Motorsport legend and voice of F1
MURRAY Walker’s infectious enthusiasm for Formula 1 grand prix races produced a commentary of track dramas which often saw his observations pile up in an amusingly chaotic tangle of sentences.
His “Murrayisms” were so prolific that motor racing fans often carried banners of his classics, such as, “With half the race gone, there is still half the race still to go”.
At one grand prix he observed, “The status quo could well be as it was before”, which was only outdone by, “Mansell is slowing it down, definitely taking it easy. Oh no he isn’t! It’s a lap record”.
Defining his style of malapropisms, he once said, without irony: “I don’t make mistakes, I make prophecies which immediately turn out to be wrong.”
Murray’s mangling of the language was box office gold for motorsport fans, who wondered how many laps would pass before a gem was delivered. They were seldom disappointed.
“Unless I’m very much mistaken,” he often remarked, “I am very much mistaken.” Graeme Murray Walker was born at Hall Green, Birmingham, where his father Graham was a rider for the Norton motorbike company after serving as a dispatch rider in the First World War.
A talented writer and motorbike racer, Graham Walker went on to be editor of Motor Cycling magazine. When the family moved to north London, Murray went to Highgate School.
His first job was with the Dunlop Rubber Company, which stalled when, after officer training at Sandhurst, he joined the Royal Scots Greys.
At Arnhem he commanded a tank, and in 1945 he crossed the Rhine into Germany.
Following the war, he took up motorbike racing in his spare time after returning to Dunlop in the advertising department.
He sharpened his skills at advertising giant McCann Erickson before joining London-based Masius and Fergusson. He wrote the famous Opal Fruits slogan, “Made to make your mouth water”. Away from work, he was consumed by motor racing, an obsession which was fully exploited by the BBC and ITV.
Murray Walker was the voice of Formula 1 in the same way that Dan Maskell was the voice of tennis and Peter O’Sullevan was the voice of horse racing.
Walker is survived by Elizabeth, his wife of more than 60 years.