Murray Walker

Presenter0:00

Hello, I'm Kirsty Young. Thank you for downloading this podcast of Desert Island Discs from BBC Radio 4. For rights reasons the music choices are shorter than in the radio broadcast.

Presenter0:10

For more information about the programme, please visit bbc.co.uk/slash radio four.

Presenter0:34

My castaway this week is the broadcaster Murray Walker. His commentating career began in nineteen forty eight, and he finally hung up the lip mic at the end of two thousand one.

Presenter0:46

His trousers on fire style of delivery brought excitement, emotion, and fanatical obsession to Formula One. For motor racing fans he was motorsport.

Presenter0:56

A petrel head before the term had even been coined, it was his father, one of the top motor bike racing champs of his day, who ignited his son's lifelong love of big noisy engines.

Presenter1:07

He's talked British fans through so many of the sport's greatest victories. Damon Hill crossing the finish line to win the world title brought an audible lump to his throat. But also, inevitably, great tragedies too, his live commentary on Ayrton Senner's fatal crash in'ninety four' must surely have been his most professionally demanding.

Presenter1:28

He says I have always believed that Formula One, with its highs and lows, is the ultimate distillation of life. So, Marie Walker, if you would begin then by just expanding on that, in what way do you think does Formula One represent everything we have to deal with in the real world?

Murray Walker1:43

Everybody in Formula One Kirstie, it doesn't matter whether they're the truckey who is bringing the tyres to the circuit, or Bernie Ecclestone himself, or one of the top drivers like Sebastian Vettel and Lewis Hamilton and Jensen Button, they're all the best at what they do. And it's an enormously satisfying and stimulating environment to be in because you are strong rivals, in some cases bitter rivals, on Saturday and Sunday.

Murray Walker2:13

But all the rest of the time you're mates, you're travelling together, you eat at the same restaurants together and of course, let's make no bones about it, it is something where, sadly, you can lose your life, although thank heavens uh that's not something that is usual now, it used to be usual in Jackie Stewart's day. I'm not very good at putting things in a nutshell, but that's my idea of why Formula One is the ultimate distillation of life.

Presenter2:37

I don't mean any disrespect to the people who who do a good job commentating today, but for a lot of people you still are the voice that defines the roaring engines, the drama, the tension, the spray of the champagne. What does it take to be a successful commentator?

Murray Walker2:54

First of all, to know what you're talking about, there's a lot of people who didn't think I knew what I was talking about, but actually, like any professional broadcaster, you do an enormous amount of research. When I wasn't at meetings, I was reading magazines, meeting people, going around, doing interviews. And you also need to be able to talk about it.

Presenter3:17

I described your commentary style there in the introduction as Pants on Fire. I was a little bit worried that you would take offence at that. I hope you didn't, because it was meant as a compliment. And how would you describe your style?

Murray Walker3:27

Uh as I had my pants on fire.

Murray Walker3:33

It was it was the immortal Clive James who coined that.

Presenter3:38

That very distinctive tone of an F1 engine when it's at full throttle was somehow matched by the tone of your voice when you were commentating. Was that deliberate?

Murray Walker3:43

Mm-hmm.

Murray Walker3:45

No, uh it's a genes thing. It must be because I haven't done anything to develop my voice and I have a very harsh, aggressive voice and I was dealing with a very harsh, aggressive sport. I'm actually talking to you in my conversational voice now, but when I got excited and I was standing up I used to stand up for all my commentaries and I was bouncing about on the balls of my feet my voice would get a lot louder and much more aggressive and I would talk a lot faster because I was trying to communicate as much as I possibly could in the minimum amount of time, excitedly.

Murray Walker4:19

because I always thought that my job was not just to communicate, but hopefully to entertain as well.

Presenter4:25

Oh, I enjoyed that. Murray Walker, thank you for that little blast from the past there. It's time for your first disc of the morning. Tell me what we're going to hear and why you've chosen this. It's pretty obvious, I guess.

Murray Walker4:34

Well, surprise, surprise, I spent most of my broadcasting years working with the BBC, but the thing that really got me in front of the public in terms of television was Formula One, and it was somebody's inspired idea to use a particular piece of music to introduce the show. It was Fleetwood Mac's The Chain.

