Dan Walker is a well-known BBC presenter who has presented Football Focus and Match of the Day and now the “Breakfast” morning show. Dan recently published a book entitled “Remarkable People” in which he tells the stories of people who have inspired him during his 20-year career. Dan says they are remarkable “either in the way they’ve dealt with adversity or inspired those around them by the way they’ve acted or the difference they have made.”

Dan is a Christian and says, “My Christian faith is what makes me tick.” He became a Christian in his early teens when he started thinking deeply about his place in the universe: “I wanted to understand who I am; who God is; what my relationship with Jesus Christ is and what I wanted it to look like.” Eric Liddell, the Olympic athlete who became a missionary in China, and then a prisoner of war, has had a big influence on Dan. Eric was a Christian and in 1924 didn’t run in the Olympic 100 yards final because it was on a Sunday. Instead, he ran in the 400 and won the gold medal.

Eric Liddell’s story is one of self-sacrifice. As a famous athlete, he was offered a prisoner exchange, to return to the UK in exchange for a Chinese prisoner, and he turned it down. He gave his place to a pregnant woman who went back and had her child. Three months later Eric died in that prisoner of war camp. Dan says, “I just find that sacrifice incredible and inspiring. Eric did that when nobody was watching. Eric was a real hero who thought of others not himself.”

In his book Dan writes about his friend Gary Speed, the international footballer and Wales’ coach, who tragically took his own life. The day before he died Gary had been on Football Focus with Dan and had seemed fine. The next morning Alan Shearer called Dan to tell him, “Gary’s gone!” Dan has asked himself: “Did I do enough? As a Christian, could I have done more? Could I have said something or done something that could have led to him still being here today?” Gary’s death changed the way Dan relates to the people he interviews because underneath they may be struggling with big problems, and it may even be the last time he speaks to them. There are mysteries in life that we can never fully understand but Dan says, “I think my faith gives me real perspective, and also something and someone to cling on to.”