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Having been diagnosed with Parkinson's disease in "around 1998", the tremor in his left arm had, over the years, grown steadily worse. He would, as he puts it, "windmill all over". …

Last autumn, having been on a waiting list for the past year, Henderson underwent deep brain stimulation, a revolutionary form of surgery which, while it does not cure the disease itself, can help to control a patient's jerks and shakes. In the case of Henderson, his tremor has all but disappeared. He looks down at his hand as if to check. "There's a little tic coming back into my left side," he says. "But that's my fault. I should go and see them and get it adjusted. The volts will come surging into my brain and … all will be well again." …

DBS involves the implantation of a wire with four electrodes at its tip into one of three target sites in the brain; it must be carried out under local anaesthetic so that the patient's response to this can be monitored. The wire is then connected to a small unit, rather like a pacemaker, under the skin in the chest, which contains all the necessary equipment to generate electric signals for stimulation. Unlike previous treatments for Parkinson's disease, deep brain stimulation does not damage healthy brain tissue by destroying nerve cells. Instead, the procedure blocks electrical signals from targeted areas. It is reversible, but its effects, so long as the equipment is in place, last indefinitely. It also means patients can dramatically cut back on their other medications, many of which have extremely unpleasant side effects. …

His operation took place at the National Hospital for Neurology & Neurosurgery in Bloomsbury, and was carried out by Professor Marwan Hariz [¹û¶³Ó°Ôº Institute of Neurology], whose DBS team have succeeded in reducing the time this procedure takes - it was developed in Grenoble - from its original 14 hours. …

First of all, a metal frame is clamped to the patient's head, so that it won't move during the surgery. Even this sounds quite horrifying to me. "Yes, it was a very fruity day," says Henderson, who arrived at the hospital, took one look at his ward and fellow patients, and went out to nearby Ciao Bella for lunch in order to steady his nerves. "You hear everything. But the nurses are angels. You give their hands a squeeze and it's amazing how restorative that is. So you have a brain scan with this thing on, which lasts an hour so they get a good picture of your brain. Then they cut the flaps on your head. Then they drill the holes. Then there's the point where they say: we're just going to cut the membrane on your brain, so you might feel some tugging. And you think: OK, fine, jolly good. And, erm, in they go." …

"Scchlleuch, scchlleuch," he says (this is the sound of a membrane being tugged). "Then they put the electrodes in. I was convinced they were making music. There was a kind of 'wooh! wooh!' But maybe I wasn't entirely sane at that point. They can check where these electrodes are, so if you say you suddenly feel sick, they can move them. It's amazing science, but it has a sort of understandable quality to it. I thought they'd be titanium. But they're plastic. Then they sew you up." He cannot remember much more. "Brain-poking time isn't like normal time," he adds. "And straight afterwards, I hit the morphine. That was rather nice." …

The battery went in after two days, and the effect was immediate: no more windmilling arm. "It's amazing the way the brain adapts. It's as if you forget what it was like before." …

The simple truth is he is not a man to make a fuss, no matter how extraordinary the turn of events. He will praise his doctors, and the admirable people at the Parkinson's Appeal, who made the whole thing possible, to the skies - but for his own part, he would rather just get on with life, the same as he always did.

Rachel Cooke, 'Observer Food Monthly', 26 February 2006