We Don't Need Another Hero

Johnson Beharry: VC, hero, and a man you've probably never heard of.

Over at The Times, Mark Barrowcliffes looks at heroes, or the lack of them, and how we utterly ignore them now,

So who are our heroes now and what do they say about us? In a poll for Esquire magazine last year, Gordon Ramsay emerged as the most admired man. Ramsay may be a talented chef but he is most celebrated for swearing a lot. Hillary and Armstrong were mouse-like by comparison, but their achievements were so much greater. How would Ramsay have coped on discovering, as Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin did, that the ignition switch on the lunar craft had been sheered off, stranding the craft on the Moon? One thing is for certain, shouting at the rockets to “get a f***ing move on” wouldn’t have done much good. Armstrong and Aldrin calmly fixed the problem by short-circuiting the switch with a pen. Have we forgotten how to recognise real bravery and mistaken loutish assertiveness for courage?

I have a great deal of admiration for Gordon Ramsey as a Chef and as a master of the expletive, but a hero? No wonder we can't fill the empty plinth in Trafalgar Square!