The Random Thoughts of Henry Holloway
She was a platinum blonde, just five feet nothing, but she had a voice like a nightingale. When she sang, ‘Hero Mine’, as only she could sing it, well you weren’t much of a man if you didn’t wish that somebody felt that way about you.
If you were cast away on a desert island and could have only one companion with you, whom would you choose? The lovers of the Empire would have Winston Churchill. The highbrows would choose from among the intellectuals. And I have heard of a good many on a certain programme - they were men, of course - who wanted Betty Grable and Lana Turner and Gladys Young, whoever they were! Or does that date me too much?
It is an intriguing question and it brings out the idea of hero worship. Most of us instinctively pick out someone as our ideal. There was a story once about a substitute teacher who did duty when the regular teacher was ill. The boys were restless one day. So the teacher asked them to tell him about their heroes. They spoke of Drake and of Nelson, of Wellington and Stanley Matthews and Dennis Compton. One lad was shy about it all but when he was pressed about his hero he warmed up to his subject.
‘All the men who have been mentioned,’ said the lad, were wonderful men, and so is my hero, but you will not find him in a history book. He’s never too tired to play with me. He knows all about cricket and football; he makes grand toys out of little bits of wood; he thinks the world of my mother and tells her so. He thinks a lot about me, of course, but he licks me at times. When he thinks I have done something well, he calls me a good chap. He does not tell me to go to church; he comes with me. You can have your heroes and your wonderful men, but I’ll have my dad.’
It must be lovely to have someone feeling that way about you. It must be grand to feel that you are somebody’s hero. But, mind you, it takes a lot of living up to. Many a marriage has been wrecked because the glamour and the ideal of the courtship didn’t work out in the everyday things of life. It is an easy thing to be somebody’s hero when there is a soft light and sweet music. The test of the hero worship comes usually on a Monday morning, for the wife. For the man, I would guess a Friday night. Many a lad has gone wrong because his mum or his dad let him down. A great deal of the happiness and success of life is built up on hero worship.
Of course, if you want to be a hero to somebody, if you want to set a good example to all around you, you’ve got to have a bit of an idea yourself. You’ve got to have a hero. There is One who is the ideal of all the ages and the Hero of all men’s hearts. Of Him, one has written: ‘There have been leaders of men who could call forth enthusiasm when their fortunes ran high. But He, when His enemies had done their worst, so bore Himself that a crucified felon looked into His dying eyes and saluted Him as King’.
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