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The photograph above is that of athletics historian Andy Milroy.    Known world wide particularly for his place in researching and documenting the history of ultra running he was also one of the founders of ARRS – the Association of Road Running Statisticians.    Inducted into the Ultra Running Hall of Fame in 2024, the Ultra Magazine has this to say of him below a bold head line telling us that 

“It is not an understatement to say that ultrarunning as we know it today exists largely because of Andy Milroy.”

“Andy isn’t an ultrarunner but he has been one of the most important figures in world ultrarunning over the last 60 years. A quiet figure hailing from Trowbridge, Wiltshire, Andy Milroy is now a – possibly the – world authority on ultramarathon running, juggling his teaching vocation with travels around the world to major running events and meticulously compiling data of running records across road and track. Full disclosure, although Andy has been heavily involved with the initial setup and curation of the UK Ultrarunning Hall of Fame, his own inclusion is purely the work of Robbie Britton and Andy Nuttall – and we are sure that nobody will disagree.

A founding member of the International Association of Ultrarunners (IAU) in 1984, and later its technical director, Milroy oversaw the organisation of the World Ultrarunning Championships from 1990 to 1999, and co-founded the Association of Road Racing Statisticians (ARRS) is 2003. He has written or co-written several books including Training For Ultrarunning, The Ultramarathon Race Handbook (translated into many other languages including Greek and Korean) and The Long Distance Record Book (with progressive record lists for 10 miles up to 2,000 miles going back to the Middle Ages and even ancient times) along with many articles for a cornucopia of publications. Additionally, Milroy has been an official at many races including referee, race director and  chief recorder.”

It is an honour to print the account below on the first six-day road race by Andy, who joins others of our sports historian contributors  like Tom McNab, Alex Wilson and Hamish Telfer .   Now read the article.

THE EARLIEST KNOWN SIX DAY RACE WAS WON BY A SCOT 

The earliest known Six Day race, currently known, was won by a Scot, a highlander who was a running footman.

Reference to the “foteman that runnen” was first made in 1450. Internationally Basques from the Pyrenees on the Franco-Spanish border, the Irish and Highlanders from Scotland were all popular and fashionable among the wealthy aristocrats. Such running footmen ran alongside the relatively slow moving coaches of those days, ready to deal with any obstructions or to run ahead to arrange accommodation in inns.

Such footmen also, on a day to day basis, operated like an early form of email, carrying letters and notes between neighbours, relatives and friends.

These rich aristocrats also enjoyed racing their footmen, frequently wagered exorbitant sums on private foot-races pitting their own running footmen against those of rivals. Such races were usually over short distances, less than ten miles.

Such races had taken place for much of the seventeenth century. James I, the new Stuart monarch, had enjoyed racing such footmen.

On the 10th April 1721 a match was made for a race from London to York and back, between two running footmen Peter Hughson (also spelt in contemporary newspapers as Hewson), a Scottish highlander, footman to the Earl of Essex and Thomas Butler, an Irishman, footman to Mr Clayton for £100 (I have also seen £500 quoted).

The wager was for the footman to complete the journey in 6 days.

The fact we have so many details about the race and the runners makes it historically significant.

On the Monday morning the two runners set out from St. Giles’s Pound, Shoreditch in London to race to York and back, said in the 18th century, to be a distance of 396 miles. This would involve the footman covering 66 miles a day, a stiff undertaking on the roads of that period.

The two footmen ran together for about the first thirty miles, when the Irishman, Butler, began to flag.

Hughson pushed on and it was later reported in the newspaper “we are assur’d he went thro’ Huntington, which is fifty miles, about five a clock the same day he set out; and it was not doubted but he would reach to Stamford that night, which is seventy four miles of his way”

Meanwhile Thomas Butler was still having problems, A newspaper reported that “the exceeding bad weather on Tuesday, which made the roads wet, slippery, and stiff” caused Butler to feel sick. He vomited and then had a “high fever” for four hours and not able to stand up, let alone run. Butler then gave up the race and on Wednesday was brought back on a wagon, “and continues very ill”

Hughson successfully returned from York and reached London in the fifth day by 4 o clock. He was welcomed – “an abundance of horsemen are gone to meet him.”

The Earl of Essex had promised if his running footman achieved the feat within the six days he would settle a pension of £50 pounds per annum on him.

£50 a year in 1721 would be worth perhaps £135,000 today – so a huge amount of money was at stake.

So what was the background of Hughson the Highlander? The Hughsons were a branch of the much larger Clan MacDonald and Clan Gunn (the latter came from the far north of Scotland and the Shetland Isles)

The actual link between the Hughsons and Shetland go back to the early 1600s.

In 1614 or 1617 a salvage master from Norway came to Shetland to salvage a ship that had gone aground on the Skerries. He met and married a local girl and changed his name to Hugh Noble. His male descendants were to be known as Hughson and spread out from Shetland

Peter Hughson was the running footman of William Capell, the Earl of Essex. Capell, 3rd Earl of Essex was 24 years old in 1721 and was an English courtier and diplomat. The links with running footmen was traditional among the Capell family who were famous for their ties to these swift couriers.

The huge sum of money (£50 a year) may well have resulted in an extended celebration by Hughson. He was literally drunk on his success when a fatal accident happened. Peter Hughson was crushed by the wheel of a a carriage on the 20th July 1721 while intoxicated.

The life of a running footman could be very demanding and yet few accounts of their feats have come down to us. The frequent walks from London to York and back by Foster Powell from 1773 onward were remembered and recounted as highlights in the age of pedestrianism, but the similar feat by Peter Hughson fifty years earlier was forgotten, maybe because they were primarily for the enjoyment and gratification of the aristocracy. The likes of Foster Powell and other pedestrians interacted with ordinary people and sometimes were dependent on their coin donations for survival.

***

That is Andy’s article on a fascinating race and there are of course several books by him on ultra distance running and racing – eg  “The History of the 1000 mile race” ,  “Training for Ultra Running”, and North American Ultra Running” which are available via Amazon.     

Inter-club contests used to be much more frequent than they are now.   I’m not talking about League Matches which are multi-club contests.   There was a league system at one point where the eight clubs were scored against each other – eg Shettleston v Victoria Park, Shettleston v Bellahouston, Shettleston against Edinburgh, etc – and the meeting was simply seven inter-clubs fixtures held on the same day at the same venue.   In the 1960’s the men’s league was organised so that the eight clubs in the division arranged their own league matches on a three club basis – eg Clydesdale, Garscube and Hawkhill would be scored CH  v  GH, CH  v  DHH, GH  v DHH and GH v CH, and DHH v the other two.   

