Wheelchairs, Perjury and the London Marathon Read online

  Derwentwater For Everyone

  The first part of the Fellowship was now over. The Trust took as axiomatic that you would write a report on where you went and what you did (and you weren’t invited to the medal ceremony in London until you had done this); and explain how you were going to implement whatever had arisen from your trip. Writing the report took far longer than it should have done, and it wasn’t until November of the following year that I submitted mine. By then, I’d already got going on a number of projects arising directly from the trip.

  Still mindful of the example of the Boston Marathon, I argued (to myself) that perhaps the best way of bringing such an idea to notice in the UK was to do a marathon. At that stage in this country, marathoning wasn’t a participation sport in the way it became very shortly afterwards, stimulated by the example of the first London race in 1981. It was an activity reserved very much for dedicated club runners, and the Amateur Athletic Association (AAA) expected all runners to be affiliated to them through membership of one of the athletics clubs – Birchfield Harriers, Coventry Godiva Harriers, and so on – which were widespread throughout the country.

  At the time, probably the best-known marathon in this country was the Polytechnic Marathon, from Windsor to London; but it was the wrong time of year to tilt at that. Although I wasn’t a member of any athletics club, I wrote to the organisers of both the Harlow and Barnsley marathons (Liz Dendy had found out for me what were probably the only two remaining marathons before Christmas) explaining what I’d found in the States, and asking if I could enter their race. Both said yes.

  I was already pushing about two miles a day up to work and back, never mind anything extra if I went away for a weekend; but I decided I needed to be a lot fitter. So, taking no advice, I started doing extra pushing, coming back to the hall of residence for lunch, and thus doubling up the daily mileage. With no attempt at warming up first (how stupid can you get?) it wasn’t long before I twinged something in my right shoulder; and though I’d read or heard somewhere that you could often run through a minor injury of this kind, attempting to do so just made it worse. Despite getting to a sports injury clinic and receiving a number of injections intended to alleviate the problem, things went the opposite way and it got worse. Dreams of a possible first wheelchair marathon in this country faded rapidly.

  Nevertheless, having applied to, and been accepted by, the organisers of two marathons, I felt honour-bound to turn up and explain my non-participation. For Harlow, I took a young man from Birmingham, Mark Agar, who had come along to a session in one of the university gyms that I’d managed to book for practising basketball skills; he was now also coming along to the matches played by the Notts and Derby club. He started, a few minutes ahead of the runners, but had to give up after about 14 miles, worn out. While he was out on the course, someone approached me, identified himself as from “The Daily Mirror” (how often did the Mirror cover an event like the Harlow marathon, I wondered?) and asked me if I knew Tim Marshall. Rather embarrassed, I admitted to being Tim Marshall, and we had a brief conversation about wheelchair marathons in general, and my abortive attempt to do this one. We beat a retreat back to Birmingham, and I went to Barnsley on my own. And apart from talking with a local newspaper reporter, it was much the same story. A far from glorious chapter in putting into practice one of the things I’d found in the USA had, for the moment at least, ended in ignominy.

  Meanwhile, Bill Parkinson had invited me north from time to time to give talks on disability sport in general, and outdoor and adventure sports in particular, to various groups of people he was working with – sports development officers, policy makers in local authorities, and so on. It must have been on one of these occasions that I floated to him the idea of a non-competitive “round Derwentwater” event some time in the spring of 1979. He took it away, and came back to me a few days later saying “Yes”. So he worked on this for the next few months and I sat back and waited.

  In March 1979 I received a letter beginning thus: “Dear Mr Marshall, My name is Victoria [I can’t remember her surname] and I am in charge of organising the refreshments for the “Round Derwentwater” event on Sunday” (she gave the date, which I don’t remember either, but it was in late March or April). She went on to explain that she was in the 6th form at Keswick School, and she set out precisely what would be provided, from when in the morning, until when, and for how many people. It seemed that Bill had managed to pull in not just Keswick School, or at least the 6th form, but the police, local voluntary organisations, people from the local athletics club, and so on. This was going to be some event, rather larger than I had expected.

  It had been made clear in the publicity about the day that it wasn’t a competitive event; that you could start at any time after 10 o’clock; that you didn’t have to go the whole way round, but could instead go down the east side of the lake (in my view, much the less interesting side scenically speaking) and from Grange, just beyond the southern tip of the lake, be driven back to the school; or, you could be driven down to Grange and make your own way along the road on the western side of the lake (which included the superb views across the lake and over to Skiddaw); or you could go the whole way round, with or without any assistance.

  I have three main memories of the day, apart from the generally miserable weather – cool, cloudy, spitting with rain, and pretty unpleasant. Lots of local people turned up, no doubt curious to see what was going on – very different at any rate from an ordinary fell-running event. Amongst this group was Lady Rochdale, who was one of the driving forces behind establishing the Calvert Trust. Sixty-three people turned up to participate, and though I can’t now remember how many did the whole circuit, it was in the 20s or 30s. One of these was a young lad from the North-East, where many of the 63 came from, who used callipers and crutches for walking, and who arrived back at the school absolutely soaked after several hours on the road, grinning from ear to ear. And then, finally, late in the day, Gerry Kinsella turned up, and shot off down towards Grange at a speed which the motorbike policeman who accompanied him later said was extraordinary. The 6th formers directing people to turn right over the bridge at Grange made similar comments, whilst the boys who had been detailed to help people over or around the cattle grid at Hawse End were astonished at Gerry’s flicking the wheelchair onto a back-wheel balance and bouncing across the grid at high speed. He completed the route in what probably remains the fastest circuit ever recorded, 1 hour 28 minutes.

