Philippe Brown

Phil has corrected me his drink of choice when we were growing up was a "Snowball" !!!

This is an article Phil has from the local paper where it would appear that having won the U17 local schools title at some date earlier I went on to collect my own age group title U16 with Ray and Phil the runners up. Phil has also corrected me that another clipping from another year, states that the anticipated 'clash of the undefeated' group 1 & 2 champions Ray Powell and me did not come off as I suffering from flu and was beaten into 3rd by Ray and Phil!!

Philippe Brown and Ray Powell were my first ever running buddies!

We got to know each other through competing in the local schools track and CC Championships in the London Borough of Barnet aged 11/12 in 1973/74.

We trained together at Copthall and had fun after training 'playing' High Jump and Pole Vault!

Ray and Philippe were members of Shaftesbury Harriers whilst I had joined London Irish. Copthall was my local track and I spent more and more time training with those guys rather than travelling miles (on my bike!! ) to West London Stadium (now Lynford Christie Stadium [still??]).

Phil, Ray and Frank Attoh (an GB International Triple Jumper [now coach] finally persuaded me to join Shaftesbury around about 1976.

We grew up together. I was the Irish immigrant, Ray was the Cockney local and Philippe was the exotic one with a French mum and Caribbean dad (might have been Guyana?).

As I gravitated towards beer and rock Phil went Babycham and 'Soul Boy' !!

So while Ray and me went to see Queen at Ally Pally , Phil was clubbing it or mincing around at Level 42 shows!! Maybe it should have been me and Ray doing the mincing seeing as we were Queen fans!!

Ray did a Painters and Decoraters apprenticeship leaving school at 16, Phil did some dodgy Sociology course at some Northern Poly whilst I went to Lufbra to pursue my athletics career!!.

Eventually life took us in different directions, though I stayed in touch with Ray as he kept on running though thick and thin .

Phil must have given it away by the time he was 16.

In our teens Phil and I used to work together doing a 'part time' early morning cleaning job 6 days a week at a large shopping centre. It wasn't the best preparation for athletic prowess, as it meant getting up at 5.00am, cycling 5miles to the shopping centre , working for an hour and a half, cycling back home then going to school!

You can imagine that by evening we were often tired!

I lost contact with Phil, until today when he found my blog and posted a comment on my last post! As I've said before, isn't the WWW fantastic!

I collected the photo above as a framed gift from Ray during my recent visit to London. With much embellishment, Ray announced the occasion of the photo, it was the (only) occasion when Ray beat me in the Barnet Schools CC Championships (probably Under 14's) , I suspect Phil might have finished 3rd, unless he also scalped me!!

[ Yeah I was suffering Flu and sick as a dog but I still got up off my sick bed after spending the morning doing my arduous paper round, in order to put myself on the line and provide Ray with his most memorable lifetime achievement!]. Looking at the height difference between us, I believe Ray and Phil were at least 4 years older than me!

Guess who we used to nickname 'Huggy Bear' (from Starsky and Hutch!) ?