There were many inter-clubs outwith the leagues.   Clydesdale Harriers would have summer inter-clubs against Springburn, Greenock Glenpark and Dumbarton, each on a home and away basis.   They were excellent fixtures which formed part of the athletes progression through the season and increased the inter-club friendship and rivalry.   The first ever Inter-club match was held in October 1885, advertised in the Ayr Observer above, for 10th October.   The original datw was 3rd October but the second round of the SFA Cup competition was dated for that Saturday so it was puched back a week.  

The report on it from ‘The Field’ is below.

The Harriers had been formed on 4th May, 1885, and were responsible for many developments in the sport of which this was only one.   It is interesting to note that several of the Ayr FC competitors later joined the Harriers notably AP Findlay who was third in the One Mile but became famous over longer distances and won the first ever Scottish Cross-Country Championship in the Clydesdale Harriers.   In addition some of the Harriers competitors were also members of other clubs – eg Alex Vallance, who would become SAAA 120 hurdles champion, and along with brother Tom was a member of Rangers FC.   

This was the first ever – what an example was set and what a ball was set in motion! 

The statue in Heaton Public Park.

Bishopbriggs Sports Centre was very well known to athletes.   Home to many SVHC events (including a notorious Christmas Handicap in which the wrong man won!) and run by Strathkelvin District Council Leisure supremo Hugh Barrow, there was a figure of a running man on the canopy outside the main entrance.   But who was the man?   Was he an anonymous figure dreamt up by a sculptor or was he a real man?   The fact is, he was a Clydesdale Harrier and the sculture dated from 1932.   We investigated and the results of that investigation are reported here.

Bobby Gray

Bobby Gray was a member of Clydesdale Harriers in the 1930’s.   A good but not spectacular club man whose real claim to fame came as a subject for a statue made of a new metal.   Only three copies of the statue were cast.   Everybody who visited Clydebank Public Library in the late 30’s or later knew of the statue which was one of the first things to catch the eye.   Made of white plaster it was a copy of the others.   The runner’s action was one of a man straining as hard as he could at the finish of a race and there were those in Clydebank and further afield who thought that it was a representation of Eric Liddell.      Not so – he was a Clydesdale Harriers.

His name was Bobby Gray and his descendants included Walker and Fiona Cowan who lived in Bearsden and whose children, Colin and Lynn, were also club members in the late 1980’s and 90’s.   Colin was a runner as an Under 15 and Under 17, while Lynn was a qualified Coach working with the new starts in the club – ie the Under 11’s and Under 13’s.  

The story of the statue is told in brief by the website of Sporting Statues in Scotland as follows.

The plaster statue was created by John Longden who was a sculptor and also a Councillor and Baillie in Clydebank but it was copied and manufactured in a new material called sindal and not in bronze as stated above.    The photograph above was taken in Heaton Park as was that below which was provided to the website by Fiona Cowan.

If there is any doubt about the whereabouts of the Heaton one, there is none of the other sindal statue is languishing.   It was situated on the canopy outside the Bishopbriggs Sports Centre where it was regularly draped in a scarf on cold wintry nights – the photograph below has him in a rugby jersey.   Hugh Barrow was i/c Leisure and Sport in the Strathkelvin District and based in the Centre.  The following photograph and script show Hugh with the statue and say a few words about ‘The Runner’.

After some research with the help of Jennifer Lightbody of the West Dunbartonshire Library Archive, we now have more detail about the history of the statue.   First of all there is this article from the ‘Clydebank Press’ of 29^th April, 1932.

What was added by this extract?   Well quite a lot of detail about John Longden and the fact that it had been submitted to the Royal Academy of Art in London but was not accepted because of publicity received in a ‘London Newspaper’, and that many photographs had been taken of the statue.   One of these is shown below, and the caption tells us that it was delivered on 30^th March 1932.  

It is quite a story and was perhaps fitting that the Cowan family – Walker and Fiona Cowan, Lynn and Colin – were all associated with John Longden’s work almost 60 years later.

A quite superb coach of all disciplines, Tom McNab’s expertise  was used to help such decathletes as Norrie Foster, Peter Gabbett and Greg Rutherford.   He also has an encyclopedic knowledge of the various professional Games meetings – Highland Games, Border Games and all those in between.    He comments on all of these in this account of the evolution of the Jumps – High, Long and Triple.   Incidentally, he refers to Guts Muths right at the start – there is an extract from Wikipedia of the gentleman at the end of the account.

                                                                THE TECHNICAL EVOLUTION OF THE JUMPS 

by  Tom McNab

 Though 18th century European physical educationists like Guts Muths clearly show students jumping, it is in the rural games of Great Britain that high jumping undoubtedly found its first competitive expression.   This being said, we hear in a French work by Guillaume Depping  of the early 19^th century English jumper, John Ireland : “with a furious bound, he cleared a bar suspended sixteen feet (4m.90) above the ground.”   Just so. Ireland is referred to in several 19^th century works, but mostly as an acrobat rather than as a competitive jumper.  Depping’s book tells us something of the uncertain nature of track and field athletics of the period and the lack of critical faculty. 

The first records of competitive jumping occur in the Scottish Border and Highland Games in the first quarter of the 19^th century. Jumps were ground to ground, without advantage of spiked shoes until the middle of the century.   It was in the 19^th century Border Games that jumping of all kinds found its most diverse expression.  This meant also the standing jumps, multiple hops/steps and an event closely aligned to high jump, the hitch and kick, of which more later .

The best early height recorded in Border Games was 1m.60 by Thomas Anderson of Innerleithen in 1829.  “Unlike most jumpers, he had a straightforward technique, in place of the side jump”, said an account of the time.  This is clear indication of a primitive “Fosbury” layout, feet first, ensuring a safe landing, or side-on Western Roll.  Other jumpers were probably using an upright, “scissors” technique.

Border jumpers took high jumping to close to 1m.70 by the middle of the 19^th century, though there is no record of any technical development.  This is hardly surprising, as Border Games featured untrained, barely literate, farm labourers infrequently competing barefoot on rough fields, within a poorly-developed competitive structure.

By the final quarter of the century, amateurs had arrived, bringing with them a high volume of literate, well-equipped athletes, often working from cinder surfaces and with them came the first athletic literature.  With the rapid development of the railway system, it had also earlier brought into being a circuit of élite professional athletes who travelled Scottish rural games in the May-September period. 

