Winston Churchill (yes dusk..correct spelling - although i see that I spelt Atatürk wrongly * I am sorry about that everyone, I was sure it had 3 "t's" in it! :-S

Well Churchill, is generally considered to have been a great wartime leader, but as a Prime Minister, I don't believe he was that good.

In England, most of the youth do not really have strong patriotic views about heroes in England. You Turks with your strong sense of national pride would be shocked at how the youth of England are not interested in their history. The other problem is that people in England are beginning to be slightly embarrassed by their colonial past and their reputation for taking over other countries, plundering their natural resources and then leaving the general population in poverty. In fact to tell the truth, I had a bit of a struggle to come up with an English 'hero' or person I admired.

Margaret Thatcher was a bit of a heroine of mine, although its generally not something that English people like to admit!

I'm in complete agreement about JRR Tolkein btw Attila.

what about queen victoria?

Queen Victoria? No - she never did any thing admirable except live a long time..... I don't admire her, I can't say I particularly admire any of the monarchy, although I would have to say that maybe I admired Princess Diana a little. She did a lot of good work and seemed to be a pretty good person.

But I'm a bit of a cynic and often adopt the view that "all that glitters is not gold!"

i think it was 2. victoria..who lives in 17. century....
sorry
i didnt explain it

The one person whom i admire the most was Gunther Prien.A fundamentalist,a superb tactician during WW11.He was also very outspoken on his views towards Nazism, as he was very much against the whole regime.From the period also, i must admit to admiring Ernst Rommel who took it into his own hands to rid Germany,and come to that the world of Hitler.Both these men paid the price very dearly.Rommel was indeed executed,and Prien vanished in the Atlantic along with the crew of his U-Boat.Indeed these chaps paid the absolute penalty,though they very much believed in freedom.

I think you mean Elizabeth 11. Well I didn't admire her much either, except that by avoiding getting married, she managed to maintain her hold on the throne of england. So from that respect maybe I did admire her. Clearly she was something of an early feminist! heheh

Bob Geldof now Sir Bob Geldof

His work from watching a 3 minute documentary of starving people in Africa.
He got a plane with 40 journalists and took them out to Ethiopia and knew how to get the world's attention by media.

His band was the Boom Town Rats, and he worked endlessly to raise all major pop stars to give up their time and give their performances free. With songs such as Feed the World and Do you Know Its Christmas. Selling the records and giving generous donations.

He got also numerous countries involved in the 1980's to campaign and give money to help, including Turkey. He was on telephone lines all the time to Ambassadors and presidents of states to get as much help as he could for the crisis in Africa. Remarkably he succeeded his goal from every country he approached.

Personally I think he embarrassed countries because, they didn't make any effort to help and just ignored the situation.

Bob Geldof is a Dubliner and pop singer and he took the whole campaign to save hundreds of thousands of starving people in Africa.

Midge Ure another well known pop singer helped Bob Geldof in this work.

Bob Geldof has started again to help with the current crisis situation.

Yes Ivy,
I agree. Bob Geldoff is pretty admirable.

Oh I just thought of another person I admire heaps.
Lech Walenska (sorry about spelling to all you Poles out there! ) he founded the 'Solidarity' movement in Poland back in the late 70's (I think). Just one person who came from nowhere and inspired the people. He started a chain of events that changed the face of Eastern Europe. Maybe someone from Poland could fill in all the huge gaps I've left in this story. Well actually tell the whole story to all of us please.

it's Lech Walesa (Wałęsa - if Polish characters display). However, I have the impression that he's admired more outside Poland than in it. For most of us he's an infinite source of language mistakes and misfortunate statements e.g. "I'm for and even against it"