CCW’S MEMORIES OF CLASSIC CAR FAN MURRAY
‘ Voice of UK motor sport’ leaves us after 52 years of broadcasting
‘Unless I’m very much mistaken – I’m very much mistaken!’ MURRAY WALKER
Graeme Murray Walker OBE, the voice of motor sport in the UK for more than half a century, died on 13 March. He was 97.
A man whose passion for all forms of piston-powered competition remained undimmed to the end, he was universally well-loved the length and breadth of pitlanes the world over.
Born in Birmingham on October 10, 1923, Walker grew up immersed in motorcycle racing, his father Graham being a works rider for Rudge, Sunbeam and Norton. Walker Sr subsequently turned to commentary while also editing Motor Cycling magazine, and it was only natural that young Murray would follow in his footsteps – eventually.
Walker was a troop commander during World War Two, having risen to the rank of captain. He began competing on two wheels in peacetime, but found limited success on circuits. He enjoyed better results in motorcycle trials, and, after a spell studying at Roehampton Technical College, changed tack and worked in advertising ( Walker is credited, among other things, with coining the name ‘ Ventora’ for Vauxhall). He would continue to work in the industry until he was 60 despite having long established himself as a motor sport commentator.
Walker embarked on his broadcasting career at Shelsley Walsh hill climb in 1948. A year later, he co-commentated on the British Grand Prix at Silverstone for the BBC’s radio transmission, and also teamed up with his father to cover motorcycle events. They would continue to do so until Graham Walker’s death in 1962.
Scroll forward to the 1970s, and Walker covered all manner of carrelated motor sport spanning the British Touring Car Championship, rallycross, and occasionally rallying. He is, however, inextricably linked with his time with Formula One.
Renowned for his impassioned delivery, Walker could enliven even the dullest of races. Fellow motor sport fan, Clive James, famously said: ‘Even during his more subdued moments, he sounds like his trousers are on fire.’ He also became known for his ‘Murrayisms’, often letting his enthusiasm get the better of him and tripping over his tongue. This served to further his fanbase. Nobody castigated him for it, not least because it was clear that his knowledge of the subject was encyclopaedic. ‘Unless I am very much mistaken – I am very much mistaken!’ was perhaps his most infamous line and it subsequently became the title of his autobiography.
Having covered the 1976 Japanese Grand Prix, during which James Hunt finished third at a sodden Fuji to claim the drivers’ title, Walker and ‘Master James’ would team up to cover every round from the 1980 Monaco Grand Prix to the Canadian Grand Prix in June 1993 (Hunt died two days later). However, their relationship didn’t get off to a flier: Hunt, whose leg was in a plastercast for that initial broadcast in the principality, downed two bottles of wine in the space of two hours, which left Walker incensed. The mutual enmity between the odd couple graduality dissipated and in time they became firm friends.
When Formula One headed to ITV in 1997, Walker, who had been appointed an OBE a year in honour of his services to broadcasting, was paired with Martin Brundle, alongside whom he would work for five seasons. His final race was the US Grand Prix in September 2001, the penultimate round of the championship. He was 77.
Showing his class after this, the first international sporting event following the September 11 attacks, Walker said: “Hopefully, [the race] will have done something to lift the spirits of America. It has certainly lifted mine.’
Not that that he ever fully retired, Walker making occasional appearances in the commentary booth, or at events, thereafter. It took a cancer diagnosis in 2013 to slow a man down who had lived life at valve-bounce.