One of these was the great Scottish all-rounder, Donald Dinnie, also the world’s most versatile wrestler.  Dinnie was almost certainly the first man to clear 6’0” (1m83) in 1868, at the age of thirty one.  What is interesting is that Dinnie took off from the inside foot, lying along the crossbar on his side, in what was probably a primitive Western Roll.  Equally interesting is Dinnie’s observation, during his 1870 American tour, of the Scottish American, James Goldie, diving over the crossbar in what was almost certainly a primitive “dive” straddle.

In 1876, Brooks (Oxford University) became the first jumper to officially clear 6’0” (1m83), achieving 6’2½ “ (1m 90).  Brooks deployed the same frontal feet-first method (a reverse flop) as the Scot, Anderson, had possibly done almost half a century before, described later by Americans as the “shoot” method.

Sweeney clearing the bar (approach from the right)

Almost twenty years later, in 1895, Mike Sweeney, an Irish-American, made the first great technical break-through, creating the Eastern cut-off.  This was essentially a modified “scissors” from a curved run, and had probably been deployed in one form or another for some years before.  Sweeney took the technique to a high level of maturity, securing a centre of gravity position close to the bar, with a flat layout, clearing 6’5⁵/₈”.  “I came down to the mark on my take-off exclaiming “I’ve got it!  I’ve got it” and as I jumped I went blind, but I cleared the bar.  The next thing I remember was Teddy Roosevelt picking me out of the pit”.  At his point, the Border Games “hitch and kick” returns, strangely in the New York Caledonian Games of 1898.  The event involved jumping to kick a tambourine suspended from a crossbar.  Not surprisingly, Sweeney won with a new world record of 9’2”, which still stands. 

Less than a decade later, the American, George Horine, is credited with the invention of the Western Roll, a hop-over jump involving take-off from the inside foot, not dissimilar to the earlier technique of Donald Dinnie and of Horine’s contemporary Alma Richards. Both the Western Roll and the Eastern Cut-Off describe their geographical derivations.

George Horine in the Stockholm Olympics

The rules on “diving”(heads ahead of hips) produced in 1924 a unique Western Roll variation by the 1924 American Olympic champion, Harold Osborne, who threw back his outside shoulder, marginally improving the quality of his layout.  .  “In a great many respects my form resembles the Western form..”  

No other jumper, to my knowledge, copied this technique until the Scot, Alan Paterson, in 1946.

Then came the American, Clinton Larson.  “I take a run of twenty yards or more.  My idea is to gradually increase my speed so that by the time I hit the take-off, I am running at full speed”.  Larson used a back layout “scissors”, lying flat along the crossbar, and cleared 6’9½” in 1924 in an exhibition.  Doherty ² describes Larson’s layout as inefficient, yet some photographs of the period show him in a surprisingly flat position, in essence a reverse straddle.

Dick Templeton’s Spalding booklet “High Jump” (1928) represents one of the first attempts of American college coaches to produce specialist technical works.  Templeton had himself been denied Olympic selection in 1920 for “diving”, (head and shoulders leading hips over the bar), as had later “Babe” Didrikson, an Olympic gold in 1932.  “High Jump” covers the full span of layout techniques since the 1890’s, but is the first book to lay a strong emphasis on take-off.

The “step over” technique (the straddle) had been shown in American athletics literature of the early 1920’s, but no-one seems to have laid claim to its invention, though the Texan, Bill Stewart, is often given the credit.  Stewart had been a rancher.  “At first, he took the barbed wire fences with the scissors high jump form, but found this both destructive to the seat of his trousers and unpleasant anatomically ….  He was forced to use the belly roll for with this form he could hold down the barbed wire as he rolled over it.  I never believed Jim’s yarn either” –  thus his coach Dean Cromwell.   The American Dave Albritton, became the first straddler to medal in the Olympics of 1936, though he used the Western Roll until the later heights.  The Berlin Olympics was probably the last Games in which every technique in previous history was displayed.

In the late 1930’s, the “diving” rule was relaxed (though it stayed in IAAF rules until 1951), permitting more advanced layouts.  Lester Steers (USA) cleared 6’11” (2m10) in 1941 with a “V” layout, but surprisingly it was a crude “scissors” technique which took gold for John Winter (Australia) at the 1948 Olympics.   What the “scissors” and its more sophisticated relative, the Eastern cut-off, did was to centre body weight over the take-off foot.  This Horine’s Western Roll and Stewart’s straddle did not do because of the need to initiate rotation on the ground.

 Few cut-off jumpers (Japan’s 1936 Olympics jumper Asakuma was an exception) could secure better layout positions than Western rollers, and none better than even flat straddlers such as Albritton.  The change in “diving” rules enabled layout positions far beyond even the most flexible Eastern jumpers, and only poor global communications enabled the Cut-Off to survive beyond World War II.

When the Russians arrived at the 1946 European Games, their jumpers used primitive Eastern cut-off techniques, but by they soon analysed American techniques and correctly deduced that the core of high jump lay in approach-run and take-off.   One of the major problems with both Western Roll and straddle had always lain in the loss of vertical lift due to lean-in at take-off in order to initiate rotation.  The Russians resolved this by initiating rotations through the swing of the lead leg and arms, thus preserving a more erect take-off position.  This free leg swing, combined with a double-arm shift, also aided take-off thrust and secured a higher centre of gravity position at take-off. 

It would not be overstating the case to say that Russian coaches transformed modern high jump.  This is not to ignore their injection of speed into the approach-run and their specialised conditioning methods.

Mildred McDaniel

Women’s high jump, in the first three Olympics had been won by scissor jumpers (1928 and 1932), or by Eastern cut-off exponents (1936).  It was only in 1956 that a straddler, Mildred McDaniel (USA), was to take gold.  The Russians, though applying the same technical principles to the women’s event, were unable to find females of Brumel’s calibre.

The embryonic state of women’s high jumping was underlined in 1964 when the Olympic title was taken by Rumania’s Iolanda Balas, using a primitive Eastern Cut-off, and Pamela Mason Brown (New Zealand) cleared 1m 82 with a basic scissors, the greatest height thus achieved by a woman.  This was to be the last occasion on which these techniques were to be deployed in Olympic competition.

Iolanda Balas

Then, in 1967, came Dick Fosbury.  Here it might be worthwhile observing that by the mid 1960’s landing areas had moved from sandpits to a mix of sand and scrap foam, then on to landing beds.  It was only this  that permitted the existence of Fosbury’s Flop with any prospect of a long season.   The American’s technique was the product of classic trial and error.  Fosbury, a basketball player, simply experimented with a basic “scissors” technique, (unwittingly mimicking Clinton Larson’s back layout scissors), then added the curved run of Mike Sweeney’s 1894 Eastern Cut-Off .  That, and the speed which both Larson and the Russian straddlers had deployed, gave us the Flop.

