Sir Christopher Chataway achieved world fame in 1954 as Roger Bannister’s pacemaker on the occasion that the latter broke the four-minute-mile barrier. He won the very first BBC Sports Personality award after he beat the Soviet athlete, Vladimir Kuts, in the 5,000m at White City in a world record time, an event which was covered on the nascent Eurovision network. He retired from athletics after the 1956 Olympics and entered politics, becoming the minister who introduced commercial radio into Britain, ending the BBC monopoly. He retired from politics after the Tories were defeated in 1974 and pursued a business career. Today he is chairman of the trust for Bletchley Park, where the codebreakers operated during the war, and he is hoping it will become a National Heritage site with a museum and educational trust. He is also president of the English Commonwealth Games and says: “I do take quite a lot of exercise in my old age, rather more than I did in my middle years. I have run in the Great North Run three times and it is great fun running with some of my family. I plan to do it again this year if I possibly can.” He will be celebrating his birthday quietly with his wife at a dinner à deux. Sir Christopher Chataway is 75 today. RGT
Professor Sir Eric Ash, Emeritus Professor of Electrical Engineering at University College London, 78; George Benjamin, composer, 46; Prunella Briance, founder of the National Childbirth Trust, 80; Lieutenant-Commander Sir Richard Buckley, private secretary to the Duke and Duchess of Kent, 1961-89, 78; Professor Violet Cane, statistician, 90; Robert Clatworthy, sculptor, 78; Judge Paul Collins, senior circuit judge, 62; Minnie Driver, actress, 35; Baroness Hale of Richmond, a Lord of Appeal in Ordinary, 61; Air Marshal Sir John Kemball, Chief of Staff and Deputy Commander-in-Chief, Strike Command and UK Air Forces, 1989-93, 67; Norman Mailer, author, 83; Jean Simmons, actress, 77; Sir Michael Wilford, Ambassador to Japan, 1975-80, 84.