At the base of Judy Murray’s neck is her very first tattoo. She had it done three weeks ago, to mark the launch of her autobiography Knowing the Score, and “unusual” doesn’t begin to describe the motif she chose.
Murray, 57, may be the mother of tennis champions Andy and Jamie, and have ascended to the heights of Scottish National Coach – but not for her a dinky Wimbledon ball, delicate racquet or even a Grand Slam trophy.
No, instead, the nation’s most famous sporting mother has had a large spider inked on her nape. It is not the cutesy Miss Mofatt sort either, but a dark Gothic arachnid.
“I’ve always wanted a tattoo and a spider seemed perfect,” she says, brightly. “I wanted it somewhere I couldn’t see it; just knowing it’s there is enough.”
Once you’ve read the book, of course, it makes sense; it’s a tribute to Robert the Bruce’s indefatigable spider, the one that refused to accept failure and inspired him to “try, try and try again”.
It also sums up Murray’s own attitude, because the main revelation of her unputdownable book is the astonishing – dare I say, appalling? – amount of graft she put into making her boys’ dreams come true.
“I wrote the book to share my experience,” she says. “There is no manual out there for parents to help them negotiate this path.”
I’m not sure it is so much a how-to guide as a terrifying warning; the endless laundry, the timetabling, the ferrying about and the way in which Murray tirelessly wrote begging letters for sponsorship and lobbied for opportunities – and here’s the clincher – without so much as internet search engine to help her.
I end up torn between a feeling of awe at her bloody-minded mettle and a sense of relief that neither of my daughters has ever professed such a passion.
“Individual sports are a real slog and you have to pay for everything yourself; that’s how I learned how to do tax returns in three countries, trained as a massage therapist and took a course in media management,” she explains. “We just didn’t have the money for professionals.”
By now I am pulling such a face that Murray laughs and assures me that I would do the same for my children. But I so wouldn’t. Especially without a cast-iron guarantee of stellar success.
Jamie is now 31 and has an OBE, three Grand Slam doubles wins and a Davis cup to his name. Sir Andy, aged 30 (there are 15 months between them) was knighted this year, having notched up three Grand Slam victories, two of which are Wimbledon titles. He also has two Olympic golds and a Davis Cup under his belt.
At the end of 2016, the pair made history by becoming the first brothers to top the world tennis rankings at the same time; Andy as world singles number one, while Jamie headed-up the doubles chart.
“I had a lot of belief in the boys, I realised they had talent, were competitive and wanted to play,” says their mother, who brought up her family in Dunblane and now lives in nearby Bridge of Allan. “But I had no inkling they would both become world number ones.
“I was just creating opportunities so they could progress to the next stage. I thought if they are the best 12 year-olds, what do the best 1-year-olds look like?
“There were tough times, but I’m very stubborn and the more I was told something was impossible the more determined I was to find a way.”
As we know from her 2014 Strictly Come Dancing triumph, Murray is a far cry from the fist-pumping tiger-mother caricature perpetuated in the media.
She and Anton du Beke hung on until week eight, when their clunky Let’s Go Fly a Kite Viennese Waltz could not, in all good faith, be overlooked.
