BBC Grand Prix legend Murray Walker reaches the f inishing line at 97
Tribute to ‘The voice of Formula One’, who lit up the sport, after his death aged 97
TRIBUTES flooded in for Formula 1 legend Murray Walker after he died yesterday, his race over at the age of 97.
The veteran commentator was hailed as the undisputed voice of motorsport over a career spanning more than 50 years. His inimitable, high-octane style of delivery – described by Australian humorist Clive James as ‘sounding like a man whose trousers are on fire’ – made Walker synonymous with the glamorous world of Grand Prix.
The British Racing Drivers’ Club last night led the tributes, describing Walker as ‘a friend, a true motorsport legend, the nation’s favourite commentator’.
His unique style – which often involved mangled sentences and unintentionally witty one-liners that became affectionately known as ‘Murrayisms’ – won him millions of fans.
‘There’s nothing wrong with the car except that it’s on fire,’ he famously quipped after Argentine driver Pedro Diniz’s car exploded into flames in 1996. ‘And now, excuse me while I interrupt myself,’ he joked on another occasion.
But it was his deep love for the sport that made Birmingham-born Walker,
‘He even made boring races sound spectacular’
whose father Graham had been a successful competitive motorcycling racer, a legend. This was epitomised when Damon Hill won the Japanese Grand Prix and became world champion in the early hours of an October morning in 1996, and an emotional Walker cried: ‘I have got to stop because I have got a lump in my throat.’
After serving with distinction during the Second World War – he fought in the Battle of the Reichswald and got to Belsen concentration camp shortly after it was liberated – Walker landed his first major broadcasting job when he commentated on the 1949 British Grand Prix for BBC radio.
He had a simultaneous career in advertising and was responsible for coming up with the slogan ‘Opal Fruits – made to make your mouth water’.
His big break came when James Hunt beat Niki Lauda to the 1976 World Drivers’ Championship title, prompting the BBC to expand its coverage to include every race and, in the process, turning the little-known advertising man into a household name.
Walker was later partnered by Hunt for 13 years in the commentary box and their contrasting styles – Walker a consummate professional next to Hunt’s more raffish approach – was loved by viewers.
When he bowed out of commentating on Formula 1 in 2001 after the US Grand Prix, Walker’s enthusiasm for the sport remained undimmed but he vowed he was ‘not going to be a pathetic old hanger-on in the paddock’. He also broadcast for ITV, Channel 4 and Sky Sports at various points in his career.
British F1 star Jenson Button said yesterday: ‘Today we say farewell to one of the greats of our sport. Murray was the voice of F1 for so many years, he showed so much emotion when commentating, even making the boring races sound spectacular. The legend will always live on in our memories but today in Murray’s words – I’ve got to stop because I have a lump in my throat.’
Sky’s lead F1 commentator David Croft said: ‘A gentleman and a legend in every sense of the word. THE voice of Formula 1 and always will be.’ And BT Sport’s Jake Humphrey said: ‘Just weeks ago I spoke to Murray on the phone. He was in a residential home, hating getting older. However, I could hear the sparkle and pride in his voice when we spoke about Lewis Hamilton’s 7th title. Murray set the standard. I’m honoured to call him a friend.’
Former British racing driver Martin Brundle, who commentated alongside Walker in his later years, added: ‘Rest in peace Murray Walker. Wonderful man in every respect. National treasure, communication genius, Formula 1 legend.
And TV motoring show presenter James May remarked: ‘RIP Murray Walker, one of the great voices of my youth. I hope he would want someone to say that he’s interrupted himself, again.’
ONE of the most famous and most imitated voices in the history of British television fell silent yesterday. Murray Walker died aged 97 and a chapter closed in the art of the microphone business.
Of course, his pants-on-fire bellow was the soundtrack that illuminated Formula One as it planted itself in the imagination of the nation.
But he meant something more than that in the whole story of TV sports broadcasting — one of those pioneers like David Coleman, Peter O’Sullevan (his personal favourite), Bill McLaren, Dan Maskell and Richie Benaud. It was an age before a multiplicity of channels blurred things, a time when the splendid instrument of the voice itself was a central part of the job in a way it is not quite today.
Like O’Sullevan and the others, Walker could convey drama by lowering his register, for all his high-octane excitement and the odd malapropism that were part of his legend. His autobiography, Unless I Am Very Much Mistaken, sold like hot cakes.
When he was being treated for cancer — which turned out to be not as serious as he feared nearly a decade ago — he told me: ‘I have had a bloody marvellous life doing what I wanted to do — travelling the world with fast-moving, high-stepping, ambitious, capable people.’
