Fearless and flamboyant: John McCririck was an ardent defender of the punter

Alastair Down pays tribute to his former colleague and friend John McCririck

Over the last couple of years I have watched an oh-so-steadfast friend corrode and erode from the inside, a man dying before one's very eyes.

That vast flamboyance stuttering inexorably to the conclusion universal to us all, like some once unassailable ocean liner declining from the regal to a rusted hulk.

But the manner of John McCririck's slow fade to grey was also the stuff of inspiration because this most singular and underrated lover of racing died as he had lived – drenched in bravery.

Was there ever a word of complaint? A scintilla of self-pity? Even the faintest tinny echo of 'poor me'?

Not a bit of it. As he withered in the fire, he never faltered. Tied to the stake as the rifles were raised, he was unblinking and, trenchant to the end, would have told you where to stuff your blindfold.

Perhaps there is a touch of the roseate in my recollection of him, but excuse that please. He first burst over my horizon in March 1981 when I walked in tremulously on my initial day at the Sporting Life.

In the subsequent 38 years I cannot recall a single occasion on which he let me down. Of how many can that be said?

Yes we argued on occasion – we had an armed truce never to discuss his appearance on that scourge of our times, reality TV – but he was magnificently honest and even-handed.

When he thought you had done well he would ring and tell you, and if he believed you had erred the inevitable 'Fat Al' would be followed by a tirade of corrective advice. But it was done with kindness – there was a compassion to Mac that ran deeper than the Mariana Trench.

It is a sadness that few people could see beyond the buffoon and that was his fault. He was to an extent the prisoner of his own carefully cultivated persona, but those who chose to look beyond the superficial found their own reward.

John McCririck: his use of tic-tac attracted attentionCredit: Edward Whitaker

He was an intensely personal man. Details of his life were hard to garner and it was always my feeling that he was forced to rise above something of an unhappy childhood.

But rise he did, not least because he forged an alliance of steel with a woman who was very much the making of him. The Booby was always Mac's lioness – while the male of the pride sits around trying to look magnificent it is the woman who goes out to hunt, kill and provide.

And why The Booby? As he once exultantly explained a definition he had read: "A dim, flightless bird ridiculously easy to catch."

There are few mysteries as complex as other people's marriages, but should you require a textbook definition of devotion look no further than Mr and Mrs John McCririck.

Christ she could be tricky, but only ever in his cause. I tremble for her now without the mad rock of her incarnation, but if any consolation can be found she might turn to the words of the great Philip Larkin, whose extraordinary poem An Arundel Tomb closes with the climactic line: "What will survive of us is love."

Please god may it be true. For Jenny most of all.

Memories? Well hello and welcome to a flood tide.

Walking into The Ivy for lunch and seeing this be-fezzed loon ensconced on a wide banquette, chosen as he found a chair mildly restrictive after a course or four.

On the table in a bucket of vast proportions, a magnum of champagne. "Now Fat Al, I am two glasses ahead of you but I am sure you will catch up."

He endured mixed relations with his mother in law, who he habitually referred to as the Reptile. On one occasion after a long day at the races, John had repaired to bed after his "tosh" – bath to you and I – in order to watch his beloved Newcastle on the box.

The Reptile, whose views on her daughter's choice of man can only be guessed at, repeatedly knocked on his door to tell him that his customarily splendid dinner was about to be served by Jenny.

Mac, deep into the 90th minute, told her where to go. Eventually after ma-in-law's 80th entreaty he said he would be there in a minute. Good as his word he strode in and sat at the end of the table. Stark and bollock naked. As Basil Fawlty once said: "Enjoy your meal!"

And years earlier setting off on the countryside march in London, where after about five minutes it became clear this most high-profile of footsloggers would be the focus of vitriolic abuse from those heckling from the pavement.

I lacked his utter passion for the cause and moved away from him in the throng. But as things got worse – which he loved of course – I thought "grow a pair Down" and cleaved to his side.

And how wrong people invariably were about him. People assumed he was a bigot but that he never was.

I had the unquenchable privilege of being raised by parents who simply never made distinction between Jew or gentile, black or white. They had given five years of their life making sure it was thus.

And there was a resonance of their views with John. Perhaps more than any man I knew he abhorred racism in its every form and was light years ahead of society.

Was he sexist? Absurdly so in public utterance. Yet among the mass of cap-doffing drivel that has poured out in recent days has been the contributions of women who knew and worked with him. Think Alice Plunkett and Tanya Stevenson – yes they wanted to throttle him some days, but they knew he was some man to have at your shoulder in the trench when the foe were closing on you across no man's land. And loved him for it.

Big Mac with his co-stars, the Channel 4 Morning Line teamCredit: Edward Whitaker

Irritating? He invented it. But it was done – vast ego aside – because he cared above all for you and I. Folk failed or fabulous who were in thrall to the thing he loved above all – horseracing.

In a wonderfully old-fashioned way he cared with unswerving passion for the little man. The punter.

Somewhere in the maddening, magnificent maelstrom that was Mac there thumped out a belief in ordinary folk and that he was beholden to stand up for them through tremor and tempest.

He knew that the bookmakers regarded you and I as cannon-fodder but nobody else stood up to the red resentment of the guns like John McCririck.

Fearless in his views, his courage lay in the fact that unlike the rest of us he felt no overpowering need to be loved. That takes backbone and bottle. He was loaded with both.

News of his death came in a call from my one of my daughters, Clare. There were no tears at that moment, but I write these sparse words through a hopeless mist.

Soon after came a request from son James to come to his funeral as, at the age of 11, young Jim spent a memorable day at the Oval with Mac when England regained the Ashes. There is TV footage of the pair leaping up and down in the stands – son of the demented cavorting joyously with the pleasingly insane.

But John never wanted a funeral. He thought nobody would turn up.

Wrong old friend.

And so The Booby and a supporter will watch the slow and sonorous slide behind the curtains and the ashes will find their way to the furlong pole at Ally Pally where in John's youth the starter would solemnly intone: "Triers at the front, non-triers at the back."

Different days, as they will all be now without the old cuss.

I spoke to him often on the phone as the sand ran through the timer. The old roar had grown husky but the heart still pulsed vibrant.

Alas no more. There is an old line of song that runs "you don't know what you've got til it's gone".

In my inner heart I hope he understood how deeply he was valued by those privileged to be allowed past the public image.

Trouper and triumph. RIP John McC.