My house contains not one piece of memorabilia to remind me of my former life as an England cricketer. My parents, bless ’em, certainly make up for it. So whenever I walk through the narrow upstairs hall of their house, I tend to stare straight ahead rather than sideways at the gallery of photographs.

Most of them are harmless enough: touring squads, me posing by the Taj Mahal, that kind of thing. But next to the one where I’m introducing the England team to the Queen at Lord’s (“This is Phil Tufnell, ma’am”) is one I’m more embarrassed about. There, almost but not quite in pride of place, is me shaking hands with Robert Mugabe before introducing him to the England team on our 1996 tour of Zimbabwe.

Mugabe had famously said that cricket “civilises people and creates good gentlemen” and, despite his hatred of all that Britain stands for, in the photo he looks every inch the English country gentleman.

But why should I be embarrassed about a 12-year-old photograph? Partly, I think, because of my slightly deferential body language. For someone who has never been impressed by status, power or money, it’s puzzling to see that I’m not quite bowing, but nearly. I could blame my back complaint, which flared badly in Harare on that tour, but I can remember clearly that I had been in hospital some days before and received four cortisone injections. Would there be anywhere in Harare now that could offer such treatment?

The embarrassment stems more from my complete ignorance at the time of the atrocities that Mugabe had already started to inflict on his people. The year of our tour was a relatively quiet one and the worst bloodshed had yet to take place, yet he had already slaughtered between 10,000 and 20,000 Matabeles in an operation called Gukurahundi (“the rain that washes away the chaff”).

Such ignorance is why I have always been reticent to criticise sportsmen for failing to take a “moral stand”. Yet I look back at a different kind of man to the man I am now: one who was more concerned - only concerned, perhaps - with his form and that of his team. I’m afraid that is the way with most sportsmen.

So when I went back to Zimbabwe for the World Cup in 2003 in my second life as a journalist and broadcaster, I took some time out to look around. Mile-long queues for petrol and grain were the most obvious signs of distress in Bulawayo, but there was also a quiet dignity in the way that people tried to retain some kind of normality in their lives.

At the match I covered - Zimbabwe against Holland, it was - some spectators held up anti-Mugabe banners. One read “Mugabe = Hitler”. As they were rounded up, I went to the back of the pavilion and watched as the police brutalised them before herding them into a van and off to God knows where. It really is time Mum took down that photo.