  Afterwards, everyone agreed it had been a great success, and they were happy to do it again next year, so a provisional date for 1980 was set, with Bill P. being the liaison between the school, the police, other disability sports events already timetabled in, and so on. The local press gave a good write-up, so that augured well. And finally, weeks later, I was told that the event had had the very unexpected consequence of drawing together disabled people from the locality into forming the Allerdale Association for the Disabled, to act as a pressure group campaigning for improved provision of services and facilities for disabled people in the Allerdale area.

  I was still hampered by my injured shoulder, treatment for which seemed to be going nowhere; so I parked that and began to look for other opportunities. In September 1979 some friends who were sailors told me about a weekend conference which was to be held at the Calvert Trust on the last weekend in October, about sailing for disabled people; I thought I’d give it a go.

  The weather was glorious, though most of the time was spent indoors on a “chalk and talk” type of programme. But on the upper floor of an old barn there was the prototype of a new sailing boat for disabled people, called a Challenger. This was a tri-maran with a central hull with a cockpit in which the helmsman sat, and two sponsons, or floats, either side, which provided lateral stability to stop the craft capsizing. The floats and the main hull were connected by thick metal cross-beams. The mast was towards the front of the main hull, and the controls – the main sheet, the tiller and the cord for dropp
ing and raising the rudder, were all arranged so as to be in front of the helmsman. (Later refinements added cockpit controls of the Cunningham and the kicking strap.) The cockpit could take a plastic chair (without its legs) if you needed some back support, and you could put a cushion on the floor if you needed a padded seat.

  There was no opportunity to try the thing on water, but at this stage the RYA Seamanship Foundation (who had sponsored the design and construction) and its director, Douglas Hurndall, were interested in seeing how easy it was for disabled people of various kinds to get in and out of the cockpit. Acknowledging the artificiality of getting into the craft on a solid surface rather than the more wobbly environment of water, I hopped in. Douglas then pulled on the main sheet to bring the boom across, as though you were tacking or gybing on water – and the boom hit my head. So my contribution to the design/development of the boat was to have the angle of the boom raised, along with some minor adjustment to the design of the sail to compensate for the loss of sail area which raising the boom made inevitable. The following year, when a new sailing club was established on a reservoir in the west of Birmingham, I was able to persuade the club to acquire one of the tri-marans (at no cost to the club), and began learning how to sail.

  After the success of Derwentwater I began thinking about doing something on the same lines but more local to Birmingham. The regional branch of BSAD was quite keen, and at the time were involved with establishing a new disabled sports club based on a sports centre in the north of the city, Wyndley Leisure Centre. There was interest, too, from the about-to-retire head teacher of a local special school for children with a physical handicap, Ivor Mitchell, and later on from his successor, Colin Grantham. The local Lions Club was also involved, and brought a large dose of enthusiasm to the day in addition to providing sponsorship, in the form of sports equipment for the clubs of winning participants.

  The main organisers were BSAD, but as with the Derwentwater affair, getting other local organisations involved in what at the time was something of a novel development, seemed to be the key. The event was advertised nationally, and drew about 50 entrants who were divided into two groups, juniors and seniors. The senior race was, I think, 4 laps with a total distance of 7 miles; the junior race was shorter, though I don’t remember whether it was 2 or 3 laps. At any event, there was a lot of interest – we were on the cusp of the explosion of mass fun-running – and it was reported in the local paper under the heading “Wheelchair Brands Hatch at Sutton Park”. The event ran for 5 years, 1980–1984, by which time there were hundreds of running races all over the country which welcomed wheelchairs as an extra section to their event, and the need for special wheelchair-only events seemed to have run its course. Even by 1980, however, other things were underway.

  Interlude

  I wondered whether it might be possible to develop a canoe-camping course in Britain of the kind that I had done in Minnesota. There was nowhere in Britain which offered quite the same possibilities as the Boundary Waters Canoe Area, though parts of Scotland looked promising, especially the west coast. Chewing this idea over with Bill Parkinson, we agreed that we would each find a couple of interested people, for a 1-week journey starting and finishing at Ballachulish just south of Fort William. The base would be the Forestry Commission campsite at Glencoe, which I knew from the previous summer (1979) had a wheelchair loo. The intended route was to be from Ballachulish out into Loch Linnhe, and down to Lismore Island. From there we would cross back to the mainland, and approach the mouth of Loch Etive where there were some well-known overfalls, the Falls of Lora, which we reckoned we should be able to paddle up and into Loch Etive at a flood tide. From the head of Loch Etive the intention was to send a couple of people overland on foot back to Glencoe and Ballachulish to bring the vehicles round to pick up people, canoes and other equipment, and reassemble on the campsite before finally returning south.