Dick Fosbury (from the cover of World Athletics)

 Four years later, over 80% of international jumpers were using the technique.  Television had accelerated the development of technical knowledge in a manner which was not available to the written word.   Conservative Russian coaches initially rejected the Flop as “gymnastics”; other less inflexible Communist coaches took it on and tried to add a straddle-type free leg swing and double-arm shift.  Indeed, the Hungarian jumper, Istvan Major, managed to do both.  Alas, a straight free-leg swing took time and it was not long before it was discarded.

It is remarkable how mature the first Fosbury Flop proves, on examination, to be.  For Fosbury’s final curve and take-off position is no different from most modern jumpers, though some use a double-arm shift, and others throw in a high inside arm. What is significantly different is the fact that Fosbury ran all the way on a curve. Another difference lies in layout position, for Fosbury’s layout was relatively flat, whilst many modern jumpers have produced arched positions of an efficiency close to the best 1960’s straddlers.

What has happened since Fosbury’s first full semi-circle approach has been a j-shaped run, with the curve only in the final 3-5 strides. Some jumpers have deployed a double-arm swing, the aim to give maximum centre of gravity height at take-off and interaction through the take-off leg. Others have settled for a high inside arm and shoulder , with the aim of locking into a strong, high take-off position. But the big issue has always been to hold shape at take-off, “ staying away” from the crossbar, in order to be able to drive vertically.   Another technical development has been greater arch in flight, for Fosbury was relatively flat. The best floppers now achieve an arch almost as efficient, in centre of gravity terms, as the dive-straddlers of yore.

We have come a long way from the barefoot Scots Border athletes jumping ground to ground, to modern Floppers taking off from synthetic surfaces and landing on well-sprung landing beds.  Is further technical development likely?  I doubt it.  The next change could well be in the nature of high jump itself, either two-footed jumping, or team- synchro events.  Don’t hold your breath.

LONG JUMP

The Ancient Greeks were ahead of us in at least one way, in that they deployed a landing-pit, the skamma, which also served as an area for combat-events. Alas, it is far from clear from the visual evidence that long jump was the same event as that which we now practice.   For we see jumpers in flight, (often supervised by a whip-wielding coach) , holding light weights called halteres. This would almost certainly indicate a multiple jump, like five spring jumps, where the use of weights would provide advantage.

This deployment of weights featured heavily in Lancashire in the second half of the 19^th century, part of a betting-based culture involving an infinity of standing and running jumps. In 1854, Howard of Chester leapt 29ft. 6 inches, off a beat-board, and carrying 8lb. dumbells.

All of this being said, we still have the Greeks writing of “making the bater ring”. The “bater” was the take-off area, and this is a clear indication of a running jump. The plain fact is that we will probably never know what the Greeks did.

* 

*Johann Christoph Friedrich GutsMuths, also called Guts Muth or Gutsmuths (9 August 1759 – 21 May 1839), was a teacher and educator in Germany, and is especially known for his role in the development of physical education. He is thought of as the “grandfather of gymnastics” – the “father” being Friedrich Ludwig Jahn. GutsMuths introduced systematic physical exercise into the school curriculum, and he developed the basic principles of artistic gymnastics.    GutsMuths is also considered by many to be the father of modern pole vaulting, as he described the jumping standards, the distance of the approach, recommendations on hand grip, and the principles of pole jumping.

“Many coaches, but by no means all,  have been competing athletes in their day but even fewer have been national champions or set national records.   Tom McNab has been national champion for triple jump five times and also set a national record for the event.   He has worked with many top class international athletes and his career has expanded far beyond the usual. ”    So starts the Tom McNab’s profile on this website which can be found at Tom McNab – Anent Scottish Running .   No mean athlete, and a top class coach but there is even more to Tom than that.   An athletics historian with academic knowledge backed up and illustrated with his own experience, a successful novelist using athletics as the basis for some excellent fiction and, combining his writing talent with his historical interests he has written some very interesting articles on the sport.   We are fortunate to be able to reproduce some of them here.   Read and enjoy then using the links below.

The Intercalated Games    Handicaps: A History   The Husplex    The Technical Evolution of the High Jump   

James Reston as he was in later life in the USA 

Over the years many club members have emigrated and for many reasons – after the first War there were several because of the recession which was in evidence all over the world – they went mainly to the USA.   After the second War, spirits were high, everybody was happy and there were many who emigrated, but this time mainly to the former Dominions of Canada, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa.   James Reston was a very good athlete indeed – runner, member of many championship winning teams, club captain and committee member at the start of the twentieth century who emigrated to America in 1920.    Why did he go?    His son was James ‘Scotty’ Reston – a top class journalist who interviewed American Presidents from Kennedy and Nixon right through until his death in 1995. That was a massive leap for the family fortunes.

We should begin by looking at his running career, then we will look at his life away from the track.  

Reston was in the main a cross country runner of some ability who first appeared in the club handbook for 1901/02.  There was a J Reston from Coatbridge who ran in the National in 1900 for Coatbridge finishing eleventh, which was four places in front of the Clydesdale’s last scoring runner, in a race which was won by a single point.  Reston was not a member of any of the Coatbridge teams in races in January or February of that year – not in the West District Championships nor in the Scottish Junior Championships.   For the latter Coatbridge had 12 names listed in the programme with another six as reserves but none were called Reston.    The Coatbridge team that day finished third with their first three runners being Andrew Forrester (2^nd), Alexander J Forrester (9^th) and James Reston (11^th).   All three were counting runners for the Clydesdale team the following year.  

Reston improved dramatically over the year, if the relative positions of the Forrester brothers are any guide, and finished fourth and third scoring runner for Clydesdale Harriers.   The other runners were D Mill who was first, R Reid second, A Forrester eighth, R Frew eleventh, AJ Forrester 12^th.   The fact that the two Forrester brothers were from Coatbridge adds to the suspicion that he was indeed the J Reston Coatbridge from the year before.

In season 1902/03 he won the prestigious Clydesdale Harriers Individual and Team Race held over 7 miles from Scotstoun in Glasgow, on 22^nd November, 1902 from team mate Robert Frew with Garscube’s Samuel Kennedy third.   He was again fourth in the National but this time was first scoring runner for the second placed Harriers team with the remaining scoring runners being Wilson twelfth, Frew thirteenth, A Forrester thirteenth, S Stevenson twenty fourth and AJ Forrester thirty fifth.   1903 was the first time that Reston was selected to run for Scotland in the Cross-Country International for the simple reason that it was the first ever international.   It was held at Hamilton Park and contested by Scotland, England, Ireland and Wales.   He finished 22^nd of 41 finishers in the race and was fifth scoring runner for the third placed team.

