def skip_digits(string):
    """Skips over any potential digits (including spaces) to the next
    non-digit character and return its index. If no such character is
    found or if the first character in the string is not a digit then
    specify that the skip has failed.

    :param str string: The string to search
    :returns: a 2-tuple with the first entry indicating if a valid     character has been found and the second entry indicating the index     of this character in the 'string' argument.
    :rtype: (bool, int)

    """
    found = False
    index = 0
    for index, char in enumerate(string):
        if not (char.isdigit() or char == ' '):
            if index > 0:
                found = True
            break
    return found, index
