Questioning saint-like and fantastic heroes…
Ex-leader of the UK Liberal Democrat party, Charles Kennedy, has made no secret of his admiration for David Bowie and his love of Bowie’s work, as we have documented on these pages many times before now. (01.12.2002 NEWS: UK POLITICAL PARTY LEADER SINGS ‘HEROES’ TONIGHT & 10.26.2003 NEWS: KENNEDY CHOOSES BOWIE FOR DESERT ISLAND DISCS & 11.26.2004 NEWS: KENNEDY ON DB IN TIME OUT PLUS POSTER COMP)
Well, he’s been at it again, in a new Radio 4 Series:
Along with guests Joanna Lumley, Joan Bakewell, and Tim Vine, the conversation soon turned to Nelson Mandela.
Frost asked Kennedy: “You admire him obviously, Charles?”, to which he replied:
“Very much so. And I think the thing, having been fortunate enough to meet him both as president and then subsequently after he’d retired as president…you know it’s kind of like anyone you’ve admired from afar in any walk of life.
“I mean I think of David Bowie for example, now until I met David Bowie I was always of two minds because it might destroy all the myths, the childhood myths that I had. It turns out he’s an absolute exquisite gentleman who couldn’t be nicer and I got to know him quite well in the intervening years, and that’s a great thrill. Mandela the same thing.
“You think somebody can’t be as good as this really, up close, and in fact he’s even better.”
Click On the Ziggy Stardust gold disc being presented to Charles in the picture above to hear the whole thing…the Bowie bit is about fourteen minutes in.