The teams that ran in the 1903 international

He ran again for the Scottish team in 1904 after finishing third in the Scottish Championships at Scotstoun Showground.   The club was again second and was led home by Sam Stevenson who would be a competitor at the Olympic Games in 1908.   Stevenson had come through the ranks steadily to become a national title winner on the track as well as over the country.  This time though Stevenson was second, Reston was third, Robertson seventh, Dick twenty eighth, Frew thirtieth and WG Kerr thirty eighth.   The international was held at St Helen’s in Lancashire where Reston finished 20^th in a field of 43 to be fourth Scottish finisher in the team that was third.

The above pages from the Clydesdale Harriers 1903/04 Handbook indicate that he had quickly become an important member of the club.     He was by now – only two years into the club – Vice Captain.   Each section had a section Captain and vice captain and at this time the club had the Headquarters Sections plus Airdire, and Dunbartonshire.

Below we have two more pages from the 1903/04 Handbook which have further information of this season’s work.

The next two pages of the Handbook refer to the Clydesdale Harriers 7 Miles Open Individual and Team Race held annually at Scotstoun which was one of the classics for several decades and be contested by all the clubs and runners in the country.  For several years there was a sprinting competition in the Scotstoun arena with heats and semi-finals to entertain the spectators while the runners were out in the country running a two lap course round the west end of Glasgow.   Prizes were often presented at a ‘smoking concert’ in the club rooms at 33 Dundas Street the following Wednesday.  At times they sold tickets to the evening at 3d a ticket.

In the following extract from the same handbook, he is mentioned three times in two pages with a ‘special mention’ for his fourth place in the National.

Not only was he a talented cross-country runner – and remember that the national championships were held over ten miles of road, grass, plough with obstacles to be climbed or waded through – but a good track runner.  

He also ran on the track in 1904 and at the Clydesdale Harriers Sports on 28^th May at Meadowside was part of the winning two miles team race in which the first three – S Stevenson, William Robertson and James Reston – were all club members and all international athletes.

He was promoted from Vice-Captain in 1903/4 to Captain in the next (‘04/05) season with Sam Stevenson as his vice-captain.   He ran in all the usual races over the country – club championships, 7 Miles Team Race at Scotstoun and the National Championships on 4^th March at Scotstoun.   This, 1905, was his last National Championships he was fifteenth, again behind Stevenson who was third, and in front of Martin twenty second, Campbell twenty fourth, A Forrester twenty sixth and W Robertson thirty eighth.   The team was third.  

*

It was at this point that Reston, who had been living in Clydebank for some time, disappeared from the scene.  He is not spoken of in athletics notes, sporting papers (such as ‘The Scottish Referee’) or even the club handbook.

What do we know about him as a person?  He was reported to be 5’2” tall and known as “Wee Jimmy”.   This is at variance with our typical picture of a Clydesdale Harrier of the time, modelled as it was on the Gentlemen’s Club with “one black ball in three” to exclude applicants for membership. but does indicate that all were welcome in the club.

In the search for more information about his personal circumstances we will use in the main two sources:

First there is the firsthand information from the biographies of his son and his journalistic contemporaries;

Second, we will use much of the research information gathered by Hamish Telfer.

A mature Jimmy at Dumbarton Rock

All of the biographies, whether they be very short or fairly long, mention that James was a ‘devout Christian’, or that he ‘had strong Calvinist beliefs’ or a variation on that theme.   They all unanimously mention that he was not a well-off man.   Eg: his son was ‘born in poverty’   or ‘born into a poor Scottish Presbyterian family’.   This is maybe a bit simplistic.

Johanna Reston, Jimmy’s wife.

To start at the beginning: James was born on 30^th April, 1872, to Thomas and Elizabeth Reston at 4 Claythorn Street in Calton, Glasgow.   Thomas was a cloth lapper by profession (ie one who moved cloth in the factory from one machine to the next in the weaving process) and by definition not a well-paid man.   By 1881 they were living at 3 Glenpark Street in the Barony District of Glasgow.  His father was now a van driver and James had three brothers and two sisters.   They moved again and by 1891 they were living in Cardross, Dumbarton; his father was now a Warehouseman and James a ‘Dyer Markhand.’

Those who said he was ‘born in poverty’ were probably exaggerating quite a bit, but in the days when men were employed as needed by the employer and then ‘let go’, his father had to move around quite a bit to stay in employment.   He started as a cloth lapper and then had two other jobs and house moves before going back to the same job in the same factory.  

James met Johanna Grace Irving, a woman from Stranraer whose father was described as a master craftsman and of some means.   He was a sculptor who was employed in making gravestones.   She had moved to Glasgow and was a clerk at a wood merchant’s and stayed at the YWCA in Calton.   James and Joanna were married on 22^nd June 1903 in the United Free Church.   By now they were living at 6 Radnor Street, Radnor Park, Clydebank, James’s employment was listed as Vertical Machineman.   They had a daughter (Johanna junior) born in 1906 and a son (James junior) on 3^rd November 1909.

We are told that.  They had enough money for ‘simple food and plain clothing’ but almost nothing extra.   Scarcity of money combined with a harsh code of self-denial, sacrifice and rigid religiosity imposed by his mother.    He worked as a machinist in the shipyards but, typical of the time, he was employed when needed by the yards, frequently laid off with no ancillary benefits and no guarantees of full-time work.   But by the census of 1901 – when James was starting to make his name as a runner – he was still living at home, but ‘home’ was now back in the Calton district where his father had returned to his trade as a cloth lapper while James was 28 years old and an ‘iron fuller’ which we are told is a practice in metal working and of moulding metal material.

Why did he stop running?   By 1905 he was 33 years old which was quite old for a runner of the time and he was now also a married man with a first child due in 1906 and a job which did not pay very much and was liable to be stopped when the employer thought it necessary.   This is where the first trip to America took place.   By April 1911 he had gone to stay with his brother in Dayton, Ohio and try to make a better life there for himself and his family.   We know that they were not at all well off when we note that he travelled ‘steerage’.   Not a word known today, steerage was the lowest possible way to travel.   Wikipedia tells us

“Steerage refers to the lowest possible category of long-distance steamer travel. It was available to very poor people, usually emigrants seeking a new life in the New World, chiefly North America and Australia. In many cases, these people had no financial resources and were attempting to escape destitution at home. Consequently, they needed transportation at an absolute minimum cost. In many cases they provided their own bedding and food. Steerage was very cramped and there was hardly any room for fresh air to get there. Many people died in steerage.

