"If you have been married for 30 years, you attribute it to old age. Your hearing goes, your teeth go and you put it down to a natural process. At the time I was travelling a lot and I would make excuses to stay away."

When seeing his GP about gout, he summoned the courage to mention his troubled sex life. It was a throwaway remark as he opened the door to leave. Dr Pat Wright recommenced the consultation, which ended with a prescription for Viagra.

Mr Steel went home and threw the pills on to the hall table, telling his wife: "I went away with gout and came back with these."

But the prescription worked extremely well.

"I was also pleased to know it was something physically wrong with me rather than emotionally," he said.

"After taking Viagra, I had no trouble but I had only four hours to use it or lose it."

He has now switched to long-acting Cialis, taking three tablets weekly. This allows Mr Steel to have sex without time constraint.

"I would urge any man - and there are hundreds out there like me - to go along to their doctor. There's a treatment. It works. So why not get it?"
Dr Wright, who was also present in Vienna, emphasised that Mr Steel's experience was anything but unusual.

"This is not a freak case," he said. Erectile dysfunction is a disease of the blood vessels: they become inelastic, cannot expand, cannot take extra blood and therefore cannot sustain an erection.