Title
David Crocker Oral History Recording
Subject
David Crocker
Description
An oral history interview with David Crocker
Creator
Michael Romyn
Publisher
Kent's Sporting Memories
Date
Interview recorded on 31 January, 2020
Contributor
David Crocker; Michael Romyn
Rights
Kent's Sporting Memories
Format
MP3 (58:20). Also available in WAV
Language
English
Type
Sound Recording
Identifier
David Crocker
Transcription
Kent’s Sporting Memories Oral History Summary
Interviewee: David Crocker
Interviewer: Michael Romyn
Date: 31 January, 2019
Location: Folkestone Care Centre, Kent
0:00 Name, place and date of birth (David Crocker, Folkestone, 6 April, 1938); other than two years National Service in Germany, David has lived in Folkestone all his life; David’s parents are from Folkestone (father) and Dover (mother); his grandparents on his mother’s side are from Dover, and from Folkestone, possibly by way of Portsmouth, on his father’s side; his grandfather on his mother’s side was a builder, and his other grandfather was a window-dresser in Folkestone; his father was a postman all his life, and his mother was a chambermaid in a Folkestone hotel before becoming a housewife – she also took in lodgers during the holiday season.
2:20 His father was apparently a very accomplished football player; David’s memories of Folkestone as a child, during the war – his first memory was as a two-year-old, when his father ‘stuck me between his legs’ during a Messerschmitt strafe attack over Folkestone; when asked if he was scared David said: ‘No…I used to be in air raid shelters all through the war…you wasn’t old enough to know what was going on so you didn’t have any fear. It was great fun. It was empty houses, bombed houses, so for a kid…Folkestone was a children’s paradise. It was in the war because scrumping in people’s gardens, apples, you know, we didn’t worry about the war.’
4:10 David describes how Folkestone was heavily affected, in terms of damage, by the war; he explains how his father’s service in the RAF - as well as some creative storytelling during an admissions interview - facilitated his own time with the RAF from 1957 to 1959, as National Service.
6:50 David talks about running in the RAF, his propensity for running, and his lack of skill in other sports; he describes some of his father’s wartime experiences; David went to school in Dover Road – ‘it was the toughest, roughest school. We were called the Dover Road dustbin raiders because we were so rough…you’d get boys who would punch the teacher, it was that sort of school’ – which has since been pulled down; David describes the ‘gangs’ and rivalries that existed between different schools in Folkestone, and the enmity between Dover Road and the grammar school (Harvey Grammar): ‘you actually used to have quite a bit of street fighting going on.’; Dover Road eventually became Hillside School.
11:00 The popularity of sport at Dover Road, including cricket and particularly football, which was played on a Sunday morning – ‘the teachers always used to give up their time…they all turned out and refereed the game and organised them, it was a big, big thing.’; how an influential teacher, Mr Hermitage – a former physical training instructor in the army – introduced cross country running to David and others at the school: ‘he always praised the guy who come in last…it made a very big impression on me at the time’; the corporeal punishment David received at the school, including caning; Mr Hermitage also taught David’s daughter later in life; running at sports day as part of the relay team, and how David gave up running after school when he started working as a postman – ‘it was quite a physical job’; David states that despite his impressive stamina, he was not a good runner because of his build – ‘it was never about being a good runner’ – although he performed very well for his age range (60-65) in the London Marathon.
16:00 David has a brother, who is not particularly sporty, and a sister who died when she was young; playing cricket – David’s first love – with his grandson who played for Kent as a junior; inter-school sports rivalries at school, including the Chadwick Cup football tournament in Folkestone, which was always very competitive; watching his first professional cricket match, in Canterbury, in 1948 – ‘it was the last ever tour of Don Bradman with the Australians, they played Kent…it was just after the war and people were starved of sport. It was packed, people were sitting right up to the boundary rope…I think the most memorable thing was my Dad bought me a big bottle of lemonade, which was a treat. That stuck in my mind more than the game actually!’; ever since that match, David has been a lifelong supporter and, eventually, member of the Kent side.
19:25 Watching Colin Cowdrey and Derek Underwood, and David’s experience bowling to Cowdrey before a Kent game in the 1960s – ‘He was on his own and he was obviously looking for someone to throw a few balls at him and he said to me “You don’t bowl do you sir?”, and I said “Well I don’t but I’ll bowl to you!”.
21:20 Returning to work at the Post Office after National Service, becoming a manager, and then changing jobs in 1974 at the age of 40 because he was ‘bored out of my head’; going to work for what became British Telecom as part of the design team on a very early digital (computerized) telephone exchange system, which would eventually be rolled out across the country, and, because of its capacity, eventually made David and his colleague’s jobs superfluous; he was offered redundancy in 1992, which he took aged 54.