Presenter5:26

That was Fleetwood Max The Ching. Do you still get a little flutter when you hear that?

Murray Walker5:29

See, just then I I got goosebumps. I always do because I knew

Murray Walker5:35

But when that stopped I started.

Presenter5:37

Let's take a little wander down Memory Lane. It's nineteen twenty three. We're in Birmingham, and you are born to Graham and Elsie Walker. The family moved to Enfield in Middlesex when you were just five. What's your earliest memory of life at home?

Murray Walker5:51

Uh

Presenter5:51

R

Murray Walker5:51

Um

Presenter5:51

Yeah.

Murray Walker5:51

Remember

Presenter5:51

Uh

Murray Walker5:52

It was my birthday, Kirsty, and I wanted a toy submarine that you operated in the bath with a bladder thing, and you squeeze it and the the submarine went down.

Presenter6:01

We should

Murray Walker6:03

This wasn't good enough as far as my father was concerned to give his beloved son. And my father said Happy birthday, son, and yanked out an enormous plywood box with a Bowmaker steam launch in it. And I burst into tears.

Murray Walker6:21

It wasn't what I wanted, no. I mean, bless him.

Presenter6:21

Because it was

Murray Walker6:25

He'd given me what he thought was going to send me over the moon.

Presenter6:29

You were an only child. Were you a very cherished and slightly sort of indulged child?

Murray Walker6:32

Probably, like most only children. I had two wonderful parents. My father was tremendously hardworking, enormously cheerful, gigantically capable, physically brave man who earned his living racing motorcycles. My papa would disappear before the weekend and come back with a big trophy.

Murray Walker6:57

I've often wondered, Kirsty, how my life would have gone if my father had been a plumber.

Presenter7:03

From a very young age then w was your father your hero? I mean a father who goes off to do something rather dangerous and exotic over the weekend and then comes back with a big trophy. There there's something quite glamorous about that.

Murray Walker7:12

There's something quite glamorous about that. I would love to say so, but I think it was all pretty ho-hum as far as I was concerned.

Presenter7:17

Profile

Murray Walker7:22

bought me a pre-World War II two hundred and fifty cc I won't bore you with all the technicalities aerial cult motorcycle. We lived in a private road and he wanted me to be able to control something mechanically, responsibly. And uh I cut my teeth on that and took it to pieces and put it together again badly and I always had the nut left over and wondered where it came from.

Presenter7:46

Did it thrill you being on the on a on a bike?

Murray Walker7:49

Yes, it did, because a motorcycle, after all, is a modern horse. You are in charge of it. Balancing it properly, taking the right line on corners, riding quickly within the limits of the law, as you should, gives you a charge like very few other things can, and it it sold me the moment I got on one, and it still does. And if I was still capable physically of riding one, I would have one.

Presenter8:11

Have you ever had a go in a Formula One car?

Murray Walker8:13

Ah, I have indeed. In nineteen eighty eight I drove a Formula One McLaren for ten laps at Silverstone. And I was only meant to do three laps, but I knew that if I stayed out they wouldn't be able to get me in until I came in.

Presenter8:30

We're going to have some more music then, Murray Walker. Your second choice is what?

Murray Walker8:34

Uh it's the skaters' waltz. Uh I'm not good as a dancer. Well I got I've got two left feet, but I love waltzes and I love to hear the skaters' waltz.

Presenter9:44

That was part of the Skaters' Waltz by Emil Weiltoffel, played by the London Pops Orchestra. So, Murray Walker, it's not just beautiful fast things that you've driven. You did drive a Sherman tank when you were an officer in the Royal Scots Greys. You left school at eighteen. You volunteered and joined up in nineteen forty one. What do you remember?

Murray Walker10:03

I was very lucky to be with the Royal Scots Grades as they were then, and it's the Royal Scots Dragoon Guards now. And when I joined the regiment my squadron leader greeted me and he said, Nice to have you with us, George. And I said a bit haltingly, I said, It's the G stands for Graham, actually, sir, but my friends call me Murray. Oh, he said, I thought it was Murray Hyphen Walker. And you felt that he was quite disappointed that it wasn't Murray Hyphen Walker. But he said, you will be responsible to Sergeant MacTavish. And I was fresh out of Santos, Kirstie. I'd got this.

