September. Last of the summer wine.

[Bierzo Baggie]

For me this was a vague name from the past, occasionally mentioned with a mixture of humorous disbelief and reverence and synonymous with the Black Country town of Tipton. A town whose favourite son is a 19th century bare-knuckle boxer called “The Tipton Slasher” certainly suggests a lack of politically correct role models but Jack Holden was one of them, a hard-working, decent athlete and a man of the people.

Other famous Tipton personalities include Wolves and England goal-machine Stevie Bull (“ooo-Bully-Bully!!”) who hailed from an estate that was known locally as “the lost city” (one road in and one road out..). Then more recently there were the Tipton taliban, 3 local lads picked up by the yanks in Afghanistan, giving Tipton the dubious honour of being the most represented town at the Guantanamo prison camp! I also recall Tipton cropping up a few times in Viz, most memorably under the “shroud of Turin really from Tipton” headline….oooo those Geordie funsters! Not a lot more to say about the place….

However, Tipton’s finest are surely the famous Tipton Harriers. Remember watching cross country on Grandstand and spotting the green and white hoops which were usually out in abundance. Dad says that the first Brit to finish in the men’s marathon at this year’s Europeans was a Tipton man. And so was Jack Holden. He’d invariably come up in the running conversations of my dad and uncle Trev and I remember my granddad mentioning him in affectionate terms as well. No idea what era they were talking about, it was probably between the wars when The Commonwealth games (where Jack won the marathon) were still called “the Empire Games”. Although he never won an Olympic medal, they say that at his best he was the best marathon runner in the world and he only retired from top class competition well into his 40s when he was beaten by arch rival Jim Peters. I also remember many years ago a fellow on a campsite in France buying me loads of beers just because I’d actually heard of the great man (this sounds dodgy I know, but Jack Holden had an aura and buckets-full of anecdotes).

Whilst out walking last week dad told me that old Jack had died earlier this year and I decided to find out more….more on Jack Holden to come.

Nearly forgot. Saturday morning. Ran around the canal. 30 minutes. Found out by accident that there’s a 10km in Ponferrada tomorrow morning. Will probably saunter along.