More Hero's?

Hero's of the Past

Isn't it funny how your mind wanders when you are spending a third day trying to empty, and prepare, a pre-teens bedroom (and how does one kid hide so much rubbish in one average sized room - do teens have control of "Warp" technology?)

Anyway, I had the TV on, for noise mainly. I hate the feeling of being alone in the house as Cathy and the Kids had gone out to the Supermarket. On ITV, there was a program about the Goodwood Festival.

I love things like this. The Sports vehicles of the past , some of my past, my child hood, the things that I grew up with. But as the program went on, it set me to thinking.

Barry Sheene was one of those people I grew up with. To be honest I was never, and still aren't a great motorbike person, but Barry Sheene, was different. It wasn't so much the motorbikes, but the character.

On his famous No.7 bike, he won the world championship. His many accidents, then ending up having to have his legs rebuilt with "Meccano".

It was that "larger than life" lifestyle. Every young boys dream. Now as an adult, you would sort of shrink away from that sort of life, and then be attracted in the same measure.

The reason the thought of childhood hero's ever entered my head was because of the Goodwood Festival.

Last year, although he was dying, Barry had entered, and won one of the trophy competitions they have over the weekend. This year, as a memorial to a great character, they had renamed the race he took part , the trophy he raced for in, in memory of his passing.

And what made the program for me, was the welcome return of the passionate, sometimes prophetic tones of Murray Walker.

I always loved Murray's commentaries on the Grand Prix. His passion, his insights, and probably most famously , his goof's. They added such a love for his craft, along with incite, and humanity, I do miss his voice, now that he has retired.

It was good to see, and hear, him again.

Of course, Murrays' most famous commentary partner, was another of my childhood hero's.

James Hunt lived life the hard way, and it cost him dear.

But he was the very first World Champion that I ever remember, and that's when races were real races. There was danger, anger, sometimes even hate. But the was obvious passion and belief, and James certainly had passion for everything.

I used to love listening to the Grand Prix commentaries between James and Murray. Murray would make comment in that style that was so unique, and then James would come up with some scathing, sarcastic comment, sometimes filled with venom and vitriol. If he thought someone was a fool, he made no bones about it.

Maybe it is because most of today's Sportsmen are so "santisied", so "goody goody", that James and Barry appeal, they lived life their way for most of their lives, and not without some general "entertainment" along the way. If they felt aggrieved, everyone knew about it.

But in the end his life style caught up with him. Such a shame. I know that sort of life style, like Barry's in many ways, would be looked down on with disgust these days, but to a small boy, living in a steel town, it was a million miles away from what I knew.

My last hero, is a hero of film.

Steve McQueen has always been a screen hero.

The Fire Chief from Towering Inferno, The Cincinnati Kid and the Thomas Crown Affair (much better than the Brosnon version)

One of the first Car Chase scenes that ever left an impression on a young mind was that wonderful run through the streets of San Francisco in Bullitt.

And probably the most famous "Escape" film of all. There can't be many people that haven't seen. somewhere, the motorcycle scene from the great escape.

But, I think, my most memorable McQueen film was Papillion.

This was a shocker of a film for a young man, once you realised that, although the story was fiction, the treatment meted out to French Prisoners in their remote prison was that harsh. I don't know why I like the film. Maybe it was because it was the first time I had watched such a "severe" film. There is certainly no way that it could be classed as a comedy.

But then it was the lifestyle. I suppose it always came down to the "hard living" lifestyle. All these hero's are, in image at least (bar Murray of course - who will always be a gentleman) all the things that I am not. But, of course, they belong to a different time, when sentiment was different