Memory Lane
Forty years ago, Chariots of
Fire was released. A year before, in the summer of 1980, in the middle of my A levels, a friend called.
His brother, at Cambridge, knew a ‘second assistant deputy director’, recruiting extras for a crowd scene. The pay was £20 for two days. The film, about runners, was to be called Chariots of Fire.
A coachload of us tipped up at Chelsea College for a costume-fitting. I got two outfits: a striped boating blazer with slacks and a brown suit as subfusc.
Two days later, I picked up my garb at Eton College, standing in for Trinity (the Cambridge college having turned down a filming request).
The scene takes place early on. Harold Abrahams (Ben Cross) and Lord Lindsay (Nigel Havers) compete against the clock in the Trinity Court Dash. To win, they must complete the circuit before the midday chimes finish.
Ben Cross and Nigel Havers approached the start. The director told us to greet and cheer the runners as we liked. In one shot, a yob extra swore. The director shouted ‘CUT!’ We froze. ‘No, make that “You swanker!”’ the director shouted at the swearer.
We lined the route. The race was on. The runners passed inches away. We dashed to the opposite side of the quad to keep up. We ran back to the finish. Abrahams wins!
Away from the camera, we swaggered around in costume in the grounds and faux lorded it up in town. Lunch was as many cheese-and-ham rolls and Penguin biscuits as we could handle, and urn-loads of strong coffee.
At the end of the second day’s shoot, the director announced that another day’s filming was required to film a handful of us walking and pushing bicycles across the quad. ‘Are any of you Equity members?’ he asked. Fifty hands shot up.
One summer evening in 1986, I was at the Edinburgh Fringe, queueing with my parents in a tiny venue to see the little-known John Sessions (RIP) and Ruby Wax. My mum whispered to me, ‘Don’t look behind you, but…’
Turning round immediately, I saw Ian Charleson, who plays Eric Liddell so brilliantly in the film. He was dressed in double denim and handrolling a cigarette.
I said, ‘You were in a film with me once!’
He asked, ‘Which one was that?’
Sadly, less than four years later, he died.
By Graham Elliott, Manston, Kent, who receives £50
Readers are invited to send in their own 400-word submissions about the past