23:40 David describes that his ‘sedentary’ job at BT saw his weight balloon to seventeen stone, which prompted him take up running again – ‘I went out and ran a couple of yards up the road, came back and sat there the rest of the evening spluttering away, coughing me heart out, but gradually it got easier’; forming a running partnership with Ken Bleach, a colleague at the post office; together they ran more than 20,000 miles and took part in numerous marathons – ‘it was much easier, having someone to chat with’; the popularity of running at that time in Folkestone and nationwide, and the variety of organised events held in the 1970s and 1980s; David’s dalliances with cricket and football, including scoring an own goal in the only match he played for Dover Road.
26:45 How the Post Office strike in 1971 soured the job for David, and made things harder for him when he eventually became a manager, prompting him to look for another job – ‘I was so keen to get away from what I was doing’; Maidstone marathon in c.1976 was the first organised running event in which David participated – ‘it was on one of the hottest days of the year…I remember I saw this bucket full of water and stuck my head in it, and someone said “That water’s for drinking!”; David describes running in the ‘amazing’ New York marathon in 1988, aged 50.
30:25 The boom in running of the 1970s and 1980s, and the extremely high numbers of participants in the various events; running six miles daily while on his lunchbreak at BT (in Canterbury) – ‘we didn’t have a shower, there was no shower in the building. In the summer you can imagine, we had to go and have a strip wash in the toilets!’; joining Canterbury Athletic Club, where he ran with Michael Gratton, one of the early winners of the London Marathon; running the London Marathon in the very early days of the event, and how it has changed over the years, both in terms of popularity and the route – ‘we got inspired by it, you know’.
35:55 Running both the Moscow and New York marathon in 1988, with his running partner, Ken, to celebrate his fiftieth birthday; visiting the American Embassy for an evening event in Moscow, having been invited by the American Ambassador; the various sights and experiences of running in the Moscow marathon; David states that he has run the London Marathon three times (eight full marathons in all), in addition to nearly 100 half marathons both in Britain and abroad.
39:50 David describes winning the Canterbury half marathon and his rigorous training regime, including running roughly 30 miles at the weekend; David has run 35,000 miles in his career, by his calculations; his wife Dawn’s thoughts on his running – ‘she didn’t get enthusiastic about it’; meeting Dawn playing table tennis at the Post Office – ‘she came in the room, I looked at her and I knew I was going to marry her, strange isn’t it?’ – and marrying her six years later: ‘We’ve been together now fifty-five years.’ David explains how they came to realise that Dawn, who was a hairdresser and a keen tennis and table tennis player, had Lewy bodies dementia, and was eventually diagnosed in 2013; how David cared for Dawn at home for as long as he could before she eventually had to go into care; David explains how good Folkestone Care Centre has been in caring for Dawn, and that he, their three children, and grandchildren are often at the care home.
47:40 David explains that he eventually had to make the very difficult decision to stop running in order to care for Dawn – ‘it was such an important part of my life, even now I miss it, it’s the one thing I really miss in my life’; the ritual of running daily – of seeing the same people and places – and the joy of running early in the morning (three o’clock in the morning during the summer); spotting Audrey Hepburn while running along the Leas, a clifftop promenade in Folkestone – ‘She said hello to me, my biggest regret because I was quite a fan of hers was I never stopped and talked to her!; being attacked by a seagull while out running – ‘this one caught the top of my head!’ – and his relative lack of severe injuries during his running career, which he attributes to his good running pronation.
54:30 The mental side of running, and how running worked as a form of therapy for David, allowing him to switch off or talk through his problems with a running partner; how the equipment, particularly running shoes, have improved, and how David first began running in plimsolls; running while on holiday in Italy and Spain, and the immense enjoyment he has derived from the sport – ‘it opens up a sort of whole new world to you really, getting out when nobody else is about. Yeah, it was good. Sadly it’s all gone.’
Interviewee: David Crocker
Interviewer: Michael Romyn
Date: 31 January, 2019
Location: Folkestone Care Centre, Kent
0:00 Name, place and date of birth (David Crocker, Folkestone, 6 April, 1938); other than two years National Service in Germany, David has lived in Folkestone all his life; David’s parents are from Folkestone (father) and Dover (mother); his grandparents on his mother’s side are from Dover, and from Folkestone, possibly by way of Portsmouth, on his father’s side; his grandfather on his mother’s side was a builder, and his other grandfather was a window-dresser in Folkestone; his father was a postman all his life, and his mother was a chambermaid in a Folkestone hotel before becoming a housewife – she also took in lodgers during the holiday season.
