The Star Astride Foinavon

Jonathan Powell remembers John Buckingham

- Jonathan Powell

John Buckingham spent the night before the 1967 Grand National sleeping fitfully on two armchairs pushed together in a boarding house near Aintree.

Forty eight hours later he was the star of the show on Sunday night at the London Palladium alongside Bob Monkhouse after his astonishing victory on the 100-1 no hoper Foinavon which swiftly became the stuff of legend.

Early in January around 700 mourners, many of them jockeys, turned out to honour Buckingham at his village church in Chipping Warden near Banbury following his death at the age of 76 shortly before Christmas.

We queued for 20 minutes to squeeze into the splendid old church with several hundred standing in the isles for the heart-warming service and another 50 grouped around the altar.

The huge attendance for a man who rode fewer than 100 winners was not the least bit surprising for as a jockey, and then for 30 years a jockeys’ valet, John Buckingham was a hugely popular figure in the world of jump racing.

Unfailingly modest, utterly genuine and always with a welcoming smile and a merry quip on his lips, he was like a second father to generations of jockeys from Jonjo O’Neill, John Francome and Paul Nicholls to Neale Doughty, Peter Scudamore and AP McCoy.

But it is for his stunning success on the unconsidered Foinavon that Buckingham is best remembered.

Brough Scott suggests, “Never before or since has there been a more popular result in the weighing-room. We all felt better for applauding John’s finest hour because he was the most lovely person, liked and admired by every one of us.”