The term steerage was used to refer to the lowest category of accommodation, usually not including proper sleeping accommodation. In the United Kingdom, it was often referred to as third class, but there were instances where steerage was effectively fourth-class. In time, the designation came to refer to the lowest category in general, and in modern times is sometimes used sarcastically to refer to any uncomfortable accommodation in an airliner, ship or train.

Beds were often long rows of large shared bunks with straw mattresses and no bed linens.”

He made it safely to Ohio, found a job and sent for the family who came across to join him.   It didn’t work.   Johanna was a strict housekeeper, ran the family budget and was a very strict observer of the Christian religion as practised by the United Free Church.   For whatever reason, some say Johanna fell out with her sister-in-law, it didn’t work out and they came back home.  

There is a lot of discussion about this period in his life in “Scotty: James B Reston and the Rise and Fall of American Journalism” by John F Stacks.   This version of the aborted emigration says that in 1911 when his son was only two years old, he went to America where he hoped life would be better.   He went to Dayton, Ohio, but the ‘Independent’ tells us that domestic and financial problems overwhelmed the family’ and they returned home.   Stacks book says: “Less than a year after they had finally realised their dream of moving to America, the Restons were back in Scotland, their savings gone, living in a tenement house outside Clydebank.   They eventually settled in Alexandria, this time in a red stone tenement, on the banks of the River Leven.   And there they remained for another decade, trapped by poverty and then by the outbreak of World War 1, their hopes for a better life shattered.”

The Valuation Roll of 1915 has a James Reston as a resident at 808 Dumbarton Road and his occupation as ‘machine-man’.   This property was owned by Wiliiam Beardmore who owned shipyards around the west end of Glasgow with a well known Beardmore yard in Dalmuir, Clydebank.   Hamish Telfer suggests that James may have spent the war years in a reserved occupation.  In 1920, the Valuation Roll lists a James Reston, also a machine-man, living at 29 Gray Road, Bonhill, Alexandria.

More flesh is added to the statistics in Scotty Reston’s own words in his autobiography, “Deadline: a Memoir”published in 1991 when he says: “My father was a gentler sort, he was a strong, handsome little man – ‘five feet two in ma stocking feet’ he would say.   At work he was called Wee Jimmy.   He had golden hair and light blue eyes.   He was a machinist and worked when there was work at John Brown’s shipyard, or at the Singer Sewing Machine Company, or at Beardmore’s auto factory where they made munitions for the British army during the war.   In most of these jobs he was an inspector, and he took great pride in measuring things down to a hair’s breadth and he was very good at it.”

We stay with the two books to follow him on the second emigration in search of better things.     

Stacks again: “Throughout the years of World War 1, and in the face of periodic unemployment and the expense of two children, the family scraped together enough for another passage out of Scotland.  “How they every saved enough money on my father’s salary to get back to America, I’ll never know.” Reston said.   In 1920 Jimmy Reston again went off to America.   Months later Johanna, James and Joanna sailed in steerage to make another try at success.  [They sailed out on the SS Mobile arriving at Ellis Island on 28^th September, 1920]  In New York they were immediately put into quarantine as a precaution against smallpox, and young James worked in a kitchen at the quarantine facility to, as his mother put it later, “get more food for his family”.  When they finally arrived in Dayton, Ohio, Jimmy met them at the train station running happily down the platform.   He had found a job and had rented space in a gloomy rooming house along the railroad tracks.   The good news was that there were electric light and an indoor toilet.”

We are further told that James, and son James, at the age of 10, became paid caddies at the local Dayton golf club and young James attended the local Oakwood High School.   For more information on how he went from there to become a world class journalist with friends in very high places, there is plenty on the internet.

We hear no more of James Reston the runner but the story is a familiar, if depressing, one to anyone who knows anything about the desperation of the working man in that period of Scottish history.   His career as a runner was a series of triumphs with medals at every level, honourable club positions such as club captain in a club modelled on a gentleman’s club with celebrated sportsmen in a wide variety of sports, and competitor in the first two international cross-country races.   His life plunged into extreme poverty and then there was the tremendous upswing in the States where he lived to see his son become a well-known, highly respected and, maybe more important to a man who had known penury, very well-off journalist, before he died of cancer at the age of 62.   Unfortunately there is no record of his early career in athletics despite his son talking of him taking 15 mile walks on Carman Muir, Balloch.   It would have been an opening but nothing is said of it.

Thanks are due to Hamish Telfer for the statistics used in the second half of the profile and to Allan Sharp for his help when I was starting this profile.

Hamish Robertson, future ESH Club Secretary and, between 1972-75 and 1984-86, ESH President, in athletics kit, standing on the far right of the photo.   

Hamish Robertson (Edinburgh Southern Harriers)

Father of Alex Robertson. Hamish ran Edinburgh to Glasgow Relays after the War, with a total of seven (May 1949, November 1949, 1950, 1952, 1953, 1954, 1955.) He raced stages 2, 5, 6, 7 and 8 – and was a member of the team that won bronze in 1953, when he tackled the long 6^th Stage.

In the 1954 Senior National XC, he secured another team bronze. Hamish ran the National in 1950, 1951, 1952 (29^th and ESH second counter), 1953, 1954, 1955 and 1956.

The career of his near namesake WA Robertson overlapped with Hamish’s and they ran in several teams together.  In 1952, Hamish finished 14^th in the Eastern District CC Championship at Kirkcaldy and ESH secured team silver medals, narrowly behind Edinburgh University. Then, in 1953, Hamish was 16^th and sixth counter in the ESH team that won the title comfortably!  

In the Eastern District Cross-Country League, Hamish was 5^th in an ESH team that finished second at Kirkcaldy in November 1950. ESH won the league in 1950-1951

He was 9^th and counted in a winning ESH team in January 1952 at Liberton, over six miles of snow-covered country and icy roads. ESH won the league overall that 1951-1952 season.

ESH won the title again in 1952-3.

Hamish counted in an ESH team that finished second to EU in an Eastern CC League race at Falkirk in January 1956.

Leaders at the five mile mark of in the 1957 Scottish marathon championship: left to right, George King (22), John Kerr, Andy Fleming (16), Hugo Fox, Hamish Robertson (4), not known, Harry Fenion (17), not known, Ronnie Kane (24).

As a marathon runner, Hamish finished seventh in the 1953 Scottish Marathon Championship (named as J Robertson), fifth in 1955 and sixth in 1957 (in his fastest time of 2.46.07, well below the Scottish Marathon Club First Class Standard).   However, I don’t think he ever joined the Glasgow-based Scottish Marathon Club.

