Author Archive for: Norman

In those days, there was a a zoo in Heaton Park, down near the huge boating lake and disused viaduct. After some good finishes in my school cross country runs through The Clough, (because I was one of the few kids who didn´t stop for a fag half way round) I was eventually selected to run for the town and subsequently made my debut at sixteen for the Lancashire County Schools team, and I immediately realised I had hit the big time, when I learned the race would be through Heaton Park rather through Prestwich Clough. At the foot of the quarter of a mile finish up one of the steepest hills in Heaton Park I was in fifth place and could see the group of four leaders retreating towards me. The trouble was that about thirty five runners overtook me as I went running up that hill long before Kate Bush and I finished almost in last place and still just behind those four early leaders. I could only walk the last few yards to the finishing line, and I´ve heard there´s a plaque there somewhere that defined that stretch of road as being where Norman Warwick ran two races in one day. He ran his first race for Lancashire Schoolboys and his last race for Lancashire Schoolboys on the same day,…and at the same time!