Last week I read an interesting review of the book 'Different Every Time' by Marcus O'Dair. The review appeared in The Guardian newspaper and if you have been paying attention you will know that the subject of the book is Robert Wyatt.
You can read the review yourself by clicking here.
It is worth a read but you will notice that in the first paragraph, Wyatt is referred to as a National Treasure. Now I am a massive fan of Robert Wyatt and warts and all, I love him to bits, but on seeing him described as a national treasure, my immediate reaction was - "Is he?"
And that got me thinking. What exactly is a national treasure and how does someone become one? It strikes me that the term is being used more and more within the UK and my own definition was probably along the lines of "someone who the nation have taken to their hearts". So I suppose the Queen must obviously be a national treasure as indeed was her old mum. I suspect that veteran actresses such as the Dames Maggie Smith, Helen Mirren and Judi Dench have been referred to as national treasures as has Sir Cliff Richard (though one wonders whether that might change in the future). Aside from being showbiz personalities, there's no connection to the aforementioned and I could be wrong, but weren't Jimmy Savile and Rolf Harris referred to as national treasures?
Others that spring to mind include David Beckham and Johnny Wilkinson from the world of sport and the Monty Python Team and The Goons from the world of comedy. You can of course start your own list now.
A little bit of research revealed that back in 2008, The Independent newspaper ran a feature on 50 National Treasures. You may or may not be surprised to learn that among the 50 were Margaret Thatcher, Tony Blair, Amy Winehouse and Sid Vicious. I suppose that if they feature in the list, then so too should Robert Wyatt, - which is where we came in.
Happy listing.
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