David Beckham. Now there strides a MAN.

Having waited for decades has `GB&NI’ finally found, almost by accident, a HERO worthy of the title.

David Beckham joined that amazing tribute queue for the late Queen, standing and slowly walking, alongside everyone else, from 2 a.m. in the morning using the simple disguise of a dark suit, a cloth cap, and not even considering the offer of a free pass from an MP.

I will be honest, I don’t hold much time for the present crop of Celebrities. In fact, the ONLY man in civilian life whom I would have thought able to carry the title of ‘hero’ before the grin and wispy beard worn by one David Beckham walked that slow, steady five-odd miles; is another footballer, a certain Jackie Milburn. Possibly the ONLY person whose funeral cortege could have completely stopped all Newcastle road traffic on its journey towards St. Nicholas’ Cathedral from his home town of Ashington.

Again, I give you David Beckham, a MAN who knows that the values of his grandfather mean more than all the false trumpery of modern day ‘Celebrity’.

But before I finish, perhaps a comment or two on the ‘planners’ who charted the route, set the rules, and then left it to contractors who presumably tendered for their time in managing that amazing queue.  The ‘Elite’ in amongst the civil service who were given the task of completing the tasks laid down by Her Majesty, who did play a large part in the service, routes, attendances etc. did well by their mates, in allegedly high, and more than likely low, places. Viewers will perhaps be more than annoyed to see that all MPs, and members of the Lords, along with most of the Whitehall scroungers; have been given free passes, for themselves and for four of their cronies, as well as the usual scrounging flock of ‘Media Slebs’ so that they didn’t have to share even the same air, never mind the same flagstones, as the patient thousands who have dutifully walked those miles from Southwark to Westminster.

If there is an afterlife, I would guess that those famous lips might well be more than firmly pressed together in a semblance of annoyance at the manner in which the Swamp always looks after its own!