Award-winning This is England director Shane Meadows is hoping to make a feature film about the life of British cyclist Tom Simpson. 

Simpson was the first Briton to wear the Tour’s de France’s yellow jersey in 1962 and was also crowned Great Britain’s first road world champion three years later.

But Simpson collapsed and died on the slopes of Mount Ventoux during stage 13 of the 1967 Tour de France. A post mortem found he had ingested alcohol and amphetamines.  

“He is a Nottingham guy and it is just one of those legendary stories that feels like a Hollywood movie script, though I would not treat it like that,” Meadows, who also grew up in Nottinghamshire, told the Press Association. 

“He was very open about taking amphetamines and it was very different then.

“I just think it is a great story. For example, the French loved him because after two weeks in France he was doing his interviews in French, broken French admittedly, but this was just an ordinary guy from Nottingham.”