in 1981 after an on-field heart attack, Cotton was a central figure in British rugby. The first choice Lions tight-head in South Africa in 1974, Cotton also played three of the four Tests in New Zealand in 1977 as a loose-head, and returned to South Africa with the 1980 Lions' tour.