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dad to say that I wasn’t looking too well, and that I could be in trouble. I honestly can’t remember much about the following mile or so of the race. I was just concentrating on keeping moving. At times I was aware of dad jogging at the side of me, and hearing him saying, ‘Elaine, Elaine, keep shaking your head. Try and follow the white line in the middle of the road. You’ve not far to go, lass. Just hang on. You’re nearly there. You’ve got a big lead. Nobody’s anywhere near you.’
    They say hindsight is a wonderful thing, but on this occasion I’m not so sure it would have been. Little did I know that I had started suffering the effects of heat exhaustion and dehydration. In the men’s race, that had already finished, the leading man had experienced what was happening to me, but unfortunately he had collapsed just one mile before the finish, and had been taken away in an ambulance to hospital for treatment. It seems bizarre to say but, back in those days, it was against the rules to take on water to drink in any race less than twelve miles. How things have changed... and for the better! That last mile, dad was with me every step of the way. As I approached Hillsborough Park, I could see the stadium in the distance. I could hear the cheering crowds, and I so desperately wanted to be at the finish line. My hair was plastered to my head with sweat, and my white vest top felt like it had been attached to me with glue. It was so bloody hot! The course record, which I so wanted to break, was now long gone, but it didn’t matter. I had nearly achieved my goal. Entering the stadium was a feeling that I will never ever forget as long as I live. I felt like a superstar. The stands were packed full of spectators. So many people who knew me were shouting out my name and waving their arms around, clapping and whistling. As I stepped onto the cinder track for my final lap, I glanced over my right shoulder to where the finish line was. Dad had entered the stadium just behind me and, as I stepped onto the track, he shouted, ‘Go on, lass, you’ve done it. You’re on your own now.’
    It would have been lovely to have dad crossing the finish line with me, just to enjoy the moment with him. But I know that for dad the win meant just as much to him as it did to me. I know that on that day, 1 st June 1982, Lol Allen was a very, very proud man, and for me, well...I’d won it for Dad and that’s all that mattered!

The Waiting Room
    3 rd November 1997
    Over the past few years, the interior of the consulting suite at Thornbury Hospital had become so very familiar. The water dispenser still stood in the same place, as did the reception desk; even the décor was still the same, albeit except for a lick of paint. In 1993, following two years of chronic back pain, I’d had a laminectomy (disc removal from the back), then three weeks on traction and six months in a plastic jacket. Following the surgery I had around three years of day surgery, starting out at six week intervals, extending to intervals of several months; and here I was again with something new!
    Had I done something really bad in a former life?
    Oh, well, here we go again!
    The previous week we’d had our first consultation with Mr Andrew Shorthouse, a general surgeon. He said he wasn’t unduly worried when he examined me but, just as a precaution, he was going to take a needle biopsy. ‘Most lumps of this nature usually disappear over a period of a week. It could even be a little cyst of some sort. Let’s give it a week and see what happens; in the meantime we’ll get you an appointment for a mammogram next week, and we’ll take another look next Monday’.
    Nigel and myself left his office and, as we approached the lifts, Nigel turned towards me and stated, ‘Well, that all sounds reassuring doesn’t it? I feel better about that now, don’t you?’ ‘Yeah,’