Last night those individuals lined up to pay their respects. Bernie Ecclestone led the way, telling The Mail on Sunday: ‘Murray was something a little bit special.
‘When you look at the history of Formula One he is up there a million times over. His partnership in the commentary box with James Hunt was something else — the perfect combination. You couldn’t have got two better people.
‘He made what people called cock-ups but he could get away with them. It was as if he prepared them. He didn’t but people knew he was so knowledgeable about the sport they would forgive him anything. He worked hard and would prepare so diligently for every broadcast.
‘The last time I saw him was at the RAC, the Pall Mall club, in London, where they named the TV room after him. We had a joke and sat together at the dinner that accompanied the event. And when I last spoke to him he was in very good form, pin sharp. I just hope that when he left us he was not in pain.
‘Formula One owes him a great deal and he will be celebrated for all time.’
Three-time world champion Sir Jackie Stewart said: ‘There will never be another Murray Walker. He is one of those people that will remembered for ever — and not too many commentators could expect that after their life.
‘It is a great loss. We are all at a certain age where we are seeing friends and colleagues slip away, which is very sad, but in the case of Murray he will never be forgotten.’
Martin Brundle, who commentated alongside Walker in the final years of his career, wrote on Twitter: ‘Rest In Peace, Murray Walker.
Wonderful man in every respect. National treasure, communication genius, Formula One legend.’
David Croft, the current lead commentator on Sky Sports’ F1 coverage posted a tweet, saying: ‘A gentleman and a legend in every sense of the word. It was an honour to know you, a delight to spend time in your company and inspiring to listen and learn from you. THE voice of Formula One and always will be. Thank you xx.’
FIA president Jean Todt said: ‘Very sad to learn that Murray Walker has passed away. He was the voice of Formula One. All the FIA family pays tribute to him. My thoughts are with his loved ones.’ Born in Birmingham, after graduating from Sandhurst, Walker was an officer in the Royal Scots Greys in the Second World War, commanding a Sherman tank, fighting in the Battle of the Reichswald and arriving at Belsen shortly after the concentration camp had been liberated. He recalled: ‘I first went to the TT motorcycle races in the Isle of Man when I was two in my mother’s arms. My dad, God bless him, was racing. There have been 200 deaths there since it began in 1907.
‘The great riders of their day were all uncles to me. They would come down to breakfast in their leathers. But then some were killed. So my attitude to death is different from a lot of people.’
His first broadcast came in 1948 — the Shelsley Walsh hill climb and then the 1949 Easter Monday Goodwood race before the broadcast of the British Grand Prix on radio the same year, along with Max Robertson, at Stowe corner.
He and his father were the first dad-and-son commentary combination on the Beeb, reporting the TT race. From 1962, Walker become the BBC’s chief motorcycling commentator. Motorcycling — in which he raced as a young man — was his greatest love, before he became the corporation’s top F1 man from the 1978 season onwards, dovetailing his broadcasting duties with a front-rank career in advertising.
His most famous commentating partnership was with Hunt, the debonair, brilliant, opinionated and hell-raising 1976 Formula One world champion. Walker said of his friend: ‘A more endearing, charming, delightful bloke you would never hope to meet. And a more rude, truculent, overbearing chap you would never hope to meet.
‘He probably had too much sex and I didn’t have enough!’
After Hunt, whose premature death ended one of TV sport’s greatest double acts, he teamed up successfully with Jonathan Palmer and Brundle, with the BBC first and later ITV. One of his most famous commentaries concerned Damon Hill, who won the title in 1996, emulating his dad Graham.
‘I have to stop because I have a lump in my throat,’ Walker said, as only Murray could.
Last night Damon Hill said: ‘Murray has been with me my whole life and I don’t think anybody thought this day would come, but
Murray made all the shocking and dramatic moments stick in your mind for ever
sadly it has. Maybe old soldiers never die?
‘His legacy and his memory is so strong and what he gave to so many F1 fans and the great number of people he affected, well, he became bigger than the sport, so we have a lot to be thankful to Murray for. The shocking moments and the dramatic ones all have Murray’s reaction to them and he made those stick in your mind for ever. And he allowed himself not to be the know-it-all commentator but the fan who, at times, got over excited.’
I always found my friend Murray a joy to speak to on my visits to his home in the New Forest. He would tell me how Melbourne was his favourite race. ‘You turn on the taps there and they work — everything works there,’ he told me before my first circumnavigation of the world. He also counted the great and much lamented Sir Stirling Moss as a great buddy.
Formula One is in mourning today. But more than the sense of sadness, we celebrate, as he would wish, a life well lived.