Walker - My autobiography : unless Im very much mistaken

Like everyone, I left my mothers 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 natures gentlemen, was a member of the Johnnie Walker whisky family and didnt 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 couldnt do that, Murray. Its one thing reminiscing with a bunch of chaps like this but Id just dry up if I tried to put it all on paper.

Rob, I said, if you dont do it and go to your grave with everything youve said and done still in your head, youll 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 havent 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. Ive 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 Ive 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 Im 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 dont feel it) because I now want to remind myself about who Ive known, where Ive been, what Ive seen and what Ive achieved. So Im 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 cant keep up with, not being able to pay the bills, wondering what would happen if I wasnt earning, or whether the pension would be enough. Ive 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, Im one of the former. I can think of few really big risk decisions Ive made in terms of my career development, and luckily for me those Ive had to make all paid off. Ive largely reacted to situations rather than initiated them, but things seem to have worked out pretty well. Id love to be a bright spark who ducks and dives and comes out ahead someone like Bernie Ecclestone, whom I greatly admire but Id 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.

Hes obsessed. If it hasnt got an engine hes 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. Its not that I do not love her dearly or respect and admire her, because I do all of those things by the bucketful, its just that Elizabeths attitude is Hes public, Im 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 wouldnt welcome me banging on about her qualities here either, so Im not going to do so. Its a marriage of opposites I suppose, but just like it says in the old song: Weve been together now for 40 years [and more] and it dont seem a day too much. There aint a lady living in the land as Id swap for me dear old Dutch. I wouldnt have been able to do what I have done without her and shes the one for me.

I have to confess that Im a workaholic. Im absolutely useless at relaxing. I get irritated, bored and restless. For about 20 years Elizabeth and I didnt have a normal holiday because I spent all the time either at my job or doing broadcasts. I really enjoyed both my work and what was then my hobby commentating. Saving for security mattered more to both of us than spending now and maybe suffering later, but neither of us regrets it for we certainly havent been deprived. Its different now, because we go on cruises to magnificent places and, in my last commentary year, we had a fabulous trip to Australia, Thailand and Malaysia with, hopefully, more to come.

For Gods sake, dont ever retire, Elizabeth used to say. What on earth are you going to do with yourself? Throughout my life Ive had to be doing something all the time, whether its writing, researching my next race, going to it, beavering round while Im there, talking about it, or travelling home eagerly to await the next one. And thats still the case now that Ive retired from full-time commentating. I always reckoned that writing this book was going to take me a good 12 months, after which something else would turn up. It always does.

Ive managed to go from one thing to the next with little difficulty and have always made the best of my lot rather than dreaming up impossible goals. From my beginnings in Birmingham, with the wonderful influence of my parents (had my Dad not been obsessed with motor cycles I may not have had half the life I have); my childhood, passing through several schools; my time in the army, in both war and peacetime, from which I returned far more of a man than before; and jobs with Dunlop at the time one of Britains greatest companies and two major advertising agencies with whom I became satisfyingly successful; not to mention all my wonderful experiences in motor sport: through it all I have never been unhappy with the way things have turned out, whatever the change of direction. Its all been worthwhile, enjoyable and good experience for the rest of my life.

What about the broadcasting though? I thought you were never going to ask. Its difficult to know where to begin because it has been going on for so long now. In fact, it could be a question of heredity. I often wonder whether I would have been so passionately interested in motor sport had I not been born and brought up with it, whether I would have attempted to race motor cycles had my father not been so successful, or whether I would ever have picked up a microphone had he not been as brilliant and gifted a speaker, writer and commentator. Its impossible to tell, but it looks as though I am a chip off the old block and thats very much all right by me; I cannot think of anyone Id more aspire to be like than my father. After a long and distinguished racing career of which more later he became editor of the failing magazine