Regular blog readers will know of my love of speedway from the 1960s and in particular Norwich Stars.
I heard yesterday that Billy Bales has died at the age of 94, although I have still to confirm this.
Billy was one of the local boys made good. He was in the same team as top Swedish, Australian and other international stars.
When you are young you have heroes but heroes that seem to be in a small timeframe. Let me explain
They are people that are often famous but just a few years older than you. When I was about 14 I had lots of heroes - the Beatles, the 1966 England world cup winning players, Cliff Richard and more.
As you get older you shed some of these heroes. Cliff Richard is no longer one of my heroes, but the Beatles still are. As for the footballers well they all seem to have died apart from Bobby Charlton and Geoff Hurst. The speedway riders are mostly forgotten apart from the likes of World champion Ove Fundin and a few others.
When you are young it's unlikely you will have heroes in their forties, fifties, sixties or even older. When you are older all your heroes seem to be dying or reaching advanced age.
And I think young people today have a more realistic take on life.
When I was about 10 and was asked what I wanted to do when "I grew up" the answer was usually "I want to play football for Norwich in the winter and ride speedway for Belle Vue in the summer."
I didn't see any logistical reason why this shouldn't be possible. Neither did I see any reason why I couldn't do it. I probably thought all I had to do was write to the managers and I would immediately be in both teams.
So what could possibly go wrong? Not a lot apart from the fact that
1/ I was never anywhere near good enough at football to play for Norwich.
2/ I had never ridden a motorbike let alone a speedway bike that didn't have any brakes. Today I have still never ridden a motorbike or indeed ever had the inclination to do so (sorry Biddy).
3/ I had no idea where Belle Vue was, so why would I want to ride for them rather than Norwich? Perhaps I knew that very soon Norwich speedway would be no more.
Of course I now know that Belle Vue is part of Manchester, a city I didn't visit until I was in my twenties.
Belle Vue speedway is still in existence. I guess my wish had something to do with Peter Craven another of my speedway heroes. He was tragically killed at a race meeting in Edinburgh when he crashed into a safety fence while trying to avoid a rider who had suffered engine failure.
Craven rode for Belle Vue. Now at my advanced age I fail to see anyone younger than me who deserves to be hero worshipped. Appreciated yes but hero worshipped no.
Ask the grandchildren what they want to do and they will be much more realistic. Poppy told me she would like to work for the BBC.
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Good to see a local man winning the US Open golf title. Actually he comes from Colorado but his first name is Wyndham which is close enough to our nearby town of Wymondham which is also pronounced Windham.
Which takes me onto test cricket. Have been glued to the first test match between England and Australia and ruminated on how cricket has changed.
This match is at Edgbaston which is part of Birmingham and a ground I have visited a few times. But my boyhood memories mainly surround The Oval in London which is a station on the Northern Line. We used to holiday in Clapham Common which was also on the Northern Line.
As you go underneath the Thames it plays havoc with the ears and you have to swallow hard to get hearing back. All of course due to pressure.
I remember being on the train which was crowded with well dressed (almost exclusively male) men on their was to the test match.
Now the test match game has changed as have the crowds who act more like a football crowd. There's this stand at Edgbaston called the Hollies stand where obviously alcohol is king. It gets more and more raucous as the day goes on. It's where people wear fancy dress! On Sunday Darth Vader was escorted from the ground by two policemen. Certainly a case of the force being with him.
The stand is named after Eric Hollies whose main claim to fame is one particular wicket. Hollies was the man who prevented the great Don Bradman from ending his career with a test match average of 100 - something never achieved.
Bradman needed just four runs from his last ever test innings to reach that landmark but Hollies bowled him for nought.
Incidentally Bradman was another of my all time heroes and still is. Hollies was also renowned for his dreadful batting.
But enough sport for one day although I hope my memories aren't too boring as they are a little about life as well.
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Last night's parish council meeting went off without incident, unlike the previous one. In fact it was over in around 90 minutes.
The chairman Sarah Lawrence has been shortlisted for a South Norfolk community hero award for the second successive year. Sarah is involved in so many things in the village and deserves to win this year after being runner up last year.
I have been very fortunate in the past to have been honoured by South Norfolk on two occasions- once for my village and community involvement and once for sporting achievement.
I have two certificates on my study wall which I'm very proud of.
The first was in 2012 to mark the Queen's Diamond Jubilee and is for Inspiring Achievement and the second was in 2014 for community sport volunteer of the year. I also have a certificate from the Royal Norfolk Show stating that a decade ago I was honoured as a hero of Norfolk.
So you see the theme of heroes runs right through this blog. I never felt worthy of any of those awards and I'm not sure I've ever inspired anyone. At heart I'm just a Norfolk boy who has tried to do the right thing and be a good person, whatever that might mean, but it's nice to be recognised and tomorrow I will write about how I respond to praise and support but how I dig in against aggression and bullying.