Murray Walker10:44

single pip on my shoulder and I thought, What's he think this is, confetti?

Presenter10:46

Yeah.

Murray Walker10:49

And he said, I know what you're thinking. You're God's gift to the British Army, because you're fresh out of Santos. He said, You know nothing. He said, MacTavish has been with us since Palestine as it then was, right through North Africa, Italy, D-Day, and I benefited from that man's experience, and it's probably because of that that I'm alive talking to you now.

Presenter11:10

I've read, and I don't quite understand this, that your father at one point joined you on the battlefield.

Murray Walker11:15

Is that true? Um yes, it is true, and it's a quite incredible experience. Um this was just before the Rhine crossing.

Presenter11:22

Right.

Murray Walker11:22

And I was in a tank regiment and we were having s a pretty bloody time literally clearing the approaches. And every soften you used to have to come back to replenish petrol, fuel and ammunition. And as we drove along towards the replenishment depot, I saw four people standing there and I idly thought to myself

Presenter11:31

Yeah.

Murray Walker11:44

Gosh, that bloke there looks just like my father and as we got closer I saw that this man in military uniform, and my father was not in the army was my father.

Murray Walker11:55

Uh stop jumped as head.

Murray Walker11:57

I can't remember what I said, but it's probably something like what the hell are you doing here? Because we were half an hour away from extreme shot and shell. And to cut a long story short, as a magazine editor as he was then, he had used his contacts, first of all, to get accredited as a special correspondent, and secondly, and I don't know to this day how he did this, to find out where my regiment was and therefore where I was. And he'd got up there. And I was pretty worried, because the last thing I wanted to see was my father where he was. And uh we took on what we wanted to take on in the way of fuel and ammunition and I trundled off again and he he went home.

Presenter12:37

You say you're not sure as to exactly how he managed it. Do you know why he did it?

Murray Walker12:43

'Cause he wanted to see his little boy, I expect.

Presenter12:45

Yeah.

Murray Walker12:45

Yeah.

Murray Walker12:47

I was very fond of my father and and he was very fond of me and

Presenter12:51

Hopefully you wanted to see me again.

Presenter12:53

Let's take a little time to hear some music then, Murray Walker. We're going to hear your third disc, which is very much connected to what we've just been talking about. Tell me about this.

Murray Walker13:01

I said I was very lucky to be in the Scots Greys with its own pipes and drums band, which has had a number one disc with amazing grace, which mm m most of the people who are listening will probably hear, but they won't hear it with nearly as much emotion as I do.

Presenter14:13

The Royal Scots Dragoon Guards, your regiment, Murray Walker, playing amazing grace there. I want to talk in a little while about these two careers that you had, but before we do that, I want to ask you about this, I think, quite short period of your life wa when you took up racing motorcycles as well. How long did it last, and were you any good?

Murray Walker14:31

Not very long, Kirsty, and I suspect I did it because I felt I ought to do it. I'd come out of the war, I wanted to continue doing something exciting. I'm surrounded by all the bric-a-brac of my father's life and memorabilia and stuff, and he helped me get into motorcycle racing. But I was reasonably good club standard, but not good enough. And then I went on to six-day enduros and one-day trials, and I was much better at that. And I proudly won a gold medal in the International Six Days Trial in 1949. But, Kirsty, I was starting to make progress in my chosen profession, which was advertising. And I was either going to have to spend money on developing my not very successful motorcycle racing life, or make money, hopefully, at developing my more successful advertising life. And I pragmatically chose the latter.

Presenter15:29

And when was the very first time that you sat in front of a live mic and spoke and heard your voice reaching people?

Murray Walker15:36

Shelseley Walt, Hill Climb, in 1948 when my father had been going to do the BBC commentary and for some reason I can't remember couldn't and they put the public address commentator in his job and they said to my father, You got us into this hole, get us out of it, who can we put on the public address? And he said, Why don't you give the boy a go? And the boy liked it immediately. The boy liked it immediately. If you're talking public address, Kirstie, you're talking to the people who are actually there.

Presenter15:59

Yeah.

Presenter16:00

Yeah.

Presenter16:01

Uh

Murray Walker16:06

They can see what you're talking about. But I I was talking to one person as far as I was concerned, and that was a chap called Jim Pestridge who was the BBC producer, and he couldn't help but hear me, because all the public address loudspeakers were blasting me out. And I gave them chapter and verse nonstop for the whole race about Job Bloggs and where he came from and how many children he'd got and what he'd done.

