“I DIED, you know,” says former motorbike racer, ex-rock’n’roll trucker, Harley-Davidson aficionado, affable raconteur, Swindon Town season ticket holder, and one-time drummer, thespian, publican, bus driver and riverboat dweller Micky Kight, in between gulps of Thatcher’s Cider.

“I was in intensive care and the consultant says ’he’s going... he’s gone.’ And then, as Micky likes to tell it ”a nurse pipes-in and hollers ‘no he bloody ain’t... he’s fighting back like ‘ell.’”

And indeed he was, or we wouldn’t be in a pub at about six o’clock on a Saturday evening listening to Micky, who in a matter-of-fact sort of way, along with maybe the hint of a swagger, is relating his close encounter with the Grim Reaper.

“I really thought that was it – so did everyone,” he goes on as we press him for the particulars. “They told me I wouldn’t see 60 – but I did. I was in the Prospect Hospice. I thought my time was up. It didn’t look good but I came through. I even went back to work.”

We’re at the Beehive about 18 months ago after a match at The County Ground – first time I’d seen Micky for ages. He’d been through hell and back by then. As it turned out, there were more battles ahead, more little victories and vicious set-backs lay in his path.

What Micky, 61, is fighting is a form of cancer as virulent as it is dogged. But he’s dogged too, and he’s still – to borrow a phrase from that nurse at Great Western Hospital - “fighting back like ‘ell.”

As well as lugging stage gear around Europe for the likes of Neil Young, Michael Jackson and Bruce Springsteen, Micky Kight is one of those blokes who knows a lot of people in Swindon, and they know him: perhaps from his exploits in assorted local bands during the Seventies and Eighties or maybe from the days running The Park Hotel and Jacob’s Ladder pubs.

A petrol head with a passion for Formula 1, many will have encountered Micky as the cheery Swindon bus or coach driver, or have come across him either in local biker circles or during his two-and-a-half years living among a flotilla of riverboats at Lechlade Marina.

“Barnado’s misfit” Micky grew up in Faringdon and Bourton near Shrivenham, didn’t go to school much, was in the Army for a year, became a hippy, and then roared into action racing motorcycles.

Burning rubber on the back of a RD 250 Yamaha for two years, he only had four crashes, which he assures me as we chat at his cosy ground-floor flat in Eldene, where I admire his Frank Zappa T-shirts, is “damn good going.”

Maybe in an effort to become even louder, he quit racing around 1977 and began drumming for a succession of Swindon bands, first with post-punk rock combo The Humans (“we did a lot of gigs - had a hell of a following.”)

Responding to a prog-rock call, he then punished his kit behind Rich and Famous, and as the years rolled on, switched to keyboards and other stuff with Lazer (rock), After Midnight (funky/soul, splash of reggae) and Thrash The Rabbit (“rock, folky, jiggy.”)

Another stage also beckoned when Micky appeared as the male lead in the Norman Robbins farce Pull the Other One at the Arts Centre and played four roles during a week-long run of Oliver at The Wyvern.

“I was the policeman who shot Bill Sykes, then rescued Oliver from a tower. Little b*gger kept poking me in the ear to put me off...

“I had a lot of interest from London but couldn’t get an Equity card,” he adds.

Amidst all of this, Micky had acquired an HGV licence (“still got it”) and, after criss-crossing Europe shifting peaches, beef and latex became a rock’n’roll haulier.

Having conveyed some Rod Stewart equipage to Barcelona, he was hired for six memorable weeks on the road with Neil Young and Crazy Horse.

Cities and miles flashed by as Micky also carted heavy duty gear for the likes of Springsteen, Genesis, Lindisfarne, Duran Duran and “the big one” – Wacko Jacko.

An enthusiastic partaker of alcoholic refreshment, Micky later gave the pub trade a go, running Swindon hostelries The Park (now gone) and Jacob’s Ladder, as well as George’s Railway in Chippenham (now closed) and The Plough at Kelmscott, near Lechlade.

Back on the road, he found himself behind the wheel for Barnes Coaches before a substantial stint on the buses in Swindon, first at Stagecoach, then Thamesdown.

Almost three years ago – two years and a couple of days shy of ten months, in fact – Micky was admitted to the Great Western Hospital with a suspected, strangulated hernia.

“Turned out it wasn’t that, it was a very big lump. It was cancer. They cut it out. They did a biopsy on it. I had to go back to see the doctor.”

Micky had contracted high-grade non-Hoskins, t-cell lymphoma. “It’s the worst type you can get,” he shrugs.

A constant round of scans, chemo and drugs ensued – and then it got worse.

“I got an infection after being bitten on the leg by a mosquito. It went to the brain. I was so ill, they rushed me to intensive care.”

Which – in 2013 - was when he slipped into a deep, dark hole…and then, as our nurse related in front of Micky’s family, made a comeback.

He’s built of stern stuff, is Micky, and over the subsequent months clawed his way through a long, arduous recuperation at the Prospect Hospice. He was also given some useful advice - to set himself little goals….one of which was to ride a Harley again, having previously owned three.

Months later he was back on the buses and even made it to The County Ground. “It took me two-and-a-half hours to walk from the Swindon-Chelsea game to the Ferndale Road club” – a distance of about half-a-mile.

A gleaming Harley-Davidson Sportster 883 Superlow later caught his eye. It was love at first sight.

Straddling his shiny new silver machine, Micky vanished not into the sunset but into the countryside, clocking-up 72 miles in one heart pumping session. “It was brilliant but I was knackered - I overdid it.”

It may, inadvertently, have helped open the door for the cancer which, sadly, “is back vicious” sapping his strength but not his spirits.

Micky quit his job at Thamesdown Transport (“I just didn’t have the energy any more,”) and off-loaded his beloved Harley. Fermented apple juice is also out of the question for the time being.

At one stage he was in a wheelchair again. But now he’s walking - without a stick.

“What else can I do,” says Micky, trying to sum up his predicament. “Get depressed, cry and all that, and then give up. Nah, you’ve got to set yourself little goals….”

And fight back like ‘ell.

How I hauled Michael Jackson's stage gear across Europe - and nearly died in the process 

IT was one of the biggest rock tours ever mounted – 127 shows, 4.4 million fans, 15 countries. Micky Kight was part of it... and it almost killed him.

Among a gang of truckers that hauled Michael Jackson’s elaborate stage gear across Europe, he came a cropper in mountainous Austria.

Going down a hill Micky was somewhat surprised and alarmed to see his trailer over-taking his cab unit.

“The brakes failed and the lorry jack-knifed. The truck was smashed up. I knocked the windscreen out with my head.”

They carted him off to hospital in Vienna where he had a brain scan. “They found nothing,” he recalls.

Micky, who later re-joined the Bad Tour, still has his laminated Michael Jackson ‘access all areas’ pass.

On the back the tour manager had scribbled, in acknowledgement of a fine Swindon/West Country accent: “Wurzel, he’s a good ole country boy.”

Micky's bird's eye view of Neil Young in action

DURING a six week European haul with Neil Young and Crazy Horse, Micky earned some extra cash as a “follow spotlight” operator, giving him a bird’s eye view of one of rock’s giants in action.

“The shows were superb, really brilliant. Neil Young was a great guy – he was so cool it was unbelievable.

“He gave us all a $500 tip at the end – the pay was good anyway - and threw a party for us at a bierkeller in Munich.”

During the sound-check before a Wembley Arena gig Micky, who had brought along his bass guitar, found himself involved in a loose, impromptu jam with Crazy Horse, one of the world’s most ferocious rock bands.

At that point Young ambled onstage had a listen, and remarked “hey man, I won’t be needed tonight.”