Tom's personality and skill earned him the admiration and respect of many people, among them friend and former journalist Barry Coleman.
Here Barry, Joint-Founder and Executive Director of Riders for Health, firstly pays tribute to Tom, in which he explains how the awful events of 1979 would bring changes that ultimately helped save lives both on and off the racetrack.
Barry then tells us how Tom's daughters Kim and Zoe have gone on to forge highly successful careers in their own right, their love for Tom's parents and how they share many of Tom's characteristics.
Touched by the Elusive Genius of Sport
All premature deaths, even those marked by terrible predictability, stop us in our tracks.
More so than usual, the death 29 years ago of Tom Herron.
Tom was one of Ireland's leading sportsmen. Lying third in the 500cc World Championship at the time of his death, he was then and is now mentioned in the same breath as Best, Higgins and the rest - those somehow touched by the elusive genius of sport.
Here Barry, Joint-Founder and Executive Director of Riders for Health, firstly pays tribute to Tom, in which he explains how the awful events of 1979 would bring changes that ultimately helped save lives both on and off the racetrack.
Barry then tells us how Tom's daughters Kim and Zoe have gone on to forge highly successful careers in their own right, their love for Tom's parents and how they share many of Tom's characteristics.
Touched by the Elusive Genius of Sport
All premature deaths, even those marked by terrible predictability, stop us in our tracks.
More so than usual, the death 29 years ago of Tom Herron.
Tom was one of Ireland's leading sportsmen. Lying third in the 500cc World Championship at the time of his death, he was then and is now mentioned in the same breath as Best, Higgins and the rest - those somehow touched by the elusive genius of sport.
There must be a million reasons why Tom's death was so shocking. His rather fierce kindness, his black eyes, his irresistible humour, his impudent wisdom...all that and the awful pointlessness of the way in which he died.
Tom Herron was a world-class, world orientated rider. His professional focus was the World Championship and there was a stiff breeze of change already picking up out there.
In Spain, a couple of weeks before he died, Tom committed himself fully to that change.
The great American racer Kenny Roberts, who loved Tom and his family, was dumbstruck by Tom's death. But he never forgot Tom's commitment and responded unswervingly to it. Grand Prix racing would change and it has. Racing professionals will probably fall down a time or two but they will retire in one piece.
Part of that is the legacy of Tom Herron.
Tom Herron was a world-class, world orientated rider. His professional focus was the World Championship and there was a stiff breeze of change already picking up out there. In Spain, a couple of weeks before he died, Tom committed himself fully to that change.
The great American racer Kenny Roberts, who loved Tom and his family, was dumbstruck by Tom's death. But he never forgot Tom's commitment and responded unswervingly to it. Grand Prix racing would change and it has. Racing professionals will probably fall down a time or two but they will retire in one piece.
Part of that is the legacy of Tom Herron.
Another part is the work of Riders for Health, MotoGP's official charity, which now brings health and hope - and life- to literally millions of people in Africa, using motorcycles. 'Riders' was founded by Tom's widow Andrea, Randy Mamola and myself.
All this is Tom Herron's legacy.
People live who otherwise would have died, both in motorcycle racing and in the vast heartlands of Africa.
'Riders' is like Tom: impatient, full of fun, implacably determined, highly international but with its roots firmly in its own home town.
Thank-you Newcastle. Thank-you Elizabeth. Thank-you Scott. Thank-you Tom.
And those beautiful little girls? They are all that you could have wished for.
Thirty Two Years On
Even as babies Tom and Andrea's girls were rather spectacular. Maybe it was just because they were twins or because so soon after they were born they took to the life of the Grand Prix paddock. But maybe it was a certain look in their steady black eyes--a look we had all seen before.
Who knows where character really comes from, but there is no mistaking today that these are Tom Herron's daughters.
They both have very challenging, highly independent lives. Zoe, who lives in Manchester, is a designer, with degrees in English and Religion and Multimedia behind her, and Kim is an artist and lecturer in Art, based in Edinburgh. They both know who Valentino Rossi is but they hardly hold racers in awe. Kim once obliged Mick Doohan to apologise to her and once told Olivier Jacque off very seriously for being rude to her brother, Oliver, a whole year earlier.
