AT HOME WITH THE WALTONS: These are the real heroes... along with my mum and dad.

Byline: Adam WALTON

LAST Sunday I went to the Carling Cup Final in Cardiff. Inspired by the timeless words and cement mixer voice of Bonnie Tyler, I was holding out for a hero to inspire my team to glory.

Well, I held and I held and I held, but it didn't happen. Russian money and a Portuguese crowd-baiter won the cup. Our hero - the hero in red, the one who has pulled us out of the mire on so many occasions - just didn't turn up. He had an off day; which isn't particularly heroic behaviour. It wouldn't have done for the heroes of yore - Achilles, Odysseus, King Arthur, or Churchill - to cry off an afternoon because they were having a bad day. That's the difference between modern day heroes and their historic counterparts. You can rely on the heroes of history. Plus, they won't be tempted to fight for the other side by a dodgy stack of oil-stained roubles.

In the late 70s, washed along by a tide of nihilism and spittle, punk celebrated the 'no heroes' ideal. Anyone could be the centre of attention. Anyone could get up on stage fuelled by anger and bile, as long as they had a rudimentary knowledge of which way up to sling a guitar, and a mum who would drip bleach on their jeans for them.

Success wasn't predicated on whether you wore the right school tie, or knew the ins and outs of a B sharp mixolydian scale. The Stranglers turned the concept into an anthem and then, ironically, joined the other iconoclasts of the era on bedroom walls and homemade badges as the bondage pants wearing heroes of their generation. And those pesky Stranglers were fakes all along!

Not only did they know the ins and outs of a B sharp mixolydian scale, they knew all about odd, waltzy time signatures as well!

So, even when we were saying we didn't need heroes, that the idea of venerating a person for their talents and achievement was passe, we were elevating the extraordinary amongst us as much as we ever have done.

I remember interviewing Ian Brown, formerly the singer with the Stone Roses, and asking him who his heroes were, 'I didn't have heroes,' he said, 'men are too flawed to worship,' I nodded vigorously in agreement: of course I did; after all, I wasn't going to show any signs of disagreeing with the hero of my youth, was I?

Society needs heroes. We need people to look up to. In particular, our children need people to look up to. Can there be any other explanation for the rise, and recent decline, of David Beckham as a global brand? Other than the muck that splattered him from the pig pen, Beckham has been the nearest thing to a hero that our 21st century boys and girls have had. All of this because he can't kick a ball straight and he professes the kind of family values that any self-respecting father would have. Oh, and he looks good in sunglasses and has hair like Michelangelo's marble. That's not exactly heroic, is it?

On the battlefield of achievement, Beckham has been moderately successful; but his most infamous moment, that puerile little kick at Argentina's Diego Simeone, wasn't what you would expect from Beowulf, Owain Glyndwr, or Gavin Henson. A hero, you see, has to bear himself with dignity and decorum when he (or she) isn't hewing heads off shoulders during the bloody tumult of battle.

The notion of heroes is at the forefront of my mind because, as happens on occasion to very minor, Z-list radio 'personalities', I received a questionnaire to fill out for a fanzine interview. One of the questions was, 'Who were your heroes when you were growing up?' It's a real head-scratcher, I can tell you!

Firstly, what is a 'hero'? In our age it has become, like 'genius', a label we ascribe to people far too easily. My online dictionary tells me that a hero is 'a) a mythological or legendary figure often of divine descent endowed with great strength or ability, b) an illustrious warrior, c) a man admired for his achievements and noble qualities, d) one that shows great courage'.

I can't think of any living person in the public eye who lives up to such exacting descriptions. Nelson Mandela, perhaps, or Stephen Hawking.

In the context of the questionnaire, I would hope that the interviewer wanted to know who it was that inspired me. That's a much easier question to answer, because there have been many. I'll indulge you with some of their names, not because I feel as though you should be thankful that they inspired me to be as wonderful as I am - my smugness doesn't extend that far - but because, on reflection, the people who shaped my life the most are the ones who never get the recognition for the work that they do; who will never get to climb onto a podium in the middle of the Millennium Stadium receiving acclamation for their hard work and the inspiration they've bestowed on others, and who won't get a medal or a plaque in their honour. So, wherever you are, step forward Miss Macdonald, Mrs Roberts, Mrs Evans and Mr Halsall, the teachers at Nannerch primary school who lit the blue touchpaper on my imagination; and Miss Banks, Mrs Bell, Miss Greenhalgh, Mr Huw Lloyd Hughes, Miss K Davies, Mrs Parr, Mrs Roberts, Mr Birchill, Mr Gittins and Mrs Hird who continued the, cough, good job when I graduated to the Alun School in Mold.

Together with my mum and dad, these are my heroes... more than Dylan, Kerouac, Pullman, Strummer and Shakespeare. They turned the lights on in the rooms in my mind and gave me the inspiration and freedom to explore them.

And none of them, not one - unless the world of teaching has become as mercenary as the world of football - will be off to Chelsea next season. God bless them

CAPTION(S):

Stephen Hawking and Nelson Mandela are the only living people in the public eye who live up to the description `hero