Getting posted to Truleigh Hill

(In the RAF)I was retrained on a navigational aid and we were dispersed to radar stations that had this navigational aid round the coast. We were asked to state a preference as to where to go. I wanted one near an athletic club. Truleigh Hill near Shoreham was clearly a possibility because I had been reading the AW(Athletics Weekly) avidly and I knew all about Brighton and all about their star distance runners and I felt it would be quite good to be part of that set up. So I put down Truleigh Hill and when the posting came up I was allocated Sennen Cove which is about 2 miles from Lands End and nobody else got what they had asked for so we actually revolted. The sergeant who had organised the course, we actually lobbied him to go back to the CO and sort this out because they had not got anything they had asked for. And to his credit he did and I was allocated Truleigh Hill.

On becoming involved in athletics

It was round about the time of the Tokyo Olympics. I had watched the English or Great Britain race walker, Ken Matthews, win the Olympic 20 kms on the track and it seemed to impress me more than Snellπs wins because Matthews so decimated the field. It sort of had an impact on me and less than a fortnight later we had our school sports and there was a one mile walking race. Iπd never done any race walking before. I hadnπt done very much athletics but I remember being quite keen to enter this mile walk which was an open race and there must have been 50-60 kids in it . Any way I finished 2^nd and from that moment on I wanted to be a race walker.