Celebrating 50 years in pole position

"A GUY called John Bolster was driving down the long straight towards me at around 140 mph when something went wrong with his car. He went cartwheeling down the road, flew out of the car and quite literally landed at my feet. He had on a sort of red tartan shirt and I thought this was blood and he'd been killed. My God, I thought they didn't tell me what to say about this. So I said John Bolster's gone off."

Nearly 50 years later one doubts if Murray Walker would be such a master of understatement. John Bolster survived that Grand Prix at Silverstone in 1949 and so did Murray Walker.

In Dublin yesterday for the announcement of car of the year, the veteran commentator who was recently awarded an OBE, was able to reflect on a life lived in the fast lane.

"I was born into it," he admits. His father, Graham was a successful professional motorcyclist racer, who began working for the BBC when he retired in 1935. After he returned from the war, Walker raced motorcycles himself for a while. After that first radio broadcast in 1949 he began working with him for the BBC.

It's clear his father was the guiding light of his life. "I worked with him until he died in 1962. He was a great man. A very loveable chap. I certainly loved him greatly."

Having seen more than 300 formula one races it's naturally difficult to select ones that stand out.

One that does is Nigel Mansell against Ayrton Senna at Monaco in 1992. Mansell, who led virtually all the way came into the pits with just a few laps to go thinking he had a puncture; in fact all he had was a loose wheel nut. It allowed Senna to take the lead and though Mansell caught up with him he was unable to pass him.

Another emotional race for him was the last race of 1996 in Japan when Damon Hill won the world championship.

Walker rates Damon Hill very highly indeed. Why then was he replaced at Williams? "One can only assume, since both Williams and Hill say money was not the issue, that Frank Williams didn't believe he was good enough to race against Schumacher in an improved Ferrari in 1997. Of course opinions will differ there," says Walker.

He feels the future could be brighter for Dublin's other formula one driver, Eddie Irvine. He believes Irvine is a much better, driver than he has been able to show.

"He was on a stiff learning curve at Jordan, while at Ferrari this year, his team mate Michael Schumacher was taking virtually all the testing of the car. This meant he got very little practice between races. Over this winter he's scheduled to do a lot more testing, and I predict he'll do very much better in 1997," says Walker.

He is fall of praise for Eddie Jordan but says the team must come good in 1997 if they are to hold onto their Peugeot engines. Both Williams and Benetton will lose their Renault engines at the end of next year.

As he swept out of the room Walker, now 73, said he would continue commentating as long as he could both physically and mentally.