In 1953, Hamish also ran: Shotts Highland Games 15 miles where he finished sixth.  In this annual event, he was sixth again in 1954 (14 miles); and fifth in 1955 (only six seconds behind George King of Greenock Wellpark).

 In 1955, on 25^th June, Hamish was fifth in the Scottish Marathon, 2.46.58; on 13^th August 1955, second in Atholl and Breadalbane (Aberfeldy) 13 mile road race, winning the handicap, prize (value £2); on 20^th August 1955, fifth in the City of Edinburgh Highland Games marathon.

In 1956, Hamish was not as fit but, on 5^th May, finished one place ahead of Jackie Foster in the West Calder AAA 10 miles.

In 1957, on 22nd June,he was sixth in the Falkirk to Edinburgh Scottish Marathon Championship in 2.46.07.   Twenty three runners started. 14 finished below the standard of 2.55, another three were too slow and six dropped out, including such able and well known runners as AH Fleming, Ronnie Kane and Gordon Porteous.  Hamish was in front of Emmet Farrell, JM Kerr and Tom Scott .   On the 20^th July that year, he ran the Anster Fair 12.

In 1958, he dropped out of Edinburgh to North Berwick 22 miles and also failed to finish the 1958 Scottish Marathon on 21^st June. However, he ran better on 26^th July, finishing sixth in the Gourock Highland Games 14. Was this his competitive swansong? His son Alex remembers Hamish, who was born in 1928,  running as a veteran at several races, including one in Glasgow and the Kingsway Road Relays in Dundee.

HAMISH AS AN OFFICIAL

Edinburgh Southern Harriers was blessed at this time with many able and willing administrators, officials and back room boys.   From the above photograph Ian McKenzie, an excellent team manager, was ESH President from 1975-77.  Ian Clifton, a very popular Scottish official, was ESH President from 1978-80, SCCU President from 1977-78 and SAAA President in 1986. Martin Craven, a GB and Scottish International runner, and a great team man, was ESH President from 1980-82. George Brown, another fine runner and invaluable team man, was ESH President from 1982-84. From 1975-1984, Hamish Robertson was a well-respected, very encouraging Secretary for ESH. He was  Club President from 1984-1986.

Jackie Foster was an ESH team mate. His very first marathon was the 1955 Scottish event, when Joe McGhee (the 1954 Vancouver Empire Games Marathon Champion) broke the Scottish Championship record with 2.25.50. Jackie recalls that Hamish Robertson advised him about preparation and tactics for this long-distance challenge. That morning, before the race, they went to Woolworth’s, where Hamish purchased a pair of black gym shoes – “the type worn by Brownies at the time, with a brown gristle rubber sole, costing five shillings a pair.” Hamish was almost running barefoot – years before Abebe Bikila!

Ian McKenzie wrote: “I first met Hamish in 1952, when he was an active athlete, and received his help with training along with Jackie Foster. Although he remained a club member he took a break from being actively involved when Alex and his sister were young.

When Alex took up running, Hamish became more involved as a committee member and progressed to Secretary.

I am not aware that he ever represented us on any governing bodies, but he certainly officiated at cross country and track and field meetings for many years. He was always prepared to take on many roles at the marathons and half marathons the club organized. He remained active until he was a good age. 

At all the races, such as the Edinburgh Marathon etc. he would record finishers, hand out medals and keep finishers moving through the funnels – each job was vital to the event. On the track he was often the starter’s marksman or raking the sand at the jumps.

As you will have gathered, he would undertake any duty he was asked to perform. 

An unsung, but important helper.” 

Alex Robertson said that his father Hamish was a hurdles steward during the 1970 Commonwealth Games at Meadowbank, Edinburgh.   Aged 15, Alex himself was a baggage steward. In 1972, Hamish was also a baggage steward at the Europa Cup. He was a great help to emerging athletes like Allister Hutton, Ken Harkness, John Gladwin and many more – on Sundays they often set off for a long run from his house.  He was a guest on the television programme ‘This Is Your Life – Allan Wells”. Hamish helped Stewart Miller to set out cross-country courses in the South of Edinburgh. In 1997, he arranged a sponsor to publish the ESH Centenary History book.  

The East District XC Relays were at Fernieside: in 1969, 1971, 1973. Hamish would have officiated.

The last time that  Fernieside was used as a cross-country venue was on 18^th January 1975, when ESH won the East District XC Championship team title (1^st Allister Hutton, 4^th Colin Youngson, Nigel Bailey, Craig Douglas, Martin Craven, Alistair Blamire).

Brian McAusland wrote: Hamish was first voted as a member of the SAAA East District  and General Committee of the SAAA in 1990 having been elected for the first time in 1989.   Note that this was an elected position, members being voted for at the Annual General Meeting.   The clubs voted him onto the Committee.  Once on the General Committee, he was given the additional remit of being a member of the Thistle Award Scheme committee with Frank Dick, Barry Craighead and George Parrott. 

Alex Jackson wrote: “Hamish worked in the same building as I did at Edinburgh University, Kings Buildings.

I do remember he retired in 1988 as it coincided with me becoming East Secretary of SCCU.

He  didn’t officiate at any cross county after that I can see.

But as you know he was an ESH man and would go to great lengths to help with anything the club organised.

For the first Edinburgh Marathon of 1982, the Race Director was Dave Farrar, who was an ESH member and he brought in experienced hands, including Hamish, from the club to run the event. (He also helped with the second Edinburgh Marathon). 

The James Clerk Maxwell Building at Kings Building where Hamish worked had huge lecture rooms with literally hundreds of desks.

In the less busy summer university months, when undergraduate students were on holiday, before the first Edinburgh Marathon in 1982, Hamish used the lecture theatre desks to do the race registration administration work  for the race.

If you looked in the room you would see desks covered with registration paperwork. No computers (or very few) were around in 1982 to do all the admin registration work.”