Presenter16:31

You say you were talking to him, so you were aware that this was a sort of live audition, if you like.

Murray Walker16:35

Um I hoped it was, I think.

Presenter16:36

Yeah.

Murray Walker16:37

Yeah.

Presenter16:37

So it went very well.

Murray Walker16:38

And that's what it turned out to be. I got an audition at Goodwood. On motor racing, car racing, not bikes.

Presenter16:44

Your very first Grand Prix then, I think that was was that at Silverstone?

Murray Walker16:47

Yeah.

Presenter16:49

What's your memory of that?

Murray Walker16:50

Well, the circuit, first of all, Silverstone is a a highly developed ex-World War Two bomber base and the original circuit used the runways in the middle as well as the perimeter road. So you had cars charging towards each other at an accumulated speed of about three hundred miles an hour, and then they peeled off and went in opposite directions. So I remember that pretty vividly. But most of all, I remember I was at Stowe Corner and there was an outstanding chap called John Bolster. He wore a tartan shirt. They didn't wear protecting clothing in those days. And he came down the hangar street, lost control and went barreling end over end and was thrown out of the car, no safety belts, at my feet.

Murray Walker17:33

in the commentary box. And I looked down and I saw this bleeding mass of humanity. And then I thought, what do I say? They didn't tell me didn't tell me what to say about this. And I said with devastating accuracy, Bost has gone off. Well, he certainly had. And he was perfect I mean, he wasn't perfectly all right. He re he recovered from it.

Presenter17:41

Tell me

Murray Walker17:53

But I think that's my most vivid memory from that.

Presenter17:56

That might have put some people off their porridge. I mean, they might have thought, you know, this isn't for me. I can't I'm I don't want to be as close to a potential death every weekend.

Murray Walker18:03

I forget, Kirsty, that I had by then, I've forgotten, 1948, I would have been 25 years old. I don't wish to labour on this, but I've had the misfortune to see a lot of people killed in the sport which I love. So seeing John Bolster I thought killed was n nothing particularly new to me and I

Speaker 218:16

Yeah.

Speaker 218:19

Hmm.

Murray Walker18:24

I don't want to appear hard hearted or callous, but uh you carry on.

Presenter18:29

Let's carry on with the music. Tell me what we're going to hear now. This is your fourth choice of the morning, Mary Walker.

Murray Walker18:33

I am besotted with Australia, and while I'm on my desert island I would like to remind myself about this much larger island and what better to do it than b to be able to hear Warcy Matilda.

Speaker 218:47

Sing Majina, what's in machine love?

Speaker 218:53

Good love and won't sing but in love with me.

Speaker 218:59

Oh sweetie but.

Speaker 219:02

Lost my life.

Speaker 219:11

Once you are king of the world.

Presenter19:25

Waltzing Matilda, sung by Mauricio Laurasu, accompanied by the Andre Rio Orchestra. You enjoyed that rousing bit there, did you?

Murray Walker19:31

Oh, I loved it.

Presenter19:34

Murray Walker, you have wrongly been credited with the advertising strapline A Mars a Day Helps You Work, Rest and Play. You didn't come up with that, but you did come up with, I think, Opal Fruits Made to Make Your Mouth Water.

Murray Walker19:45

I was gonna say, Opal Fruits. And Trill makes budgies bounce with health, you know that, Costie.

Presenter19:49

I didn't know that one.

Murray Walker19:51

Lonely Pudgy is a lonely budgie, yeah.

Presenter19:53

New left.

Presenter19:54

Your life in advertising then did you you ran it in parallel with your career as a commentator for many, many years. Did you enjoy advertising or was it just there to pay the bills?

Murray Walker20:04

I loved it because oh I adored it because I was doing creative things and it's it's a bit like Formula One. I said that Formula One is the best at what they do. And if you're in the advertising agency business you're you're working with a lot of very young, very bright, very aggressive people full of ideas and I was very lucky that I had some wonderful clients.

Presenter20:05

Yeah.

Presenter20:29

I've seen a photograph, I don't know what to make of it. You and an another bunch of gents in smart suits. You look like you're eat yeah, you look like you're eating out of dog food cats.

