Judy Murray tells a story about her son, Andy, which in part illuminates a young Scotsman upon whom seemingly all of Britain dotes for these two weeks of Wimbledon.

Everyone now knows that Judy has a motherly crush on the dashing young Spanish player, Feliciano Lopez. Judy herself hams it up enough in her constant references to 'Deliciano'. But it was Andy, she says, who first got wise to this hot flush of his mum.

A few years back Andy was practising pre-tournament with Lopez when Judy wandered by to watch. "Andy saw me and started shouting, 'Mum! Mum! Come over here and get your picture taken with Feliciano'," Judy recalls.

"I said 'no, no, it's alright.'

But then Andy started saying, 'Feli, my mum fancies you rotten, she thinks you're gorgeous...' I was saying, 'Andy, shut up!' After that it just became a running joke with me and Feliciano."

The story sums up Andy Murray. He is like a lot of people - and certainly a lot of Scots - in that he keeps his irreverent side, his fooling, a private matter.

The British public has long wondered about Andy's sometimes serious, dour, straight-faced persona. They are perfectly entitled to as well, so long as no-one is suggesting it is a crime not to be publicly chortling like a bantam cock while trying to win tens of millions of pounds and become the no.1 player in the world.

Personally, I have always loved Andy Murray's "Scottishness". He can be poker-faced and a man of few words with the very best of them. There are old Scots words that are sometimes used - "crabbit" and "pawky" - which often sum Murray up perfectly.

The flipside to this is, everyone who knows Andy says he is great fun to be around, that he can laugh and fool with the best of them. His mother certainly attests to it.

This is how it should be, isn't it? You can be yourself with your family and intimates, but for every other stranger looking in on the tennis court, what they'll get is a man at work.

Judy says Andy struggled with his early years of public profile, in the main because people who didn't know him were writing portraits of him.

"For a number of years Andy got a very bad press," says Judy. "In the early years, as a young guy, I think he struggled to handle that side of it. He is much better at it now but for quite a long time not everybody 'got' Andy."

I was at Wimbledon when Murray made his first big splash there in 2005. Look back at the footage now and see what he was back then: a gangling calf, all sprouting legs and limbs, a gawky 18 year old with a sometimes bewildered look on his face.

In press conferences back then Murray was exactly what you'd expect of an 18-year-old debutant: awkward, uneasy, monosyllabic. The funny thing was, to some of us there was a real warmth about him back then, but it wasn't by any means obvious to all.

In the eight years since, at a miserly rate that I find quite wonderful, more of Murray's personality has eked out, and views of him have evolved. But he is no public clown or jester. He is exactly the sort of bloke you might meet in any Dunblane, Perth or Dundee pub: a nice fellow, downbeat, not given to histrionics, who seems a pretty solid citizen.

In digging out more of his privacy the BBC have unearthed more of Murray's side in their documentary, Andy Murray - The Man Behind The Racquet, which aired the other night. In its aftermath it has been striking how many people have spoken up on social media forums to acclaim Murray for his depth, his sensitivity, and all-round likeability.

Like everyone else looking on, I'd love Murray to win Wimbledon. I pine for it to happen. In Scotland there is a rightful pride in what this son of Dunblane has achieved, against a backdrop of dreadful tragedy one dire day which, by some random mercy, spared him.

Most of all, though, I love Andy Murray for just being himself. It took him a while to realise it, but it is the most blissful state of all.