There is an assumption that athletes are better catered for in the 21st century than they were in the 19th or even most of the 20th.    I would say that the assumption could at least be queried.   Even a quick look through the newspapers of the first half of the 20th century reveals that the quantity of track and field meetings was very high.   Tracks were very busy –

• Ibrox hosted the Rangers Sports, the Glasgow Constabulary Sports, until 1922 the Clydesdale Harriers Sports, Bellahouston Harriers meetings and many more;
• Celtic Park – up to the War in 1945 – held the Celtic Sports,  the Inter Club Championship organised by St Peter’s AC, some Clydesdale Harriers sports, Maryhill Harriers, West of Scotland Harriers  and others,
• Hampden held the SAAA Championships regularly, international meetings and even the Maryhill Harriers club championships at which world records were set.   
• Meetings were held by  (1) Athletic Clubs,  (2) local councils, (3) a variety of associations (eg the Deaf Blind Association held regular meetings),
• there were the Championships:- University Championships, Inter University Championships and County Championships.   The Ayrshire Championships had championship events held at West Kilbride and Darvel and other venues around the county.  
• Works organised Sports Meetings – Singers in Clydebank, Babcock and Wilcox’s in Paisley, Dirrans in Kilwinning are only three examples and even Junior Football clubs emulated their big brothers in having athletic sports meetings (Dalmuir FC was one such).
• The private schools such as Loretto, Glasgow Academy, Dollar Academy all had their own sports days and almost every one of them had open events from the amateur athletics circuit as well as those confined to former pupils.

They were all amateur events with few exceptions – Rangers FC, Celtic FC, Partick Thistle, St Mirren, Falkirk FC and others were in this category – with, I think, only Clyde FC Sports being professional, and for many years the Glasgow Police Sports were also professional.     The Games circuit was biased the other way – almost all were professional with few being amateur.    However you look at it though, there were more than enough events for an athlete to compete in in his preparation for any particular event.

Competition was always keen.   The major sports meetings in Glasgow and Edinburgh always worked hard to attract the top talent to their meetings.   Sometimes the athletes were specially invited, sometimes the athletes were here for an international meeting, sometimes they were on their way home from a major championships and at times there were even touring parties of Americans or British Universities stars from Oxford and Cambridge.    These athletes would take part in special scratch events arranged to showcase their talent or would have the field handicapped in such a fashion as to bring out the best in them in their quest for a fast time.   eg when Nurmi raced at Ibrox, Tom Blakely of Maryhill Harriers received a handicap mark of 400 yards – almost a lap.   Often enough the ‘star’ failed to win but set a record or a fast time.   The thrill for the spectators was seeing a quality athlete race through what might have been a top-class Scottish field.

Of course, these international athletes did not automatically decide to race at Ibrox one week, Celtic Park the next and Murrayfield later on by chance: the promoters were just that – they promoted their meetings as well as they could.   The top men at the football clubs were promoters in chief.   Men like Willie Maley, William Wilton and Bill Struth all went to the AAA’s championships, the Olympics and on occasion further afield to persuade the ‘stars’ to come to their meetings.    There is little doubt that expenses were paid, fairly  generous ones too and at one point both Rangers and Celtic were suspended from membership by the SAAA.   But the athletes came – if there were not enough good Scots to make a competition, then there would be exhibition events in such as pole vault or shot putt to entertain and educate the crowds.   There were even demonstration boxing matches and at one time Celtic Park had a concrete track as well as a cinder track and they held motor cycle trials on it.   

The meetings were well advertised in the local and national Press, there were sporting publications with the “Scottish Referee” circulating right up to the First World War.   

Compare that with the current athletics situation.

There are so many good pictures of Pamela available that we really should show at least some of them on their own.   We have some here in her club vest and in a Scottish vest.

The championships of 1925 had been a success with 36 schools taking part.   The standard was high and two new records were set.   The 1926 version of the meeting started off with a hiccup.   Due to take place on Saturday, 17th May they had to be put off: 

Why had they been cancelled?   This notice from the ‘Glasgow Herald’ maybe gives the game away.

They did go ahead on the new date and the following lengthy but comprehensive  report is from the ‘Scotsman’.

The number of schools taking part is not noted but the prize winning establishments included 

Alloa Academy, Ayr Academy, Allan Glen’s, Boroughmuir, Coatbridge, Dalkeith HS, Daniel Stewart’s, Dollar Academy, Dumbarton Academy,  Dunfermline HS, Govan High School, Greenock Academy,  Heriot’s, Hillhead HS, Kilmarnock Academy, Kintyre Technical School, Leith Academy, Queen’s Park, Royal HS, Stewart’s College, St Mungo’s, Trinity Academy, Vale of Leven Academy, Watson’s College.   That is 24 schools from all over Scotland, almost all of which are state schools as opposed to fee-paying private schools.   If the intention of the SAAA is setting up the Championships in 1900 was to broaden the appeal of the sport and the standard across the country generally, it seems as though they were succeeding.   Incidentally, Harold Abrahams, was in Edinburgh the night before the Games giving a talk in which some of the ideas seem strange and his comments on Eric Liddell a bit off.  This is it:

Quite the diatribe but a former public school pupil and Oxbridge graduate should realise the bad form shown in criticising a fellow athlete.   A remarkable sentence.   I can’t help feeling that had the boot been on the other foot, Liddell would not have commented thus on Abrahams.

*

Into 1927 and there were 36 schools taking part which the reporter felt had helped the high standard of the previous year being maintained.   The following complete report and list of results from the ‘Scotsman’ shows this.

Allan Glen’s, Alloa Academy, Ayr Academy, Bellahouston Academy, Boroughmuir, Coatbridge HS, Dalziel, Dollar Academy, Dunfermline HS, Heriot’s, Keil School, Kilmarnock Academy, Leith Academy, Queen’sPark, Robert Gordon’s College, Rothesay Academy, Royal High School, Stewart’s College,St Aloysius,  Trinity Academy, Waid Academy,    Medals distributed to 20 schools of the 36 entered is not at all a bad distribution.   Note too that a B McGettrick of St Aloysius was among the prize winners – the name of McGettrick has been associated with the school for most of the 20th century.

*

In 1928  the  meeting  was  again held  in  Edinburgh,  and the school making the headlines in both ‘Scotsman’ and ‘Glasgow Herald ‘was Keil School from Dumbarton.  East  and  West  sides  of  the country were featured above the coverage in the ‘Scotsman’ with Keil representing the West.  

The name to note in this set of results must surely be JR Blamire who won the Under 14’s 100 yards, had a second place in the 300 yards and a second in the Broad Jump.   He would go on to win in the 1929 and 1930 inter-scholastics as an Under 16 and the family has been represented in athletics right into the late 20th century and possibly further.   Note too the number of Dunbartonshire schools participating – from a relatively small area there were Dumbarton Academy, Vale of Leven and Keil School.

*

In 1929, the event was held at Hampden Park in Glasgow and the Keil School excelled again with even more material success.   The ‘Scotsman’ describes it as one of the most eventful meetings ever staged by the SAAA – no small claim that.

Note that the number of schools who competed over the years was still being added to: McLaren HS from Callander, Viewforth School, Gourock High School and Rutherglen ere all among the prize winners this time round.