Tuesday, 18 March, 2003, 10:43 GMT

Wednesday, 18 August, 2004, 12:01 BST by Judith Woods

'She could have asked how I was'

After he was knocked off his motorbike, guitarist Mark Knopfler had time to reflect on what makes him happy. Judith Woods meets him.

Just under 18 months ago, Mark Knopfler's career was almost destroyed by a motorcycle accident. The 55-year-old former Dire Straits guitarist was hurled straight into the air when a motorist suddenly turned right, without indicating, on the Embankment in London. Knopfler, who had been moving to overtake on his 800cc Honda touring bike, was left with nine broken bones; his collarbone, right shoulder and seven ribs. Unable to play the guitar for seven months, he needed more than a year of physiotherapy to regain mobility. The details of the collision, as recounted in the subsequent court case, were dramatic; the terrible moment of impact, Knopfler thudding to earth on his back, as the bike skidded five metres along the road after impact, fellow motorists leaping from their cars, rushing to help. Knopfler has a reputation for being a rather mellow chap, but to hear his almost perversely low-key account of the incident, one could be forgiven for thinking he'd pranged the front wheel of his mountain bike.

When I ask him whether he was frightened, he looks nonplussed, as though it had never occurred to him that the experience might be scary. "It was much, much worse for my wife, Kitty," he says, looking slightly pained at the memory of her distress, as opposed to his own brush with death. "She'd been contacted, so when I was taken to St Thomas' Hospital, she was waiting for me. I think that, sometimes, when you're in the middle of something, you're not always aware of the stress." At a push, he will concede that his injuries were quite painful, but that didn't prevent him from discharging himself after two days from a second hospital, where he'd been moved when it emerged there were no beds available at St Thomas'. "I was being given painkillers, and my arm was in a sling, to ease my collarbone and shoulder, but I felt I would be better off at home," he says. "I can't fault the standard of treatment - the ambulance people, in particular, were great - but I didn't fancy any more hospital food, so they reluctantly agreed to let me go home."

Back at home, in Chelsea, with his third wife, Kitty, and their two daughters, Isabella, aged six, and eight-month-old Katya, Knopfler spent the next few weeks sitting in a "grandad armchair" in the sitting room. "There was nothing heroic about the recovery process, I just had to sit still and wait for the bones to heal. The worst part was trying not to sneeze or laugh, because it was horribly painful if I did," he says. "I was getting treatment from my physiotherapist, who is also training to be an osteopath and an acupuncturist, so I felt really spoiled."

As the months went by, Knopfler graduated to sitting in his study, writing songs at his computer. It's a reflection of his easygoing outlook - or perhaps, the acupuncture - that seven months after the accident, when he picked up an acoustic guitar and couldn't get his arm around it, he felt neither panic nor frustration. "I thought, 'Oh no, that's going to be a drag, I'll just be playing electric guitar for the rest of my life'," he says. "A few weeks later, I tried again, and I was able to play."

Knopfler, who now performs solo, apart from occasional Dire Straits charity reunions, was on his way to a rehearsal in London Bridge in March 2003 when the crash took place. As he pulled away to pass a red Fiat, the car abruptly turned towards a petrol station on the right, and drove straight into him. "I had to move to the right, myself. Unfortunately, I could not go any further right as there was traffic coming the other way," Knopfler told the court, which later convicted Monica Beltran, the driver of the Fiat, of careless driving. "I only had about two seconds. The last thing I remember going through my mind was, 'You are not going to do that, are you?'" Twenty-three-year-old Ecuadorian Beltran was already serving a jail sentence for passport fraud when she was prosecuted this May and was due to be deported. Yet Knopfler bears her no ill-will. Quite the contrary. "Poor woman," he says, without a trace of rancour. "She didn't have much going for her."

When I suggest that even if he doesn't feel annoyed that she might have killed him, he perhaps feels a tiny bit irritated that he had to cancel his planned tour and effectively take a year out of his life, he shakes his head. "If you're a writer, you have to have compassion for people. Maybe being a parent has an effect, too," he says. "What I do know is that because of what happened, I've had the opportunity to spend more time with my family, and the accident helped create my new record." His new album, Shangri-La, is due to be released next month. Despite one song entitled Don't Crash the Ambulance, and the lyrics of another - "Got shot off my horse, so what, I'm up again" - it is the title track that he cites as the song that is most closely linked to the aftermath of the crash.

"One thing I've learnt since the accident is how quickly things can change, and so I try to enjoy the present," he says. "I'm not constantly pushing forward and looking to the future the way I used to as a young man. Shangri-La is about getting as much out of the present as you possibly can and treasuring moments of happiness as they happen. For me, they are private moments with your loved ones. I've had lots of highlights through the years, but there's nothing that's sweeter than a child." Knopfler has twin boys, Benji and Joseph, aged 16, from his second marriage, who also live in Chelsea. One enjoys playing the guitar: "I teach him the odd trick here or there, but it's important for him to find his own way." The other wants to become a professional drummer, and receives extensive tuition. "It's funny. A few years ago, they would ask me questions like, 'Dad, have you ever heard of a band called Pink Floyd?'," he says, wryly. "I love being a family man, which, these days, amounts to being a part-time bus driver, but I feel very blessed to have four children."

Finally - abruptly - as I get up to leave, Knopfler displays something approaching mild pique at the accident. "You know, the woman who knocked me over never asked after me," he says, shaking his head gently in genuine perplexity. "At least she could have asked how I was doing."

Mark Knopfler's new album, Shangri-La, will be released on September 27.