Murray Walker20:37

When one of my valued clients was a company called Pet Foods, and it was my job, our job, to convert the British housewife from feeding her dog household scraps on which it was seemingly perfectly happy and fit, and to persuade her to go to a shop, buy a can, carry it home, open it up, give it to the dog not knowing what was in it. And the trade who got to stock the stuff to sell to the housewife suspected that the can was full of factory floor sweepings. Well it wasn't actually, it's actually very high quality stuff. And in order to convince the trade of how good it was, in extremists, we would open a can and eat some in front of them.

Presenter21:22

How was it?

Murray Walker21:22

How was it? Nothing wrong with me.

Presenter21:25

I've done that before. I walked right into that one. You described yourself at the time as a sort of Middle England 007. You know, you were leading this life where you you enjoyed the advertising work, it was creative. And then you also had this life running in parallel where you were commentating on on Formula One and motorsport generally. Did the people in the advertising agency know what you did on the weekend?

Murray Walker21:27

2019.

Speaker 221:27

Walked right into that.

Murray Walker21:28

That one.

Murray Walker21:47

Yes, I mean they couldn't help but know if they had radios and television and I've got to pay tribute to my wife now because if I hadn't got a tolerant understanding wife I certainly wouldn't have been able to lead the life I have led for so long because uh I was working non-stop from nineteen forty eight until two thousand and one. We we didn't have a a conventional holiday for twenty years because I was on holiday all the time as far as I was concerned goes.

Presenter22:18

Let's have some more music, Murray. This is your fifth.

Murray Walker22:21

We've talked a lot about my father and my association with him as a commentating partnership. We were the only father and son commentary team that the BBC has ever had as far as I know. And we worked together from 1949 until 1962 when he died and I attempted to step into very large shoes. One of the things that we did together was to produce what were called sound stories of the TT races. I would write the story of the race, my father would then record it, put it on disc and it would be illustrated with the actual sound about which my father was talking.

Speaker 323:04

Meanwhile, at half distance, Hocking and Hayward tore through the twists and turns of the twenty-three miles to Ramsey, with only seconds between them.

Speaker 323:12

There at Parliament Square, waiting to tell millions of BBC listeners about the fourth lap,

Speaker 323:16

Was Muddy Walker. Here going round school's corner and down towards me is Gary Hocking. List

Murray Walker23:30

And behind him and not very far behind him is Michael Woodman. Let's make no mistakes about it this time.

Presenter23:37

That was you, Murray Walker, and before that your father, Graham, you were both commentating on the nineteen sixty one Isle of Man T T race in Sound Stories, those albums that you used to make. It was fifty two years then, all in, that you commentated uh on uh on Formula Ones, on Grand Prix, and we all loved so much listening to you, and and among the years I think that are most memorable for so many people are the races that you covered with James Hunt. It was a very much a celebrated partnership. You shared one microphone, I understand. Why was that?

Murray Walker24:05

Well Jonathan Martin, who was the head of sport at the B B C at the time, knew that it was very difficult to get the microphone away from me,

Murray Walker24:16

Cause But he also knew that if he gave us both microphones, we would be talking over each other. So in order to ensure that only one person at a time was talking, we had one microphone, which involved the extreme physical sacrifice, as far as I was concerned, of giving up the microphone to James Hunt occasionally. And we were oil and water. We were as different temperamentally as you can imagine any two people to be. I was this busy chap who was walking around the paddock earnestly talking to everybody and writing it down. And James would be sitting in the McLaren motor home entertaining his friends. And there was one occasion at Silverstone when I was standing up, James was sitting down and I was giving it plenty and James thought the old boy had been talking long enough and he gave the microphone wire a terrific tug and the microphone flew out of my hands into his and I actually had my fist back to give him a Fortney one because I was absolutely incandescent with rage and I looked across and Mark Wilkin, the producer, was wagging his finger at me saying, No, Murray, don't. And so I didn't. And what turned out to be a good friendship was retained.

Presenter25:33

Yeah.

Presenter25:39

His life, of course, famously very recently has been made into a rather thrilling movie.

Murray Walker25:42

Anything that you have seen or heard about James pales into insignificance compared with the real thing.

Presenter25:52

Go on then. Believe me.

