When keen sportswoman Nicola Shires could not summon the energy to carry on playing hockey, tennis and golf, she put it down to fatigue, and gradually gave them up.

When her right arm started to ache when she was doing everyday tasks, she put it down to RSI.

But after becoming more and more ill, the 41-year-old mum-of-two was told things were a lot more serious.

Last March she had an orange-sized tumour removed from her brain at Leeds General Infirmary and after the operation lost the use of her right arm - her writing arm - and shoulder and nearly all the sight in her left eye.

But for Nicola, the months since then have seen her realise the amazing ability of the human body to recover as she has regained a lot of the strength in her arm and some of her sight and also seen her rediscover her love of sport and fitness.

And she thinks one of the things that helped her along the way was a free course she started while still at work as a lecturer before the operation, at York College.

Today Nicola goes to the gym regularly, has started swimming and is back playing tennis, with her 11-year-old son, Thomas. She has another son, Charles, aged eight and her mum Rachel has helped her look after them.

She began building up her fitness after being encouraged by a physiotherapist and decided to finish off the college's Sport for Life course.

Sport for Life has won the college a national award for reaching out to people outside traditional student age groups and backgrounds and Nicola told guests at a presentation ceremony last night that it worked for her because of its emphasis on helping individuals work out personal exercise and fitness programmes from home.

She finished the course before Easter, just over a year after her operation.

She said: "Because I had to finish the course and because I had committed myself, it made me do it."

Richard Twigg, project developer, said Sport for Life had started off as a way of offering a free sport and fitness qualification to Leeds United fans with support from the West Yorkshire club.

Since then it had grown, with sponsorship from Yorkshire Country Cricket Club following, and now from Leeds Rhinos, is also available on the Internet and has won the Association of Colleges/Times Educational Supplement Widening Participation Beacon Award.

Meanwhile, Nicola's aim is to keep up her new exercise routine and eventually to start her working life again.

Updated: 08:37 Tuesday, April 24, 2001