Grand National winning jockey Bob Champion lost a lifetime of photos in a major fire at a Liverpool car park, he has revealed.
The 69-year-old’s car was one of around 1,400 vehicles destroyed in the blaze at the multi-storey car park next to the Liverpool Echo Arena on New Year’s Eve.
Champion said he had photos in the car ready to take to his publisher for his forthcoming autobiography.
The scene after a blaze at a multi-storey car park near the Echo Arena on Liverpool’s waterfront (Merseyside Fire and Rescue Service/PA)
He appealed to followers on Facebook to help replace some of the pictures.
He wrote: “I am looking for photos of me as unfortunately I lost the ones I had ready for the publisher for my forthcoming book were destroyed in my car in the recent car park fire in Liverpool.”
Champion won the Aintree steeplechase in 1981 on horse Aldaniti, two years after being diagnosed with cancer.
He went on to set up the Bob Champion Cancer Trust.
Vehicles burn during a blaze at a multi-storey car park at the Echo Arena on Liverpool’s waterfront (Peter Byrne/PA)
Around 4,000 people were evacuated and motorists abandoned their cars when the fire broke out at the car park, as the final event of the Liverpool International Horse Show was called off at the Echo Arena.
Initial investigations showed an accidental fire within a Land Rover caused other cars to ignite.