Life on the Run (29 page)

Chapter Twenty: The Changing Image of Athletics

Over the years I have met many athletes, many of them outstanding, and sadly some have passed away a long time before their sell-by date. I know that many of my generation of distance runners could and would have held their own with the best around today, and I include the Kenyans and other African runners in this generation. The likes of Gordon Pirie, Derek Ibbotson, Martin Hyman, Bruce Tulloh, Frank Sando, Ken Norris, George Knight, Basil Heatley, Gerry North and John Merriman were dedicated runners, who in the main had to work for success alongside a regular job with very little financial support, but sport in those days was happy and none the less competitive. The likes of Dave Bedford and David Moorcroft followed on in that tradition in later years and were great athletes in any generation.

Much has gone wrong with the sport of athletics, and sport in the wider sense; money is at the root of all its problems, not because sport has become more professional, but because it has not been managed properly. I have often been asked if I regretted not being at the top of my running career today, instead of forty plus years ago. Yes, today I would have been a big earner from the sport, BUT I am sure I would not have enjoyed it as much.

When I got involved in bringing running to the masses in the late 1970s and 1980s, I was confident that not only would it be good for people's health, but it would help to create more good athletes; in particular distance runners, both male and female. I am sure that Chris Brasher, when he started the London Marathon, must have thought the same. How wrong we both were. Many people now enjoy running in a way not dreamed of perhaps thirty years ago, but it has not produced better runners. The standard in almost every distance event in this country has deteriorated at an alarming rate. The pyramid principle of a broad base creating a peak of talent, has not worked.

Some of the information in this book shows how performances have declined, not just since the middle of the 20
th
century, but even from as recent as the mid- 1980s. The reasons are many, and these must include the lack of initiative by the AAAs and succeeding governing bodies of athletics. They were so slow to react to the great enthusiasm of the late 1970s to 1980s. Those running the sport did not understand this great upsurge in interest in distance running. Their only reaction to it was to try and boost their funds by putting on a levy of 50p a runner, without giving anything back to the events or individuals. Below the top, the runners that run for fun do just that, and they do not appreciate how much enjoyment there can be in seeking excellence. There is another reason, and that is that the runners today are too well off, comfortable and well fed. I think that the success of the runners in the 1950s, 1960s and perhaps even the 1970s, was because the runners had been brought up in, or just after the war, when there was food rationing and food was basic with no frills. We were ‘hungry' runners, and very much like the Kenyan and African runners in the year 2000. If we are to return to the days of success, particularly in distance running, athletes will have to forget fancy supplements, and have the discipline of sticking to good basic diet and much harder training. The ‘Three Ds' - Discipline, Diet and Dedication are the key to success.

I recently found an old Berkshire Constabulary memo, dated 3/1/1960, which I had obviously used to make some notes on as preparation for a talk I was to give to some group or other forty years ago. My training tips from those notes were:-

Hard work and common sense.

Use different training methods.

Winter build up and Summer speed up.

Continuous regular training.

Do not train too much in groups.

Warming up before competition; very important.

Timed training and sprinting very important for all events.

Do not run directly after meals.

The last point I had put down is very basic, but all of these are still sensible training tips for today's athletes. There are plenty of runners from the successful years still around, they may not want to be fully involved in the administration of athletics or full-time coaching, but their experience could be used to help aspiring athletes today.

I spoke to one of these successful runners while in the final stages of putting this book to print, and although he was a runner some ten years younger than myself, his thoughts and views were the same as mine. Mike Hurd was a winner of the Reading Half Marathon and had also won the vet category in the race. His best time for the full marathon was 2:13, and for the half marathon just over sixty-three minutes. He was once asked about what supplements he took in his diet. His reply “None except fish and chips and Mars bars.” He is not the first runner I have known to become very successful on what might be deemed by the purists to be unhealthy food. The important thing to remember is moderation in all things. As I have always said, and he made the same observation, there is only one thing that really helps a runner to improve; running; lots of it, and it must include quality running and not just going for a seven to ten mile run at even pace. Dedicated hard training is how most runners really succeed.

Chapter Twenty-One: Rotary International

An important change in my life came in 1977, when I was invited to speak to the Rotary Club of Caversham about my running experiences. Little did I know how that talk was going to change my life over the next twenty-four years, and probably beyond. After that talk to many of the key people in the commercial life of Reading at that time, I was invited to join the club and very quickly got involved in the work of Rotary. Within months I was producing the monthly magazine, a job which I kept for four years.

I chaired committees of the club, and this included organising a Polish evening where we had the attendance of the Polish Ambassador. It was at a time when there was a lot of suspicion between East and West, and I had problems to solve with the security people on both sides. I was later elected Junior Vice President, which took me through in two years to being President of the club in the year 1983 to 1984. If my promotion had been quick, Marion had made even quicker progress; having only joined the Inner Wheel Club of Reading in 1981, she was made President of that club in the same year as me.

