Armstrong and Aldrin will always be remembered - many have already forgotten Collins if they ever even heard of him. As it is, they were the chosen ones due to a rather opaque selection process - they weren't the crew most of the astronauts themselves would have bet on getting the first landing gig.

Gagarin is also a good call from the space race era.

Off the top of my head I can't actually think of anyone else I would count as a 'hero' - but TBH I probably wouldn't have thought of an astronaut had Armstrong not been in the news. In fact I suspect that if somebody had asked me who my heroes were two weeks ago I would have said nobody.

I also don't like the word 'hero', but here's some more definite inspirations:- Orwell, Steinbeck, Hemingway, important reading to me as I grew...Weller, from, This Is The Modern World to Cafe Bleu to Wildwood...Sassoon and Owen, for their descriptive reality of 'horror'...Brando, for Don Corleone, Fletcher Christian and Colonel Kurtz... Souness and Keane, leaders with 'don'tfookwithmeability'. Ali, for being 'the greatest'. Marvellous Marvin Hagler, for being an awesome pugilist. Women Against Pit Closures, for their strength and loyalty... (is that enough? There'll be more. ) Oh shoite, I nearly forgot, Mr Steve 'Knocker' Norton.

Seeing as I double posted, I might as well use the space. Lennon, for realising, 'that phoney Beatlemania, had bitten the dust'...The Clash, and Strummer, for singing it.

Quote: WIZEB "Seeing as I double posted, I might as well use the space. Neil Armstrong isn't a 'hero' of mine, just a guy that walked on the moon ! Gagarin was more of a pioneer but still not worthy of hero status IMO WZ mentioned Wilfred Owen - now there is a real hero - even his life up to the 4th november 1918 is exeptional by anyones standards, but to carry out such a mission which earned him the Military Cross in the last wek of the Great War is awesome - his grave is in the public cemetary in the village of Ors in northern France and is something to see and pay your respects to en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Grave ... d_owen.jpg

Quote: WIZEB "Seeing as I double posted, I might as well use the space. Neil Armstrong isn't a 'hero' of mine, just a guy that walked on the moon ! Gagarin was more of a pioneer but still not worthy of hero status IMO WZ mentioned Wilfred Owen - now there is a real hero - even his life up to the 4th november 1918 is exeptional by anyones standards, but to carry out such a mission which earned him the Military Cross in the last wek of the Great War is awesome - his grave is in the public cemetary in the village of Ors in northern France and is something to see and pay your respects to en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Grave ... d_owen.jpg

The problem with choosing 'hero's" in your youth is that the always let you down.

Ali, Elvis, Lennon, Rose/Slash, Eubank, Gascoigne, Blair all reached hero status in my eyes at one time or an other, turns out they were all tits.

Right now i'd say I have admiration for Mercury, Obama, Gallagher, Gervais, Dr Chris O'Brien, Dawkins, Fry.

Just off the top of my head.

I've just realised there's no women on my list, I don't know what that says about me.

He asked for heroes not heroines

That's a really interesting point: I wouldn't think of any of my own 'heroes' in that way either. Which is not to say that I cannot see people as being or having been heroic. So (keeping it away from war), the likes of Armstrong and Gagarin and Tereshkova would be heroic – it must have been bloody brave or foolhardly or a combination of both to get into their respective tin cans with a big bomb beneath them.

But while I'm not uninterested in astronomy and space exploration, they wouldn't make a personal list.

The phrase I've used semi-jokingly in recent years has been 'household gods'.

It's mostly people whose work I admire particularly, possibly feel (hope) is influential – and sometimes who I admire themselves: they're not always all of those things. Mostly cultural or historic figures. Perhaps oddly, I've never tended to really pout sporting figures into my personal pantheon, although there are more than a few. Similarly, there aren't really many pop/rock stars who feature. Many of these have, so to speak, been 'with me', for years.

So to give a flavour, and in absolutely no particular order except as I think of them: Thomas Mann, Günter Grass, Jane Austen, Terry Pratchett, Gabriel García Márquez, Raymond Chandler, Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall, Robert Preston, Katherine Hepburn, Cary Grant, George Gershwin, Daniel Barenboim, Herbert von Karajan, Beethoven, Mozart, Bach, Richard Strauss, Johan Strauss II, Gilbert & Sullivan (particularly the former), Otto von Bismarck, Elizabeth David, Raymond Blanc, van Gogh, Jan van Eyck, Stephen Sondheim, Simone de Beauvoir, Elizabeth I, Albert Camus, Ella Fitzgerald, Friedrich Nietzsche, Karl Marx, Frederich der Grosse, Gore Vidal, Stewie Griffin ...

Exoneration, thank you.

This is going to soound corny, trite, I know, but what the hell...

One of my heroes is Chris.

You don't know him, but I knew him from 11 years of age, we were in the same class at school, we lived within a few streets of each other for most of our life, we married within a year of each other, like me he had two daughters and they were born a year apart from ours, we were mates and theres a group of 10 or so of us around here who call ourselves "Mates" in that way that males who have known each other all of their lives do.

Three years ago in Jan 09 we were in a pub on a Friday night and he complained of feeling dizzy (not even finished first pint so not that), we sat him down and he was ok after a while but confessed that it had happened before. On the Monday he went to his GP who refered him immediately to the LGI, by Tuesday he got the results of various tests and scans to find that he had two aggressive brain tumours one of which was deep in his brain and inoperable.

His prognosis was death within a dozen or so weeks and one of our "Mates" who is a Medical Consultant confirmed that that woul dbe his diagnosis too, he also explained to all of us (but not Chris who was taking his own advice from his consultant) what the end would be like, not very nice was the answer, loss of sight, loss of hearing, incapability, pretty dreadful way to go.

He was offered chemotherapy or no treatment, he asked his consultant what he would do, he said no treatment and enjoy your last couple of months rather than be very sick with chemo that probably wouldn't help much, so he chose the no treatment palative route and spent five or six weeks with his family going to places they enjoyed, we took him out in his wheelchair for a couple of absolute classic friday nights out and someone organised a VIP trip to Elland Rd for him hosted by Allan Clarke (a hero of Chris's).

His last two weeks were spent at Wheatfields Hospice in Leeds and he died at the end of March and because our lives were so closely mirrored I felt his passing very personally especially for his two daughters, but the way he handled his prognosis and those final few weeks was exemplorary, no blame, no pity, just an acceptance of fate and lets just enjoy this moment - that was heroic.

And it wouldn't be right if I also didn't mention the staff at Wheatfields who were heroes to all of us, love them all.

Neither corny nor trite Mc F.

Peoples strength in their darkest hours is humbling and equally inspiring.
Someone I'd been involved with, on and off, for the last few years, died December 2nd just gone.
I spent every day of her last 6 months with her, whilst terminally ill, (she had asked if I would, and I decided it was the right thing to do) and although not easy, I am richer for the experience.
Similarly to your pal, there was no moaning or carrying-on. Just an acceptance that fate had dealt her a dastardly blow, perhaps, well before it should have. Unfortunately, that's the way the cookie crumbles.

Like yourself, the staff at Hull's Dove House hospice (she spent a short period in there before dying at home) were absolutely A1 superb.

Jill was fairly 'heroic', to me, anyway.

Good call.

In the explorer category, it's between him and Tom Crean for me.

As well as the absolutely incredible epic journey with Shackleton, on a previous expedition Crean was one of the men who Scott told they wouldn't go to the South Pole and they headed back to base.
Crean saved both Evans and Lashley (who were done-in) by walking the last thirty-odd miles alone in thigh-deep snow to the base to get help.

An honorable mention to the group meeting under the tree in my avatar.