KT: When Dan came along, that was it.

I had a new dolly. I was like: “Rrrright... I can dress this thing up!” Jo would be off doing his own thing, but Dan would be into all my games and adventures. He was one of my best friends growing up.

Dan always knew he had a show-off for a sister. I think me being quite gregarious and a bit outlandish maybe helped him. And there’s the big-sister thing. You’re like, “Do not touch my little brother,” whether they’ve got a disability or not. And I wouldn’t have anyone treating him like he was stupid. I hated people assuming, because he couldn’t hear, that he was mentally impaired.

I suppose I noticed that Dan often got left out of the conversation. At the dinner table it’s loud in our house. My parents are academics, and Jo’s very talented at the chat, and if something got heated, Dan would just flick his hearing aids off and go: “Boring, boring.” I think there would have been tension if Daniel hadn’t been born deaf. Any personal woes I had with being adopted — which I don’t remember having — were wiped out next to that. And me and Jo certainly didn’t feel we were missed out on at all.

Dan is incredibly tolerant. But he was really pissed off when I got off with one of his friends a few years ago. I’ve always had lots of friends — always got the spotlight. So Dan was just like: “Oh, f*** off. You’ve even got my friends.” But he’s had his own fame and success. I’ve watched him at Wimbledon; and he was in the local paper every week when we were growing up. He’s a proper little star.

Because Mum and Dad didn’t listen to music, they genuinely didn’t know if I was particularly good. And, of course, Dan didn’t know. There wasn’t much music in the house — background noise made life so much harder for Dan. I think he’d find it quite annoying when I’d listen to my tapes. He’d want to join in.

Music was one of the few things we didn’t do together. I got tennis coaching when I was younger. The dangerous thing is, if I get fairly proficient at a sport and I’m losing, it’s Armageddon! And, of course, I’d always lose against Dan.

He hears pitch now, which he couldn’t before the cochlear implant he had a few years ago. At first he was freaked out, trying to figure out what all this bloody noise was — you can hear all these things, but have no idea what they are.

Dan loves a gig now. He didn’t used to come as much — when I was playing in shit-hole pubs, when even if you can hear you can’t f***ing hear. Now I’ve got this big show, fantastic lights, massive sound systems, and I’m jumping around like a mexican bean, he gets a lot out of the gigs. He came on tour with us for a week as cameraman. And Dan and Jo came to Skye when we were recording the Acoustic Extravaganza. I really like to include them. And I really, really love family gatherings. There was a hard few years when any family get-together descended into an argument about me not getting a job. But they’re so happy now that it’s actually worked.

I’ve always wanted to write some music for Dan, and find out scientifically what would be really pleasing to him. He loves beats. He tells me about these brilliant deaf raves he’s been to, where all hearing aids come out and the volume’s whacked up. And he played the drums on stage at my last party.

I’m not always happy and positive, but generally, it’s a half-full glass… It’s the same for Dan. I think part of that is my parents’ attitude. It’s easy to take someone’s disability way, way seriously all the time. But we all have a real laugh about his deafness. If someone’s at the dinner table and they’re boring the pants off us, we turn to Dan and go: “You’re lucky. This is very boring!”

Dan’s taught me a lot. He does speeches about tennis — and not just to deaf people. He said, like Mr Tao of Tunstall: “You have to pretend you’re speaking to one person.” I always remember that if I’m feeling disconnected from a gig. It works every time. He’s inspiring — he really has absolutely flown in the face of adversity. And he’s just a lovely, lovely person.

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