It was a happy year, with one exception, and that was on Valentine's Day, 14
th
February 1984. While Marion was at her Inner Wheel meeting in Reading, I received a phone call from my brother to tell me that my mother had died suddenly. It was a bright winter day, and she was walking to the old people's club that she visited in Windsor, and collapsed in the street and died aged seventy-eight years. She had always been very active, and was still riding her bicycle around Windsor, although not on this occasion. It was a shock to all the family and her many friends, but one thing is certain, it was the way she would have chosen to leave this earth. It was a sad time, especially as she was the last of our parents; Marion having lost both of hers by the time she was thirty-two years of age, and my father having being dead ten years. But we both got on with our year as Presidents of our clubs, as well as running our sports business and bringing up our own family of five children; this kept us busy, but St Valentine's Day is never forgotten. There is another important family connection with 14
th
February now, as on that date in 1999, our eldest daughter Caroline had a son, Jack.

The main event of my Rotary year as President was an Oration held at the new Hexagon in Reading. The club had in previous years held such an event with many and varied top speakers, including Lord Boothby. I decided to hold this special event again in my year, and my Orator was Alistair Milne the Director General of the BBC at the time. It was a very grand evening with hundreds of guests, but the Director General's speech did not go down too well as it was very technical for the time, but it did get major publicity with it being quoted in the
Times
and other newspapers. On reflection it was probably quite earth shattering, as it was about the coming of Digital Television.

About this time I helped to establish interest in dyslexia in Berkshire. The subject was rather taboo and not accepted as a problem by most teachers at this time. With the help of one or two people who did understand the problem, I set up a seminar on the subject for head teachers and others. It was not well attended, but did sow the seeds with those that did come and listen to some established experts on the subject, and in particular a student who despite his dyslexia had gained a very good degree at Edinburgh University. It was a slow start, but I know it did start to change attitudes within my home county.

I took on the position of Youth Exchange Officer for our District, and was responsible for receiving and sending young people overseas for a year's education. For some years our Rotary District 109 had exchanges with another district in Denmark. This was no ordinary exchange, but was for disabled young people from both countries. In August 1986 I took nine young people with a multitude of disabilities to Denmark. We flew from Heathrow, and I was going to be in for a very busy fourteen days, as there were several wheelchair users as well as one blind lad.

At the end of the trip we were put on the plane to fly home, and the first thing that happened was a message from the captain that I was to be specially looked after by the crew, as I had been looking after the youngsters. I remember having a whisky or two at his invitation.

On the return trip with young people from Denmark, I remember the August day when they had been taken to Littlecote House at Hungerford in Berkshire. It was that terrible day in Hungerford when all those people were shot. Fortunately they were clear of the trouble, and did not get caught up in the tragedy.

Perhaps one of my most enjoyable and rewarding activities during my years as a Rotarian, was taking young people on a Rotary Young Leaders Award Course on three occasions in 1989, 1992 and 1996. All of these courses were held at the Berkshire Outdoor Centre at Rhos-Y-Gwaliau on Lake Bala in North Wales. I did things late in life that I had never experienced before. Going underground in a slate mine, abseiling, rock climbing, gorge walking and camping overnight in a bivouac made by my own hand out of brushwood and grasses. Plus an overnight expedition, sleeping under the stars and watching the satellites going across the Welsh sky. The overnight sleep in my bivouac in 1992 proved that I had not lost the ability to sleep any where in any conditions.

All on the course were taken to the forest in late evening and told to build our own shelter for the night. The weather forecast was not good, but we all completed our task and settled in for the night. By now it was raining hard, but I got into my shelter made from brush and reeds, etc., and after a little while of listening to the rain, I went to sleep.

Next morning, about 7 a.m., one of the instructors came walking through the forest and gave me a shout. I woke up and I was virtually an island with water flowing around me and quite a bit flowing through my shelter, which was nearly as wet inside as out. I got up and made my way back to the minibus, only to find that many of my young charges had either gone back to the centre or spent the night in the minibus. Only a few of us had braved the elements for the whole night. But like sleeping in phone boxes in the police, or on luggage racks on trains in my days of travel to races, I had no difficulty in getting my sleep.

In 1990 I had been elected to be the Governor of the District that covered Berks, Oxfordshire and parts of Middlesex and Buckinghamshire; and in February of 1992, I went off to Kansas City for the Rotary International Assembly, to learn about taking on this important post. It was a great experience, especially the meeting with 500 plus men holding the same office as myself in all parts of the world. Now of course this get-together of the officers of Rotary International includes women, as many are making it to the top in the organisation.

