JIT RIP - many memories of Ian Turnbull

I remember meeting Ian when I was 17. I completed my first long distance event, the End to End Walk in 1974 . Ian was a popular winner after finishing second twice before. He was at least three miles ahead of me by the end of the End to End, and he was also ahead of John Cannell, Ron Ronan etc, and my parents didn't take a photo of him. But I remember him shaking my hand and treating me as an equal.


I remember my election as treasurer of Boundary Harriers in 1979. Ian had been the long term treasurer and although Stan Sille held the position between us, Stan was quick to point out that it was Ian's systems that we were still using. The club was in such a sound financial position that it made it easy for his successors to build upon his housekeeping.


I remember Ian as the auditor for the next 10 years that I held the treasurer's position. I would get myself in a muddle and only balance the books at the last minute giving him hardly any time to review them. I would typically only give him a few days to spare before the AGM and he would be out playing bridge at my uncle's bridge club or have another commitment on all but one or two of them. Somehow, he would find time to review the records and then come around to our house only to spend about 10 minutes asking me one or two questions and then the next hour talking about everyone under the sun.


I remember how he continued to organise Boundary Harriers annual Christmas tombola in everything but name. As a government official he didn't think he should have his name on the tickets but his name was stamped on the profits.


I remember calling to see him with Boundary Harriers Chairman Roy Corlett, at his house in Somerset Road, after he had been in hospital following a bike accident. We talked and talked.


I remember him officiating with Kevin Madigan at the Boundary Harriers/Manx Airlines open meetings at the NSC. I used to look forward to seeing him earlier each lap because in those days the roadway was more than half a mile and they used to provide one mile split times so they would progress around the course for each split.

Ian is pictured outside the Boundary Harriers clubhouse (with the late Geoff Cannell alongside and the late Kevin Madigan in the green jacket timekeeping opposite) in 1985.

I remember the first Firemans' runs around Douglas in the winter of 1979. Long before computers, by the time we had enjoyed a cup of tea and biscuit after the run, Ian would have deducted the handicap times from the finishing times and calculated the actual times for Kevin Madigan to read out before we left to watch Yes Minister, one of his favourite  TV shows.


But memories are not all they seem. Neither Ian nor Kevin were ever present officials at King George V Park as this 1978 photo of the Boundary Harriers invitation meeting shows. They are both in the line up.

Left to right: Amos Seddon (guest), Graham Young, John Corrin, Derek Harrison, Ian Turnbull and Kevin Madigan (watching/officiating are John Cannell, Edwin Dudley and Peter Lewthwaite)

And I don't really remember taking this photo of Ian at the start of the Manx Mountain Marathon - but I did.

Boundary Harriers team for the Manx Mountain Marathon. Left to right; Phil Cain, Richie Stevenson, Roy Corlett, Ian, Allen Moore and Allan Corlett

But I remember him as an official at the end of the Parish Walk when I finished for the first time in 1976.

And being photographed with me (as runner up) with John Cannell and Dennis Lace.

Note Ian's Hillman Avenger in the left of the finish at the Parish Walk in 1976. Left to right: Dennis Lace, Murray Lambden, John Cannell and Ian Turnbull.

And officiating at the finish of the End to End Walk.

Allen Moore is timed in at the Sound during the 1976 End to End Walk

And more memories at King George V Park (before the NSC).

Steve Taylor finishes at the King George V Park in front of Ian who is standing between Roy Corlett (hat) and the Dennis Lace

Apart from my annual meetings when he signed off the accounts, I have fewer memories of Ian in the later 80s. I think that this was time when he was much more involved with cycling than athletics and I am sure he ended up holding several positions of responsibility in that sport.


But I remember him coming to the rescue of the sport in 1991 after there was a split in the IOMAA resulting in my resignation as chairman alongside Graham Young (secretary) and David Butterworth (treasurer). Ian was persuaded to take on the role of caretaker treasurer and, as you would expect, concentrated on getting things in good order. I wrote an emotional eight page reply to one of his questions about past governance - he merely extracted the facts.


