By the time the plane touched down in Doha, there were paramedics and police on the runway. He’d been planning to take an onwards trip to Thailand, but ended up being put into a wheelchair and taken to an airport medical centre instead.

And now, speaking in a tell-all interview with The Sun, Bruno has opened up about his ordeal. He remarked: “A couple of hours into the journey, the TV in front of me suddenly looked too bright, the cabin lights smeared across my vision and I closed my eyes thinking I was about to fall asleep. I had no idea my world was about to cave in.

“I’ve since been told how my temperature was rising, my oxygen levels dropping and my speech became slurred. Apparently, I kept shifting in my seat, looking uncomfortable. I started complaining I was freezing.

“The cabin crew brought me a blanket and I wrapped myself in it and managed to doze off. But within minutes I was awake, shivering, and saying I needed to be on my toes and to keep moving to stay warm.

“As we prepared to touch down in [Qatari capital] Doha, the crew told me: ‘Mr Bruno, please sit down.’ Instead, I carried on pacing backward and forward, with no idea where I was. I bolted myself in the loo. They landed the aircraft with me in there.”

However, it wasn’t the physical condition that frightened Bruno the most, instead, it was what it did to his mind. That’s because the puncher claimed it completely wiped his memory, to a point where he couldn’t remember some key parts of his life.

He added: “The strangest part of my sickness was what it had done to my memory. Not only did I have no awareness of what I was ­living through at the time, but my long-term memory had been wiped.

“I didn’t know who I was, where I lived, or even how many children I had. Whole chapters of my life had ­disappeared. It was as though I’d closed my eyes on that flight and opened them to find my past erased.”

“At first, there was nothing. Then the wrong answers. One day I’d insist I was living in Wandsworth with my mum, dad and brothers and sisters. The next I was at home in ­Stondon Massey [Essex] with my ex-wife Laura and the kids. My mind was jumping through parts of my life.

“Slowly, though, something started to change. A street name would come back, then a face, a small detail, and a picture in my mind that didn’t disappear as quickly as before.

“Every time that happened, Paul built on it. He’d gently ask another question, helping me join the pieces. Thanks to him and the doctors, my memory began to return.”