Wales football legend Speed would have turned 57 today
TV presenter Dan Walker says he was “forever changed” by the pain of losing good friend Gary Speed – and admits he still thinks about the Wales legend every day.
Walker and Speed were colleagues on BBC show Football Focus, and appeared on-screen together in what was the Welshman’s final public appearance before he tragically took his own life aged 42 in 2011.
BBC presenter Walker was one of the last to speak to Speed – who would have turned 57 on Tuesday – and, in an interview with the Mirror last year, he explained how he vividly remembered their final conversation.
“We left on great terms,” he said. “Gary’s last words were: ‘I’ll ring you Monday and we’ll organize a game of golf’.”
Speed’s death sent a shockwave through the footballing world, and Walker himself was left “poleaxed” by the news, adding he has since gone over everything in “minute detail”.
“I’ve thought about that day a gazillion times about, you know, should I have seen something? Could I have had a conversation with him?,” he added.
When Football Focus aired for the final time earlier this year, Walker admitted: “I will never forget Gary Speed’s last show. That is a programme I still think about all the time.
“I know his death had a profound effect on so many people and it remains a tragic and important milestone in how we talk about mental health. That’s one of the things Focus was always able to do. We never shied away from the serious stuff and I think the viewers knew and appreciated that.”
The painful episode, Walker says, has helped shape his outlook on life, including his passion to improve children’s’ mental health. Last year, along with Olympian Jessica Ennis-Hill and comedian Jon Richardson, he launched a children’s mental health campaign called Bright Young Dreams.
“The darker times including Gary have informed a lot of conversations that I’ve been having around the charity,” he said at the time. “You can’t be unchanged by that. I think maybe, hopefully, it’s turned me to be a better listener.”
Looking back on the events of 15 years ago, Walker said he is heartened by how well the late footballer’s sons Tommy and Ed – who were just 13 and 14 at the time – have done in coming to terms with such a loss.
““Thankfully his two sons, Eddie and Tom, are in a decent place,” he said. “I can’t imagine what it’s like for two teenage boys to go through losing a dad like that,” he added.
The two boys featured in Walker’s book ‘Remarkable People’, which included a chapter on Speed that Walker claims sparked “the nicest email I think I’ve ever received” from Ed, who was in America at the time.
“It said ‘I hope that one day if I ever need to explain to my wife, partner, about who I am, and why I am, they need to read that chapter.’
“I’m glad that they were happy with how I represented them and their dad. That’s the important thing to me.”
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