Murray Walker25:52

Believe me.

Murray Walker25:54

Yeah.

Murray Walker25:58

Yes, oh yes. But, having said that, a more endearing, charming, delightful bloke you w you would never ho hope to meet, and also a more rude, truculent, overbearing chap you would never hope to meet.

Presenter26:15

Right. Uh it's time for some more music then. Uh tell me what we're gonna hear next. We're we're on your uh sixth of the morning. What's this?

Murray Walker26:16

Yeah.

Murray Walker26:21

I'm a jazz fan. Chris Barber, whose jazz band needs no introduction from me, used to race himself with some distinction and also gave me one of the outstanding memories of my life, and that was the memorial service to the late, great Ken Tyrrell, who owned and ran the Tyrrell racing team, and it was at Guildford Cathedral. And it finished with the Chris Barber band marching down the nave, playing When the Saints Come Marching In. I don't want to hear that, but I do want to hear them playing the South Rampart Street Parade.

Presenter27:57

That was the Chris Barber Band and the Scythe Rampart Street Parade. I should tell you, Murray Walker, that David Coulthard once paid you a very nice compliment. He said that your unique gift was your ability to bring sincere emotion to the viewer. I mentioned in the introduction Damon Hill becoming world champion.

Presenter28:13

I would say that was a moment when your sincere emotion got the better of you. Tell us what happened.

Murray Walker28:17

Firstly, I had known Damon for most of his life. His father, Graham, was a double world champion. But Damon had a very tough upbringing. His father was killed when he was at the most impressionable time of his life. And in 1996, he had a very tough season racing against his teammate, Jack Villeneuve. And when Damon crossed the line to become world champion by winning the race, all these pent-up emotions came to the top and I said, I've got to stop now because I've got a lump in my throat. And people have accused me of writing things on the commentary box wall and trying to find the appropriate point in the commentary to slot them in. But it isn't like that. If you're doing the job properly, you're talking from the heart. And my goodness, I was certainly talking from the heart then.

Presenter29:05

A couple of years before that you had one of the toughest moments of of your life in terms of what was happening on air. It was nineteen ninety four, and uh the legendary Ayrton Senner was t to meet his end. And of course you started that race with as much optimism and verve. Suddenly you found yourself in a place where you were watching something live on air that was clearly

Speaker 229:14

Mm-hmm.

Presenter29:25

Very, very serious indeed.

Murray Walker29:27

He was killed at a corner called the Tamburillo, uh, the Imola circuit for the San Marino Grand Prix. And I had seen three other drivers in different years crash in identical circumstances. Michele Alboreto, and he was perfectly all right, Nelson Piquet, who slightly hurt his foot, Gerhard Berger, who was not only unconscious in the car, but it was on fire, and they got him out and he was okay. So when Senna crashed, Kirstie, my immediate reaction was wow, that's a big one.

Murray Walker30:00

But then I immediately realized that it was far worse than that from the body language and they stopped the race and all all the rest of it. Now the dilemma that you faces you as a commentator then is that y I didn't know any more about what was happening to Senna than anybody else that was there did. But I was having to walk the tightrope between don't worry folks, I've seen three other drivers and they were perfectly all right and This is terrible, I fear it's terminal, which you don't say, and it was not easy.

Presenter30:31

We've heard you talk this morning about the fact that you you took part you saw fighting on the front line in the Second World War, in all that you have seen professionally. Have you had cause to pause and wonder sometimes about drivers that put themselves, through their own choice, put themselves in such danger and so close to death?

Murray Walker30:48

I think they are entirely right. We should all be masters of our own destiny to the extent that we can be. I am very much against the Health and Safety Brigade who try to stop people doing dangerous things. Provided you don't take other innocent people with you, which would be inexcusable, I see no reason why people shouldn't do it. People fall off mountains every year and kill themselves, but they don't do it live on television. That's the difference.

Presenter31:17

Let's have a disc then, Murray Walker. Tell me what we're going to hear now. This is your seventh.

Murray Walker31:21

I love military marches, and one of the best of them all is the Stars and Stripes Forever.

