Top of my list would be Dennis Skinner.



A miner's son who passed his scholarship to the grammar school and still went down the pit because that's where all his mates were. Anything else you need to know is [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dennis_SkinnerHERE[/url



If only we had more like him

Ernest Shackleton is one for my list

Berry Gordy - Founder of the greatest record label ever

Bernard Manning - The King of comedy

Clint Eastwood - Better actor using only his eyes than most modern Hollywood stars using their voices

Levi Stubbs - The best voice ever discovered by the music industry

Michael Collins Was in the command module I think. I am a complete space nerd though.



As for my heroes: I'd have Gagarin and Armstrong on the list. Gagarin must have had balls of steel to go into the unknown like that. I'd also have George Mallory in my list. Possibly the first man to summit Everest, but never returned to tell the tale. I remember when they found his body, quite well preserved on the mountain. The clothing and boots he had on for an undertaking as massive as that climb was quite shocking, just a few layers of wool and boots that people wouldn't put on for a hike in the Yorkshire Dales these days. It was an incredible feat to get as close as he did to the top (he was spotted near the summet from a lower camp). The romantic side of me thinks he made it all the way. I have done some Himalayan climbing and have nothing but respect and admiration for pioneers like Mallory, who did it all with poor gear and little knowledge of what they were heading into.



There are also a few personal ones that are not famous but have had a big effect on my life and I'm sure if I thought for longer I would think of a lot more famous heroes too.

chief sitting bull

crazy horse

red cloud

cochise

geronimo

David Jones and Joe Green - 'lest we forget'.......Dee Brown - for that book.......John Maclean.

Slightly OT

I have just finished reading "Bury my heart at Wounded Knee" and followed lt with "A terrible glory".



Those boys you have listed are all deserving of the Hero mantle.

If you're going to read a book you might as well make it that one.

Not sure about hero, but an inspiration was Terry Fox.

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.