THE enduring memory Charles Hutchinson has of his brother James as a boy is of a sandy-haired 11-year-old with his limbs splinted every night before he went to sleep. One Christmas he remembers vividly. The boys' mother had put James' Christmas stocking at the foot of his bed, instead of the side.

"Because he was in his splints, he couldn't move or reach out to get his stocking," recalls Charles, the Evening Press journalist. "Mum has never forgiven herself!"

Worst of all was when the family had to leave James at a hospital for arthritic children in the south of England.

"It seemed a betrayal," Charles says. "We were leaving him to... what, we didn't know. It was a specialist hospital, but it felt like another world. As an elder brother, that was a rotten thing."

That was almost 30 years ago. James, now 39, recovered and, following a relapse at 16, has been virtually free of arthritis ever since. What he remembers is the dull, constant ache in his joints - ankles, knees, hands, wrists, elbows and shoulders. That, and the fact it put paid to his ability to play rugby.

But even at the time, he says, he remembers feeling he was lucky compared to some children. In the hospital he was taken to, there were some who had had the condition from as young as two or three. "They were basically consigned to wheelchairs. It was very hard for them."

He remembers, too, that despite his illness he never felt down because of the way his family rallied round. "They would squash up in the car, so I could lie on the back seat," he says. "At that age, you put your trust in your doctors, and family, and friends. I had that support from mum and dad and my brothers."

Now assistant clerk to the course at York races, and clerk to the course at Ripon, Beverley and Sedgefield, the main legacy of his childhood illness is the aching knees he sometimes gets following race days. That and a persistent, recurring inflammation of the eyes.

There's always the worry, too, that perhaps one day the condition may come back. "But if it does, it won't be any worse than for anyone else," he says.

Updated: 09:41 Monday, February 25, 2002