In July 1992, I became the District Governor of Rotary International District 1090; something that I could not have anticipated fifteen years earlier, when I accepted that invitation to join Rotary. I had many interesting events during my year, including my ‘At Home' where I introduced many Rotarians to Wheelchair Basketball for the disabled, when we had some of the best wheelchair players from this country taking part in a tournament in Reading, as well as a team from France. Other memorable events during the year included a dinner in Windsor Guildhall, attended by HRH The Duke of Edinburgh; a weekend at Cliveden with the Rotary Club of Maidenhead on Twelfth Night; and dinner at Blenheim Palace with Woodstock Rotary Club. It was a ‘black tie' event, and a member of my Rotary Club, Peter Belcher, was acting as my chauffeur for the evening. We arrived early and were walking around the grounds of the palace in our dinner suits, when a tourist came up and asked a question. He obviously thought one of us was the owner of the splendid palace, the Duke of Marlborough. I also had a very enjoyable evening at the Rotary Club of Faringdon and District, where I was a guest along with the late Jonny Morris. We got on well together, as we both suffered from diabetes, so were able to compare notes over more than one glass of wine, which we both enjoyed.

The big event was the annual conference in March 1993, which I took to Torquay for the first time. The star performer was Sir Ranulph Fiennes and the timing was perfect. He had just completed his latest exploration to the South Pole, and in fact a few days before he was due to speak we did not know if he would be back in the country in time. He did arrive with his frost-bitten feet, and when I introduced him to the audience in the Centre at Torquay, the place was packed with every seat taken and with many standing. I felt I had a little in common with him, although I could not compare. He was born, like me, in the Royal Borough of Windsor, and I think we have both done some crazy things; he with his expeditions and me with my long runs.

For a number of years from 1994, I was the main link between Rotary in Great Britain and Ireland and all the Scandinavian countries. This included chartering aircraft to fly up to 100 Rotarians and wives from this country to Billund (the home of Lego) in Denmark, and in the same aircraft flying back a similar number of Danish Rotarians, who would stay with their host clubs on the same weekend. Chartering an aircraft was a new experience for me, especially as I had to sign up to a bill of over £35,000, with the total responsibility to get sufficient money back on my shoulders. Eventually towards the end of the 1990s, the chartering ceased as the price of scheduled flights to Denmark became very much cheaper, and the charter price could not match these reduced prices.

One of my happiest and enjoyable experiences in Rotary, was when I had the honour to represent the International President of Rotary, Glen Kinross from Australia, at a Rotary Conference in Arundel, Norway. The Norwegians were so friendly and appreciative, even if they thought my accent when singing with them was more Swedish than Norwegian. I had to address the Conference a number of times, and fortunately the Norwegians do speak English, and when they were speaking in their own language there was always someone on hand to translate for me. One of their other main speakers addressed the problem of UK pollution hitting their country. I did not get a full translation of this speech, but it was quite hard hitting about the damage we do to their environment. It was a working weekend but it was very enjoyable.

I have enjoyed my association and membership of this great organisation. It has done much good work, largely unrecognised, in local and international communities. I do wonder what the future holds for such organisations in the new millennium. Do organisations like Rotary, the Lions, Round Table, Inner Wheel, have to change drastically to meet changing circumstances and conditions in society, or do they stick to their tried and trusted formula, principles and structure? Sadly society has changed, and until it changes back to being more caring and less selfish, and people realise the great satisfaction that can be derived by working together for the common good, such organisations are going to decline and so will the society we live in.

As far as Rotary is concerned, I think if it is to change, the changes may need to be quite drastic and far-reaching. The organisation is based on a club structure, and each individual belongs to a club. It may be in the future that Rotarians will not belong to a single club, but to the organisation with the same right as now, to attend any club anywhere. ‘Cheque Book Rotary' has always been frowned upon by traditional long-standing members, but if individuals do not belong to a single club and cannot work on Service within that club area, perhaps money could be the answer.

I believe that Rotary has done, and still does, a great deal of good throughout the world, but I do have one major concern. I believe that like many similar organisations, it spends far too much time and money on its own pleasures. Socialising and fellowship is important, but the proportion of money spent on such activities is often disproportionate to moneys raised for charity and good causes. I believe in Rotary and the work it has done and continues to do, like being the driving force behind the immunization of millions to eradicate polio, and the tremendous support it gives to millions of local projects around the world. In 2005 it celebrates its centenary; it will be worth celebrating, but there is a big question mark over the future which is not entirely in its own hands.

In 1998 I had the responsibility for extension of Rotary in our District, and had the good fortune to be able to form three new clubs. These clubs attracted new, younger, forthright men and women from the modern business world, and it is they and those like them who will carry the torch in the future.