Where were you when
In the 1980s and 1990s before rolling news and vast number of TV channels we all have today, news and sporting events covered by the few TV channels were watched by tens of millions of people.
Many of those people that featured in those historic stories have remained in our minds for many years and these are just a few of them that continue to share their remarkable stories on the speaker circuit today
Simon Weston CBE is an inspirational and motivational speaker who suffered 46% burns to his body when he was severly injured in the Falklands War in 1982.
His story was picked up in the documentary Simon’s War and was followed by millions of people across the UK. Simon has endured years of reconstructive surgery and has undergone over 70 operations and yet has an endearing postive spirit, that has made him one of the UKs most respected and inspirational icons.
His message is one of achievement, of triumph in the face of adversity, and of seizing the moment and succeeding.
Following his injuries, Simon’s road to physical, spiritual and mental recovery saw him active in a number of highly successful ventures including ‘The Weston Spirit’, a Liverpool-based young people’s charity. He was awared the OBE in 1992 and was again recognised in the 2016 honours with a CBE, both for his charitable work.
John McCarthy is a journalist, author and motivational speaker who was Britons longest-held hostage in Lebanon, where he spent five years in captivity before his release. While working in Beirut for a television news agency in 1986, John realised that is had become too dangerous to stay in the country and was on the verge of leaving when he was kidnapped at gunpoint by Islamic fundamentalists on route to the airport.
John was to spend the next five years, often blindfolded, petrified and is a small cell in Lebanon where he endured great hardship, solitary confinement and often torture.
Amazingly and fortunately, John found solitude in a fellow hostage, Irish lecturer Brian Keenan. Despite their awful situation, the two of them became lifesavers to each other, keeping each other sane and even managing to laugh from time to time. John and Brian sometimes dared to stand up to their captors, and they were, at times, yet able to joke with them.
Johns story is dramatic, incredibly moving and yet humbling as he tells of how he managed to overcome such a hellish ordeal and the despair he often felt.
John Nichol was a Royal Air Force Pilot whose face became known across the world when in 1991 he was shot down during the Gulf War and was paraded on national television with his co-pilot John Peters. A pilot of 15 years’ service in the Royal Air Force John and was captured and tortured, provoking worldwide condemnation and leaving one of the enduring images of that war.
After his release, he remarkably returned to active duty was involved in policing the exclusion zone as part of the UN force maintaining the fragile peace in Bosnia. John has served around the world from the Nevada Desert to the Middle East and Norway to the Falkland Islands.
Since retiring he has become a regular contributor in the UK national press and has presented for Newsnight, BBC News, CNN, World in Action, ITN, Sky News and Cutting Edge.
He also devised and presented two series of Survivors, interviewing newsmakers who have been through life-changing experiences. John is a patron of the British Ex-service Wheelchair Sports Association
Roger Black is an Olympic Athlete who has been one of the UK’s most popular motivational speakers in the last two decades.
For fourteen years Roger Black represented Great Britain at the highest level in the world of athletics. He won 15 major championship medals including European, Commonwealth, and World Championship Gold medals.
Roger Blacks greatest achievement was winning the Olympic 400 metre Silver medal in 1996 and Roger Black is often remembered for his Gold Medal Winning 1991 World Championships 4x400m Relay -when the UK surprising beat the USA.
Eddie “The Eagle” Edwards is an inspiring, fun and entertaining after-dinner speaker and motivational speaker
Eddie came to the forefront of people’s attention in 1988 when he competed for Great Britain at the Winter Olympics. Despite coming last in the ski jump, Eddie became famous for summing up the Olympic spirit and for his determination to represent his country without any form of funding.
Eddie learned to ski at his local dry ski slope and quickly became an accomplished downhill skier, but missed out on the 1984 Olympics. To realise his dreams and with a shortage of funds and the easier qualification, he decided to switch to ski jumping as there were no other British ski jumpers with whom to compete for a place.
Despite being ranked 55th in the World his performance at the 1987 World Championship was good enough to qualify for the 1988 Olympics. He was at the time the British ski jumping record holder despite finishing last in the 70m and 90m events.
In 1988 he fulfilled his dreams and competed in the Winter Olympics, and despite making considerable advances in his performances, he failed to qualify for the 1992, 1994 and 1998 Games.
Helen Sharman is a pioneer, role model, science communicator and world-class inspirational speaker. She became the first British Astronaut in May 1991, aged 27, when she spent 8 days orbiting the Earth
Helen didn’t think she stood the smallest chance of being selected when she applied, after hearing an advert on the car radio on her way home from work. Over 13,000 other people also applied for this one-off opportunity.
But Helen was exactly the type of person they were looking for – calm, practical, friendly, professional, a team player. Two people were chosen for the rigorous training but only one – Helen – went into Space.
Before starting her training, Helen underwent the rigorous selection process with psychological and medical assessments, technical understanding and practical skills. This was followed by 18 months of intensive spaceflight training, which included learning Russian, preparing for “feeling weightless” and g-force, learning how to cope inside a cramped space capsule, how to deal with a landing in the sea and training for all possible scenarios (positive and negative) which might happen when in orbit, travelling at 17,500 miles an hour.
Helen carried out spacecraft operations during the launch. On board the Space Station, her tasks included medical, agricultural and chemical experiments, materials testing, Earth observation work and operating an amateur radio link with British school students. Media interviews were a frequent occurrence.
For more information on any of these speakers please contact us on 020 8854 7247 or email enquiries@scampspeakers.co.uk