MY AUTOBIOGRAPHY
Murray Walker
UNLESS I’M VERY MUCH MISTAKEN
Contents
10 A View from the Commentary Box
11 My Wonderful World of Formula 1
Like everyone, I left my mother’s womb without a very clear idea of what I wanted to do with my life yet here I am, nearly 80 years on, starting to write about it. Why? Who cares?
Years ago I gave myself the answer when I was gossiping at a motor-racing gathering with some great characters that included Rob Walker, friend, mentor and sponsor of the great Stirling Moss. Rob, one of nature’s gentlemen, was a member of the Johnnie Walker whisky family and didn’t exactly have to worry where his next pay cheque was coming from. I asked him when he was going to write his life story. He seemed amazed. ‘Oh, I couldn’t do that, Murray. It’s one thing reminiscing with a bunch of chaps like this but I’d just dry up if I tried to put it all on paper.’
‘Rob,’ I said, ‘if you don’t do it and go to your grave with everything you’ve said and done still in your head, you’ll be committing a crime against motor racing. You must do it.’
So I believe I have memories and stories to tell that might interest and entertain those many people who haven’t had the good fortune to be where I have been. But how Rob felt is how I feel right now, staring glumly at my laptop. So much done and so much to say, but where to start and how to go about it? All sorts of things motivate me to try though, one of which is gratitude. I’ve been both lucky and privileged, having had a fabulous life full of richness, variety and satisfaction, with hardly any setbacks. From as far back as I can remember I’ve enjoyed almost every second of it, basically because I like people and there are usually plenty of them around whose company and friendship I can share.
Normally I’m not much of a chap for looking back; to me the present and future matter more than the past. Life is about making things happen – planning, organizing and getting it done – and I like it most when anticipation turns to realization. But I must be getting old (well I am old, though I certainly don’t feel it) because I now want to remind myself about who I’ve known, where I’ve been, what I’ve seen and what I’ve achieved. So I’m writing this book primarily for my own satisfaction, not for the money!
Many years ago in my youth I spent a long time trying to persuade a particular girl whom I was very fond of to marry me, but she finally refused because she said I was too interested in security. We went our different ways, but to this day I have an unashamed horror of being insecure – having a mortgage I can’t keep up with, not being able to pay the bills, wondering what would happen if I wasn’t earning, or whether the pension would be enough. I’ve a theory that there are two sorts of people in life: those who work for someone else for a salary and, hopefully, the greater security that goes with it, and others who work for themselves, take risks and can potentially do better, though not necessarily. Well, I’m one of the former. I can think of few really big ‘risk’ decisions I’ve made in terms of my career development, and luckily for me those I’ve had to make all paid off. I’ve largely reacted to situations rather than initiated them, but things seem to have worked out pretty well. I’d love to be a bright spark who ducks and dives and comes out ahead – someone like Bernie Ecclestone, whom I greatly admire – but I’d hate to be the one who ducks and dives and falls flat on his face. Better to be at ease with yourself than try to be something you are not.
‘He’s obsessed. If it hasn’t got an engine he’s not interested,’ says my long-suffering wife, Elizabeth. This is not entirely true, but I confess that the groaning bookshelves in my study do not include the works of Shakespeare, selections from Chaucer or too many volumes of poetry. Talking of Elizabeth, incidentally, you are not going to hear too much about her in this book. It’s not that I do not love her dearly or respect and admire her, because I do all of those things by the bucketful, it’s just that Elizabeth’s attitude is ‘He’s public, I’m private’. We met at a London party when I was 34 and although it took me far too long to get around to the subject of marriage I really was smitten at first sight. She is a tower of strength and has an infinitely better brain than me, but whereas I love the limelight and positively revel in it, her idea of purgatory is to have her photograph taken or to appear in public. She wouldn’t welcome me banging on about her qualities here either, so I’m not going to do so. It’s a marriage of opposites I suppose, but just like it says in the old song: ‘We’ve been together now for 40 years [and more] and it don’t seem a day too