Sir Ian Botham on charity walks, life in Yorkshire and the day his world changed forever

IT’S the morning after the night before. The previous day saw Sir Ian Botham celebrate turning 60 with a spot of shooting on the estate at Sawley Hall near Ripon, run by his son, Liam. From there it was back to the family home in the village of Ravensworth, just outside Richmond, to toast the occasion with friends.

Bottles of Botham Merrill Willis – Sir Ian’s own wine range in partnership with fellow Headingley ‘81 hero Bob Willis and top Australian wine maker Geoff Merrill – were among the casualties of the evening’s festivities.

“I’m very much a home bird when I get chance because I’m not home very often,” says the man known to friends and strangers alike as Beefy. “We had some of the BMW and then dug deeper into the cellar. We had a few mates round and it was good fun.”

But if you expected a figure who combined legendary carousing with feats of cricketing heroics that gave birth to their very own adjective, “Botham-esque”, to be groaning under the mother of all hangovers, then you’d be sorely disappointed.

Serious business is afoot; in a fortnight’s time he will be setting out on yet another epic walk for good causes, and there’s no space in his training schedule for the all-nighters of old.

This time he’s off to South Africa, where he will be commentating on England’s winter Test series for Sky Sports. But first comes an eight-stage, 100-mile trek which will take him from Cape Town in the west and pass through Port Elizabeth, Durban and Johannesburg before ending in Pretoria.

Having secured the backing of sponsors including Waitrose, South Africa Airways, Kumala and Avanatta, hopes are high that it can match or even beat the £100,000 he raised two years ago in Sri Lanka.

It will mark the 30th anniversary of his first ever charity walk, from John O’Groats to Lands End, although eldest daughter Sarah had to remind him of the milestone.

Famously, the idea for that first walk was triggered by a wrong turn he took on a visit to hospital.

After three successful years of county cricket for Somerset, in July 1977 he was set to play in his first Test match for England against Australia. But he broke his foot and was sent to hospital in Taunton for six weeks of treatment and rehab.

One day he took a wrong turn on his way to physio and ended up in the children’s ward. Four small boys were playing cards so he had a chat with them, and as he left he told them he’d see them again in two weeks when he returned for an assessment.

Little did he know that all of them would have passed away by then. A doctor took him aside and explained that they all had leukaemia – cancer of the blood.

Although the proceeds from this latest walk will go to South African charities, the impact of his fundraising on leukaemia survival rates – and efforts to publicise the plight of its sufferers – cannot be over-estimated.

“There was a 20 per cent chance of survival 30 years ago when we started this and now it’s about 92 per cent, which is remarkable. To make those sort of inroads into one form of cancer, who knows what the domino effect is?”

The walk and his natural bullishness – “I don’t get nervous about it, I look forward to it” – are to be read as a clear statement of intent. At 60 not out, there are no thoughts of slowing down.

“I think a lot of people would say they’re surprised I made it to 60,” he admits with a hearty laugh. Does that include himself? “No, no, no, I always knew I was going to be alright.”

It’s no surprise to find the icon dubbed Sir Loin of Beef after picking up his knighthood in 2007 doesn’t do much by way of introspection. There’s no time spent dwelling on a rollercoaster past which saw his on-field feats jostle with lurid tabloid headlines about his private life.

But he can put his finger on the moment everything changed – the second that final Australian wicket fell at Headingley in arguably the greatest Test match of all time.

“‘81 changed my life,” he says unequivocally. “I went from being a cricketer to suddenly everybody wanting a piece of the action. I went from a cricketer to that awful word, a ‘celebrity’, which I hate.

“Suddenly my life wasn’t mine any more. But I don’t do regrets. I don’t look back and think, I should have done this. I believe that everything happens for a reason, rightly or wrongly. I have a motto, ride the torpedo to the end of the tube. I’m saying what’s happened has happened, but I’m looking forward not back.

“As far as the future goes I’d like to think we can make all kinds of breakthroughs through the foundation with the various charities we support in England and also the charities we try and support when we go abroad. We take things for granted – electricity, clean water – things that aren’t available to everybody. We try to make a difference with these walks.”

Having spent nearly 30 years as a resident of the county, I wonder if he now considers himself a Yorkshireman, despite having been born in Cheshire and raised in Somerset.

“I’m back to where I belong because my family were all from the North. I see myself as a northerner. My mother was brought up in Bradford and my father was from Beverley.

“I’m away so often it’s just nice to get home. It’s a beautiful place we’ve got, we’ve done a lot of work on it over the years but anything that goes back to the 17th century needs a lot of TLC.”

Going back to cricket, there are no regrets either that he’s never been involved in the England coaching set-up. “I can assure you that I have never wanted to be involved in coaching or managing. I enjoy what I do at Sky, I feel very lucky to be part of that team.

“Most of the guys in that commentary box I either played with or against so the banter’s still there, the comradeship, so I just went from one dressing room to another.”

Although he says he’s not one for looking back, I wonder which moments in his cricketing career have stayed with him – those two swashbuckling innings at Leeds and Manchester in 1981 perhaps? Becoming England’s youngest Test captain? Passing the then record for most Test wickets?

It turns out it’s none of the above.

“I’ve been lucky enough to have been on the winning side five times in the Ashes and there’s only one other English cricketer around who has done that, I think, which is Ian Bell,” he says.

“I tend to look back at the team performances rather than the individual ones. When we were written off in 1986/7 and we went to Australia and trounced them. With things like that I think, put your chest out, yes, I’ve proved you wrong again, which is always nice.”

Six decades in, Botham is still the confident, engaging folk hero he was in his whites. His glass-half-full mentality even extends to England’s prospects in the forthcoming Test series.

“I really think there’s a chance of them upsetting the apple cart,” he insists. “There’s a buzz about this series and I’m looking forward to it.”

There’s just the small matter of that stroll across South Africa to get out of the way first.

For more information about Sir Ian Botham’s walk visit www.beefywalkingtherainbownation.com.

‘Root will smash records’

“Joe Root’s an exceptional player and I think by the time he’s finished he will have smashed a lot of records,” says Sir Ian of the Yorkshire batting hero.

“He’s way ahead of his young years and he’s got a terrific head on his shoulders. He knows how to cope with it, he knows to live with it and he thrives on it, so Joe’s going to be around for a long time.

“England have been settled now for a little while, they have new management in place and the team have been playing well under them.

“The future is looking good for English cricket, whereas South Africa have a few injuries. Steyn’s struggling with his groin, they’ve lost a lot of top players and you can’t just replace them overnight. I think we’ve got our best chance for a while.”