Three people who deserve a tip of the hat this morning: Sir Peter Williams, Sir John Kirwan and Richie Benaud.

Williams is a lovely bloke who I have never really agreed with as far as his advocacy for prisoners is concerned.

But I admire people who are dedicated to causes and unrelenting in their pursuit of a better deal and you can’t mark him down in that area.

I also love character, and there are few in the law that is as full of character as Peter is, and surely if you saw the investiture over the weekend of his knighthood you can’t possibly argue that the return of the knighthood is the only true and proper way of honouring our best and brightest people.

Then there’s John Kirwan. Dealing with tough times comes to us all, but dealing with them in the public eye is hard yards, and Kirwan has had a hell of a time these past few months.

And what has been so admirable is his iron clad belief that he’s not giving in to it.

When tough times arrive they arrive with the usual chorus of on lookers, nay sayers, finger pointers, busy bodies and ignoramuses.

All instant experts on whatever the problem is and with a never ending list of how they’d fix it

Kirwan has been unrelenting in his belief that things will come right, and at last we got a glimpse over the weekend

The Blues won ….and from that he said they can build

Kirwan is taking a lot of heat for what are clearly far wider issues well beyond his control influence and pay scale

But the recognisable name is always the easy target.

The sort of stoicism and positive attitude is a lesson to us all, that giving up is easy, but hanging tough is hard yards.

I admire him tremendously.

Then we come to Richie Benaud. I only ever knew him as a broadcaster. I dealt with him may be a dozen times, and he was as you would have expected erudite, clever, charming, old world.

It’s a rare thing to be top of your game in one arena and then to move to another and repeat the trick.

Plenty of players go on to grab a microphone in their sport but Benaud was the best.

His knowledge of the game and its rules, and his ability to use the English language is such a clever and poetic fashion was unmatched.

Not even those who back themselves as good I think would dare to place themselves in Benaud’s league. Not just the words, but the voice.

He had it all, what he did was art, it was sports poetry. Cricket when described by Benaud was beautiful. He elevated the game to its highest status.

The fact he’s been offered a state funeral tells you all you need to know about how revered he was.

All three of the aforementioned have something to show us or teach us.

All three have qualities we cannot just admire but hopefully learn from.