Director catches Producer
outside the Bank!
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If I hadn't come out of South Kensington tube at 5.30 on a spring evening in 1983 Derek Horne, an old producer friend, would not have seen me and wondered if I was free to direct a project. At that very moment as Channel 4 and ERT 1 of Greece were still deliberating for a second year on my film on Lord Elgin and the Parthenon Marbles, I was definitely free.
Having just filmed the year before Daley Thompson winning Gold in the European Games, and breaking the World Record, I was in 'sports mode' and the Marathon seemed equally challenging that summer while awaiting a final decision from Melina Mercouri and Channel 4.
Why people force themselves to run 26 miles, and what brings members of many nations from every walk of life together at the great New York Marathon at the end of the film - was a lesson in itself. We discovered that 59 barmen, 51 members of the clergy, 161 dentists, 6 game-keepers and 520 accountants (all audited of course) managed together with the 15,193 people who finished the race, to eat 9.5 miles of spaghetti, ½ ton of meat sauce and 8,000 ozs of grated cheese before the start.
Our protagonists Sammy and Dr Bob Green and Bill Glad proved to be very determined and courageous as they tackled both the UK Polytechnic Harriers and the New York Marathons, and we learned what it is to "hit the wall'. Also it was a delight to trace the original route that Phiedippides had run 2,473 years ago and to complete those painful 26 miles from Marathon to the old marble stadium in Athens, as it was the first time it had been used this century for the 'Marathon' since Baron de Coubertin's 1896 Olympics.
