After contracting meningococcal at 19, Tom Nash spent 18 painful months in hospital having his limbs amputated. Two decades later, the well-loved DJ explains why his experience left him better off

There’s one question strangers always ask Tom Nash: “What happened to you?”

Some days he’ll say it was a shark attack that separated him from his limbs, or maybe a disastrous trapeze incident. If a taxi driver starts prying, he might tell them he used to drive a cab until he had “a horrible accident”. Or there was the time he stepped into a packed elevator and, feeling the weight of curious eyes on him, turned to his friend and deadpanned, “It’s really weird to be back in this elevator – where it all happened.”