Presenter32:22

That was part of the Stars and Stripes Forever, played by the United States Marine Band, directed by Colonel Michael J. Colburn. Now, Murray Walker, of course we know you brought your great skill as a broadcaster, you brought your in-depth knowledge to to Formula One and motorsport in general, but you also brought, now and again, a few corkers that people would really enjoy and celebrate. I'm going to ask you if the following two or three are true, because some of them I think might have been made up. Nigel Mansell's slowing down, taking it easy. Oh, and it's a new lap record. Did you say that's true?

Speaker 232:52

Did you say

Murray Walker32:52

Yeah.

Presenter32:53

The Williams car is absolutely unique, except for the one behind, which is absolutely

Speaker 232:56

Bye.

Murray Walker32:57

Buttons will

Speaker 232:57

Which is

Murray Walker32:57

Absolutely.

Speaker 232:58

Yeah. Yeah.

Murray Walker32:58

And there's nothing wrong with the car except it's on fire.

Murray Walker33:06

You haven't got time to think about shall I say it this way or shall I say it that way. You say what comes into your head at the time, and sometimes the wrong words come out, sometimes the words come out in the wrong order.

Presenter33:17

Do you watch Formula One on the telly now or do you

Murray Walker33:19

Every second of it. And if there were ten times as many seconds, I would be watching them too. Yes.

Presenter33:25

Yeah.

Presenter33:26

How much do you worry about the current cases against Formula One? I'm thinking of cases that have just happened in the UK. There's going to be a future case in Germany involving Bernie Ecclesiastes. Yeah, I don't want to talk about him specifically.

Speaker 233:35

Yeah.

Presenter33:39

But I'm wondering what you think about uh all this stuff can't be helping the image of Formula One.

Murray Walker33:45

No, I s I suppose I very reluctantly have to admit that it can't, but I hope this is a passing phase, and it's a global sport now which gets television viewers which are exceeded only by, I think, the World Cup and the Olympic Games. So uh it speaks for itself. Um I like to think it's just going to blow over eventually.

Presenter34:05

In all your years, of course, you will not just have watched the brilliance of Michael Schumacher on the track, but I presume you you know him a little off the track. It must cause you as well as the whole Formula One community the greatest depths of misery to see what's happening.

Murray Walker34:12

Very well.

Murray Walker34:17

He's a nice man, Michael Schumacher, and to spend well over twenty years of his life constantly exposing himself to extreme potential death-dealing situations, uh only to end up where he is now as a result of a recreational accident is tragic in the absolute extreme. One can only hope that he's going to get better.

Presenter34:44

What are your hopes for the coming season? Who should we be looking out for? And

Murray Walker34:47

It's going to be one of the most interesting, exciting ever. I always say that about every season, but this one really is.

Murray Walker34:55

We have new rules which have resulted in extremely complicated motor cars, and there's going to be a lot of cars breaking down before they get them right. I just only wish I could be commentating on what's going to be happening,'cause it's going to be fabulous.

Presenter35:08

Tell me about your final disca and Murray Walker. What are we going to hear to play us out?

Murray Walker35:12

Well I absolutely adored the Glenn Miller Orchestra and one of the greatest records they've ever produced was American Patrol.

Presenter35:12

Uh

Presenter36:16

The Glen Miller Orchestra and American Patrol. So, Murray Walker, it's time for me to give you the books. You get the Bible and the complete works of Shakespeare, and you get to take another book along to the island. What's yours going to be?

Murray Walker36:27

How to survive anything anywhere because I am not a practical chap. I will be wanting to get away as quickly as I possibly can, and anything I can do to speed that day up will be essential.

Presenter36:41

Right, we'll give you a survival handbook then, and a luxury, too.

Murray Walker36:45

I'm an old chap, Kirsty. I need my sleep. I would like a hammock, and if I can have a pillow to go with it, that would be a generous gift.

Presenter36:53

Certainly, I will gift you that. And of the eight tracks, if you had to save just one, which one would you save?

Speaker 236:54

Yeah.

Murray Walker36:58

Oh, I think Chris Barber, South Rampart Street Parade, get me going.

Presenter37:02

Right, that's yours. Murray Walker, thank you very much for letting us hear your Desert Island Discs.

Murray Walker37:06

Find you.

Presenter37:07

Yeah.

Presenter37:48

You've been listening to a download from the BBC.

Presenter37:50

You'll find more information on the Radio Four website bbc.co.uk/slash radiofour