I will explain this was one lucky old fox who in the sixties seventies eighties travelled around the world loads of times all paid by the BBC as kids we used to see him dressed in a three piece suit stood in the desert Ha ! Yup this was one lucky freeloading old fox who timed it to perfection and good luck to him " He pulled it off " with style! .
To be fair, he was also a pretty good war correspondent who even captured a few high profile bad guys during the war, but apart from that, Giv's absolutely right, he was a funny looking bugger but dripped with rich totty wherever he went. His influence turned me into the playboy I am today.
Just a note on this subject there is a programme on tonight 28/ 7 at 10.15 Alan Wicker : Journeys End which is a tribute to the veteran broadcaster so for the younger dudes who had never heard of him this programme will give you an insite of how one of the best jobs in the world was pulled off ,perhaps when the average wage was about £ 20.00 per week " please correct me dear Ken" this dude who must have been about 35 years old but looked like your grandad had the job to kill for and for most folks who had never ventured out of a car plant this opened up the world for all to see.
No, Giv's right. In the black and white days, we, the great unwashed would have had no clue that the jet set existed without dear old Alan Whicker, and in a much less cynical age we saw the great and good not as an obscene product of exploitation and indulgence, but as more inspirational and 'one day, I'm going to be rich like that'. It never happened of course. The likes of us were never likely to swan all around the world in jets, driving 200 mph vehicles and talking to each other on video phones.......
