Every Olympics needs an Eddie
It was fascinating this week to see Eddie Edwards carrying the torch for the Vancouver Winter Olympics in Winnipeg. As a young journalist, I broke the story that the bespectacled plasterer-turned-ski jumper was preparing for the 1988 Calgary Olympics.
The whole experience taught me a huge amount about how quickly fame could come to the most unusual personalities - decades before TV shows like Big Brother.
And it also included the most profound conversation I have ever had in a gents toilet!
When the tip-off came in from a Germany-based correspondent about Eddie at the beginning of 1987, nobody knew how big the story was going to become.