  We needed people, canoes, tents and other equipment. I managed to interest a couple of students from the hall of residence, one a PE student (Anne) and the other, Josh, who had worked for a children’s adventure holiday company and from which he was able to borrow a large, old Canadian canoe – that would sort carrying the wheelchair, at least. The father of another student offered – or was offered by his son – to make a roof-rack for my van to carry canoes on (Bill already had his own roof-rack), and the father of yet another student loaned the family Canadian canoe, which would, however, have to be collected from the family country cottage somewhere in south Argyll. Bill came up with another student, his girl friend and a kayak. Somehow I had acquired on long-term loan (which lasted until about 1984) a Caranoe loaned to BSAD by Frank Goodman from Valley Canoe Products at Nottingham. The bits assembled gradually, my part being completed when I collected Josh and Anne from a party at Ilkley and drove overnight to pick up the Canadian canoe from south Argyll the next morning. From there we inspected the Falls of Lora – they didn’t seem too terrifying – and on to the Glencoe campsite where Bill and crew arrived a few hours later.

  The first thing to do the next morning was to find out how strong a canoeing party we were, who should paddle with whom, and so on. So we took off to paddle down the river in Glen Nevis to find out. Pretty soon we realised that the trip as originally envisaged was absurdly optimistic, with the most likely outcome being a rapid capsize sending all gear but the wheelchair – which would have been tied in to the big Canadian – to the bottom of Loch Leven, or Loch Linnhe if we’d lasted that far … Nobody came to any harm in Glen Nevis, though I was capsized out of the Caranoe by Bill who was following too closely in one of the Canadians. So we beat a retreat back to the campsite to dry out, and make some other plans.

  We ended up with a series of day excursions: paddling down Loch Leven from Kinlochleven to Glencoe and back again; an intended jaunt from Port Appin to Lismore Island was pulled when the wind and the waves got up and I got frightened, so we retreated to paddling round Castle Stalker at high tide (the wind dropped as quickly as it had risen); a short excursion on Loch Lochy; hiring a couple of dinghies from a local outdoor centre and frolicking around where the wind blasting down Glencoe met that coming up Loch Leven; a day off at the annual Glenfinnan Highland Games (a wonderful experience); and finally, on our way south, paddling from Grange in Borrowdale across Derwentwater and down the River Greta into Bassenthwaite to the Calvert Trust base by the side of the lake (with their permission, of course). So, although what we achieved was nothing like what was intended, it turned out to be quite a stretching week.

  I had an idea for a longer, more demanding, canoe-camping circuit, starting at Fort William, paddling down Loch Linnhe as far as Inversanda on the west side of the loch and portaging across to Loch Sunart; paddling down the loch to Salen; portaging to Acharacle at the foot of Loch Shiel; paddling up to Glenfinnan; portaging to Kinlocheil; and, finally, paddling back to Fort William. In practice, the portages here would be so long that you’d need a land party with vehicles to transport people and gear between landing and launching points. Had our trip worked as planned, I’d have approached the Outward Bound school on Loch Eil with the second idea; as it was, I kept my head down and this is the first time that the idea has seen the light of day – and, probably, the last. As far as canoeing expeditions were to go, for the time being that was that.

  Chris Brasher and John Disley

  Chris Brasher and John Disley were two runners who became prominent in the 1950s; both were also climbers. Brasher went to Rugby School and thence to St John’s College, Cambridge. In 1951 he won the 5000 metres at the World Student Games, and finished second in the 3000 metres steeplechase (this is a very unusual combination, one that I doubt has ever been seen in any major athletics event – Europeans, Worlds or Olympics – since). At Cambridge he met Chris Chataway and Roger Bannister, and together they became the team which plotted to get Bannister to the first-ever sub-four minute mile, achieved eventually on May 6th 1954. This was at a match between the AAA and Oxford University
at the university’s Iffley Road running track – in those days, of course, a cinder track, not tartan. (Incidentally, Bannister was also a climber: in his recent autobiography there is a photograph of him and Brasher climbing the Finsteraarhorn, the highest peak in the Bernese Oberland.)

  Unlike what happens nowadays on the international athletics circuit, in the 1950s pacemakers in races were not allowed; any race with an overt pacemaker who would drop out after two or three laps would have the results nullified by the AAA, and subsequently by the IAAF. So the three had to be very careful to avoid behaving on the track as though outright pacemaking was going on. Brasher led the race for the first two laps, Chataway took on the lead for the third lap, and finally Bannister took over for the last lap and ran himself into the history books. The other two had to finish the race, of course, to avoid a pacemaking charge; but really, few people were interested in anything else about the match other than the world- record-breaking result of the mile.

  Later that year Bannister also won the mile at the Empire and Commonwealth Games in Edmonton, beating the Australian John Landy, who had by then deprived him of the mile record. Yet, astonishingly, in December the inaugural BBC Sports Personality of the Year was won by Chataway, not Bannister, essentially because of setting a new world record for the 5000 metres and in so doing beating the Soviet hard man Vladimir Kuts.