Your kids, your legacy

From today’s Times Diary:

Given a reminder of mortality by Michael Schumacher’s recent accident, Sir Matthew Pinsent, who is a year younger than the German racing driver, decided to have a serious talk with his three children about his plans in the event of anything happening to him and his wife. The oarsman-turned-presenter discussed wills, guardians, inheritance, etc, only for one of his sons to pipe up: “Who gets your torch?”

Well, you can’t blame the child for wanting a piece of memorabilia, especially when his dad is one of our greatest Olympians, but it turns out he wasn’t referring to the gold torch that Pinsent carried in the London 2012 relay. “No, it was just a standard, battery-driven number powered by three AAAs,” Pinsent says. “And none of them had any concern for my medals.”