The following year, I remember my very first run around one of my old walking courses around Crosby. Who did I meet but Ian. What continuity with the past. He had moved to Mount Rule which was about as close to Douglas as his parent's house had been in Union Mills, a place we use to regularly call to collect the key to let ourselves into the Boundary Harriers clubhouse - the Memorial Hall in those days.


One of my most surprising memories was that he told me he did not believe in saving for old age. It was so important for him to make the most out of life. Although he undoubtedly earned a good living, he was never afraid to take the morning off work to ride with his cycling friends or incur the cost of regular travel to watch Everton.


The only time I remember eating at the Sea Terminal restaurant Ian walked past the window and waved on the return from his Saturday day trip to Goodison Park.


In 2002 he returned to the End to End for the first time since his win. My computer memory tells me what he said at the time: "Having started (and finished) the first E2E in 1961, I decided it would be appropriate if I started the first west coast version, which I did, notwithstanding my total lack of fitness (and exceeded my expectations by going as far as the Cronk)".

End to End Walk comeback in 2002 

I remember when I first used to train on Saturday afternoons with Paul Curphey, Paul would run out to Glen Vine on a Sunday morning where Ian was at home with his friends, mostly with a Boundary Harrier background.

Ian pictured in 2005 with the most famous of the Glen Vine crew - Irene Corlett

I remember seeing him on the Friday night of TT practice week at the Quarter Bridge in 2007, where he was watching with another Boundary Harrier stalwart, Geoff Walmsley. My words, on meeting him for the first since he had lost his wife, Maureen, and had himself been treated for cancer, were rather inadequate.

Geoff Walmsley at the Quarter Bridge watching the TT practices with Ian in 2007. Boundary Harriers (later to merge with Manx AC to form Manx Harriers) were formed at the pub across the road


But I remember a better conversation with him a few weeks later at the Parish Walk near Dalby where he enthused about the website as he watched the walkers go by.

Ian is in the background watching Robbie Callister heading towards his fifth Parish Walk win in 2007

Ian had his own name on the Parish Walk trophy in 1968, as I have been reminded this week. I always list the finishers in fastest time order but it was Ian, and not the late Leece Kneale, who was the official winner in 1968 because the latter was not a member of an athletic club.

Ian standing with fellow Parish Walk winners, between Derek Harrison (left) and Willie Corkill at Dermot O'Toole's book launch in 2004

I remember who won 10 years after that and after a further 10 years it was my brother Martin.

1968 and 1988 Parish walk winners Ian Turnbull and Martin Lambden

I remember Ian back in action at the 2008 End to End Walk on the feeding station at the Devil's Elbow.

Three pictures of Ian manning the feeding station in 2008

When he suffered the loss of Maureen it was the Goldsmith family who did as much, if not more than anyone, to support him. I remember the increased grief he suffered when Brian passed away suddenly the following year. But he was the first person to offer to write an obituary. It appeared here: http://www.manxathletics.com/Brian.htm


My final memory of Ian was the most memorable. For a long time I had felt guilty about not visiting him, particularly as I thought about him as I ran past his old house in Somerset Road most mornings. I called to see John Stubbs in hospice unaware that Ian was back there himself. Coincidentally it was again on the Friday of TT practice week. I asked would he welcome a visit but I was still conscious that he might be just polite in accepting my company.


I left his room an hour and a quarter after stepping in having chatted about all our common interests and repeated, and laughed at, our stories of mutual friends. It was the first time I met his second wife, Joyce, and I left thinking that they would still have a long time together. They had quickly gathered many happy memories of their own as they traveled between the UK and Peel, where they had shared a home before returning to Mount Rule. As I departed he said that he would pop along to have a chat with John - always thinking of others.


Ian was so good at statistics and if he was to rank all the people who knew him best I would barely make the top 1000. So if I have so many fond memories of a great man, I wonder how many stories the other 999 have of him.


Many of them will have been shared, either publicly or with Ian's close family, as they come to terms with his loss.

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