I wonder where she got that from?
And they both treat Kenny Roberts with impatient tolerance as if he were a mad uncle who needs just that --treatment.
Oliver, who has also had to put up with the likes of Kenny and the equally loony Randy Mamola his whole life, is at university in Manchester. His sister keeps a pretty fierce eye on him.
The part of Tom's life that most moved them was not the racing but his parents and their home in Bryansford Road. They loved Grandpa Scott and Gran Elizabeth and routinely gave them a very hard time on everything from how to drive, to what they saw as inappropriateness of their traditional politics. Nothing was sacred if you couldn't defend it. Again where did that come from?
Kim and Zoe miss their grandparents rather painfully and talk about them all the time.
Andrea was born into the world of racing and she is still in it. These days she is one of the chief executives of Riders for Health, of which she was also a founder, along with her husband Barry, and her work keeps her nose to the MotoGP grindstone race in and race out. It pays off.
The HRC factory Hondas carry the 'Riders' logo and there are funding events in and around the paddock at almost every GP. The money supports a massive motorcycle training and maintenance programme for health workers in Africa.
The slogan is 'Motorcycles Save Lives'.
Of course there's an irony in the statement, but it is one that carries a great deal of meaning for all the family and friends of Tom Herron. And a great deal of meaning too for families in Africa whose parents, whose children live when otherwise they might have died.
We don't have to ask if Tom would have approved.
All this is Tom Herron's legacy.
People live who otherwise would have died, both in motorcycle racing and in the vast heartlands of Africa.
'Riders' is like Tom: impatient, full of fun, implacably determined, highly international but with its roots firmly in its own home town.
Thank-you Newcastle. Thank-you Elizabeth. Thank-you Scott. Thank-you Tom.
And those beautiful little girls? They are all that you could have wished for.
Thirty Two Years On
Even as babies Tom and Andrea's girls were rather spectacular. Maybe it was just because they were twins or because so soon after they were born they took to the life of the Grand Prix paddock. But maybe it was a certain look in their steady black eyes--a look we had all seen before.
Who knows where character really comes from, but there is no mistaking today that these are Tom Herron's daughters.
They both have very challenging, highly independent lives. Zoe, who lives in Manchester, is a designer, with degrees in English and Religion and Multimedia behind her, and Kim is an artist and lecturer in Art, based in Edinburgh. They both know who Valentino Rossi is but they hardly hold racers in awe. Kim once obliged Mick Doohan to apologise to her and once told Olivier Jacque off very seriously for being rude to her brother, Oliver, a whole year earlier. I wonder where she got that from?
And they both treat Kenny Roberts with impatient tolerance as if he were a mad uncle who needs just that --treatment.
Oliver, who has also had to put up with the likes of Kenny and the equally loony Randy Mamola his whole life, is at university in Manchester. His sister keeps a pretty fierce eye on him.
The part of Tom's life that most moved them was not the racing but his parents and their home in Bryansford Road. They loved Grandpa Scott and Gran Elizabeth and routinely gave them a very hard time on everything from how to drive, to what they saw as inappropriateness of their traditional politics. Nothing was sacred if you couldn't defend it. Again where did that come from?
Kim and Zoe miss their grandparents rather painfully and talk about them all the time.
Andrea was born into the world of racing and she is still in it. These days she is one of the chief executives of Riders for Health, of which she was also a founder, along with her husband Barry, and her work keeps her nose to the MotoGP grindstone race in and race out. It pays off.
The HRC factory Hondas carry the 'Riders' logo and there are funding events in and around the paddock at almost every GP. The money supports a massive motorcycle training and maintenance programme for health workers in Africa.
The slogan is 'Motorcycles Save Lives'.
Of course there's an irony in the statement, but it is one that carries a great deal of meaning for all the family and friends of Tom Herron. And a great deal of meaning too for families in Africa whose parents, whose children live when otherwise they might have died.
We don't have to ask if Tom would have approved.