Western Daily Press (Saturday)
Hurdling champ is now helping children ‘be the best they can be’
John Wright talks to a British Olympic hero who has spent a lifetime helping others clear any hurdles between them and reaching their goals
IT started quietly enough. “The Olympic 400 metre hurdles final,” BBC commentator David Coleman says almost inaudibly in Mexico City in 1968 as you see them settling for the start – and readers may like to spend 48.12 seconds watching this on YouTube.
“Two Germans, two Americans, one Italian, one Russian and two Britons...”
Coleman is off to a flyer. “Hemery’s going up very quickly in lane 6!” the tension in his voice going up a notch or six as Cirencester-born David Hemery soon draws level with the apparent front runner in the outside lane.
“He’s really flying down that back straight!” Soon Coleman’s screaming is so loud you can’t hear him clearly, Hemery about to win by seven yards. “But Hemery takes the gold! David Hemery wins for Britain! In second place Hennige...and who cares who’s third! It doesn’t matter!! [Someone no doubt told him it was British teammate John Sherwood]....A new world record!”
With the 2020 Tokyo Olympics
now but a year away it’s easy to remember such thrills of these fouryearly summers, and in fact three parts of the West Country can claim Dr David Hemery CBE DL as theirs.
“I was born in Cirencester because my parents were visiting a friend of theirs there,” he tells me recently from his home near Marlborough, Wiltshire, where he moved with his wife and two sons in 1983.
The BBC’s 1968 Sports Personality of the Year’s first memories of the West Country (1970-73) are of teaching at Millfield School in Street, Somerset.
“The countryside around there is lovely,” he says. “I used to go for runs from the school to the top of the Tor, using the roads. It’s not like in Wiltshire where we’ve got downland and can go over a stile or open a gate and there are lots of tracks, making it fabulous for running, riding and cycling. I found lots of barbed wire in Somerset and you had to stay on the roads.
“I was a housemaster at Millfield and taught A-level economics and O-level commerce. I loved doing remedial weight training for those who couldn’t do a sit-up or press-up, then basketball and athletics.
“I loved the fact that Millfield was a ‘Robin Hood school’. The headmaster charged people who wanted a different kind of education. One boy in my house, Sheikh Bin Zayed’s son, from Abu Dhabi, was going to become the head of the army so he had a ballistics course while there learning English.
“The head charged three times the fee, which they didn’t mind, then gave scholarships to those who were good academically or in music, art and sport. And I thought that was a brilliant approach. Rob the rich to pay the poor.”
In Street, Hemery remembers frequenting Clarks Shoes and buying sheepskin slippers. “Somerset still has a very similar feel to it that it had in the ’70s,” he says. “All the Glastonbury and Wells ancient traditions, particularly at the time of solstice; although as for roads the A4 was it, and no motorway often meant having to drive a long way.”
After his first year at Millfield he went to America and did a Masters degree at Harvard in education and psychology. Before returning to Millfield, Hemery went to the Munich Games in 1972 where he won a silver medal in the 4 x 400m relay and bronze in the 400m hurdles.
His experience in sport made him wonder how young people can benefit from ideas he has picked up along the way.
After the London Olympics a suggestion by Sebastian Coe, right, soon became Hemery’s 21st Century Legacy and its online Be the Best you can Be! Programme.
“When I came back from the US where I was head track coach at Boston University (1976-83) I met Sir John Whitmore who was interested in Inner Game... books by Tim Gall
I was paid for Superstars as by then I’d finished my amateur status. The 1973 show they called the Magnificent Seven because they had Joe Bugner, Tony Jacklin, Barry John, Jackie Stewart, Bobby Moore, Roger Taylor and me
DAVID HEMERY
wey. “If you’re a tennis player you say, ‘Am I dressed right? Will I look stupid?’ I was interested in what happens in the mind and we started a programme to help sport coaches recognise that engaging the athlete’s brain would get more from them.
“In the early ’80s we introduced ‘coaching and management’, people realising they could do better in business by asking customers what they needed and how they could supply it to them. Those at the top in business have very few people to reflect with so they’ve got to improve the way they manage themselves.
“It was a holistic programme to do with their health, exercise, nutrition, their focus, priorities and goals, and realising that our behaviour is based on our values.”
Hemery has been involved in business as co-director of companies Developing Potential and Performance Consultants.
In fact, he was 12 when he first left England for America and was introduced to their ‘can-do’ attitude.
“The coaches knew there are no limits. It’s just how hard you want to work. Later, when I was vice-chairman of the British Olympic Association, I thought it’d be great if kids knew how to coach each other.”
His favourite of the four books he has written for parents, teachers and coaches is How to Help Children Find the Champion Within Themselves.
He says some 1,000 schools have already taken part in the Be the Best you can Be! Programme and hopes even more will catch on.
The public may remember David Hemery best from the British Superstars TV programme which he won three times (1973, 1976 and as UK Past Master in 1983).
He remembers footballer Stan Bowles in the pistol shooting event.
“His hand was jumping around like mad. You had to shoot five shots at these little things the size of 50p pieces five metres away,” Hemery says.
“When he put the gun down it went off and blew a hole in the table. The official turned white and people were laughing their tails off.
“When golfer Tony Jacklin’s first four shots missed he turned round and said, ‘At least I’ve got them surrounded’.
“In the 600m steeplechase I was given a 100m handicap. I won but had to set off chasing these guys and saw boxer Joe Bugner running back towards me. He’d refused at the water jump and was having a second run at it. I was in an amateur era so competing for money was barred,” Hemery says.
“I was paid for Superstars as by then I’d finished my amateur status. The 1973 show they called the Magnificent Seven because they had Joe Bugner, Tony Jacklin, Barry John, Jackie Stewart, Bobby Moore, Roger Taylor and me.
“First prize was £4,000 [£42,000 in today’s terms] and it helped pay for the house we’re living in now.
Today, at 74, Hemery’s still on the move. “I’m president of the [Marlborough & District] Junior Athletics Club and if I’m ever asked if I could coach hurdles I always say yes, if any hurdlers can get to this area and bring their coach.
“I find it strange that more people don’t ask. Steve Cram says he was never asked what he did to get to his world record. So don’t be shy, any hurdlers out there. Like Ghostbusters, a gold medallist is waiting for your call!”