That bit of history

As Christian Varley was heading for victory in the Northern 10 Miles today I was fairly sure that he had created history as he and has dad Tony had become the first father and son to win the Northern 10 Miles. I checked as soon as I got home and Tony had won it in 1984.

In fact I think that the history is a lot deeper. I can't think of anyone who has achieved this in any other road race either.

It was great to talk to Christian's mother Mary today as I hadn't done so for many years.

She was a little bit worried at the finish because with Christian less than half a mile from the end there was not a person to be seen at the finish and there were no marks on the road to indicate a finish line. We should not have panicked as Steve Kelly arrived with the stopwatch at least a minute before Christian arrived!

For those that don't know all the Manx connections, Mary is a sister of athletes Stuart and Robbie Lambie and I am sure that she used to win all the races in the Western District Primary School Sports for St Johns (I could only make the relay for Michael).

Back in the late 80s Mary used to work part time from our house. Marie was running the Isle of Man operation of a diving company from our home in Albany Street. Although she worked through to an hour of going to the Jane Crookall Maternity Home to start the long process of delivering Robbie, she needed some help afterwards and Mary was, for a short time, one of the people who helped to pay the divers' wages working from an office in our attic.

It was at about the same time that I used to train regularly with Christian's father Tony. Tony, Andy Garrett and I used to train a couple of times a week at Nobles Park and occasional other places - it was with him that I first started using Belmont Hill for a training session and I used it so much with my later training partners.

I remember that I was studying hard for the Institute of Chartered Secretaries exams, Tony was studying for his Fire Services exams (and having to go off the Island a lot) and, long before Andy became Dr Garrett, he was also working hard on something. We all used to buck each other up when we would report on how hard we were finding our respective challenges and try and convince each other that it would all be worthwhile in the end.

I also trained with Tony a few times at race walking for the 1978 TT walk. Tony came into the sport through the ultra events and then for a time switched to race walking before finding his real forte - winning the Manx Fell Running Championships more than any other runner I recall. He later switched sports again and made the 1995 Island Games team as a cyclist.

Going back to the short time he competed at race walking I was just starting out. I won the 1978 Parish Walk and thought I was being a good sportsman when I got my dad to drive me back around the course to cheer on the other walkers - we thought that there were a good number of finishers that year but only 8! I got a dressing down from Tony as I had the opposite effect on him as he saw that I had finished but he still l had a good few miles to go. It was Tony's only Parish Walk finish.

My dad died suddenly just a couple of months after that and there were so many things that I wished I had done with him and that he had been around to see some of the things I was to do.

But a father and son winning the same race. That really is something a family should treasure.