2:20 His father was apparently a very accomplished football player; David’s memories of Folkestone as a child, during the war – his first memory was as a two-year-old, when his father ‘stuck me between his legs’ during a Messerschmitt strafe attack over Folkestone; when asked if he was scared David said: ‘No…I used to be in air raid shelters all through the war…you wasn’t old enough to know what was going on so you didn’t have any fear. It was great fun. It was empty houses, bombed houses, so for a kid…Folkestone was a children’s paradise. It was in the war because scrumping in people’s gardens, apples, you know, we didn’t worry about the war.’
4:10 David describes how Folkestone was heavily affected, in terms of damage, by the war; he explains how his father’s service in the RAF - as well as some creative storytelling during an admissions interview - facilitated his own time with the RAF from 1957 to 1959, as National Service.
6:50 David talks about running in the RAF, his propensity for running, and his lack of skill in other sports; he describes some of his father’s wartime experiences; David went to school in Dover Road – ‘it was the toughest, roughest school. We were called the Dover Road dustbin raiders because we were so rough…you’d get boys who would punch the teacher, it was that sort of school’ – which has since been pulled down; David describes the ‘gangs’ and rivalries that existed between different schools in Folkestone, and the enmity between Dover Road and the grammar school (Harvey Grammar): ‘you actually used to have quite a bit of street fighting going on.’; Dover Road eventually became Hillside School.
11:00 The popularity of sport at Dover Road, including cricket and particularly football, which was played on a Sunday morning – ‘the teachers always used to give up their time…they all turned out and refereed the game and organised them, it was a big, big thing.’; how an influential teacher, Mr Hermitage – a former physical training instructor in the army – introduced cross country running to David and others at the school: ‘he always praised the guy who come in last…it made a very big impression on me at the time’; the corporeal punishment David received at the school, including caning; Mr Hermitage also taught David’s daughter later in life; running at sports day as part of the relay team, and how David gave up running after school when he started working as a postman – ‘it was quite a physical job’; David states that despite his impressive stamina, he was not a good runner because of his build – ‘it was never about being a good runner’ – although he performed very well for his age range (60-65) in the London Marathon.
16:00 David has a brother, who is not particularly sporty, and a sister who died when she was young; playing cricket – David’s first love – with his grandson who played for Kent as a junior; inter-school sports rivalries at school, including the Chadwick Cup football tournament in Folkestone, which was always very competitive; watching his first professional cricket match, in Canterbury, in 1948 – ‘it was the last ever tour of Don Bradman with the Australians, they played Kent…it was just after the war and people were starved of sport. It was packed, people were sitting right up to the boundary rope…I think the most memorable thing was my Dad bought me a big bottle of lemonade, which was a treat. That stuck in my mind more than the game actually!’; ever since that match, David has been a lifelong supporter and, eventually, member of the Kent side.
19:25 Watching Colin Cowdrey and Derek Underwood, and David’s experience bowling to Cowdrey before a Kent game in the 1960s – ‘He was on his own and he was obviously looking for someone to throw a few balls at him and he said to me “You don’t bowl do you sir?”, and I said “Well I don’t but I’ll bowl to you!”.
21:20 Returning to work at the Post Office after National Service, becoming a manager, and then changing jobs in 1974 at the age of 40 because he was ‘bored out of my head’; going to work for what became British Telecom as part of the design team on a very early digital (computerized) telephone exchange system, which would eventually be rolled out across the country, and, because of its capacity, eventually made David and his colleague’s jobs superfluous; he was offered redundancy in 1992, which he took aged 54.
23:40 David describes that his ‘sedentary’ job at BT saw his weight balloon to seventeen stone, which prompted him take up running again – ‘I went out and ran a couple of yards up the road, came back and sat there the rest of the evening spluttering away, coughing me heart out, but gradually it got easier’; forming a running partnership with Ken Bleach, a colleague at the post office; together they ran more than 20,000 miles and took part in numerous marathons – ‘it was much easier, having someone to chat with’; the popularity of running at that time in Folkestone and nationwide, and the variety of organised events held in the 1970s and 1980s; David’s dalliances with cricket and football, including scoring an own goal in the only match he played for Dover Road.
26:45 How the Post Office strike in 1971 soured the job for David, and made things harder for him when he eventually became a manager, prompting him to look for another job – ‘I was so keen to get away from what I was doing’; Maidstone marathon in c.1976 was the first organised running event in which David participated – ‘it was on one of the hottest days of the year…I remember I saw this bucket full of water and stuck my head in it, and someone said “That water’s for drinking!”; David describes running in the ‘amazing’ New York marathon in 1988, aged 50.
30:25 The boom in running of the 1970s and 1980s, and the extremely high numbers of participants in the various events; running six miles daily while on his lunchbreak at BT (in Canterbury) – ‘we didn’t have a shower, there was no shower in the building. In the summer you can imagine, we had to go and have a strip wash in the toilets!’; joining Canterbury Athletic Club, where he ran with Michael Gratton, one of the early winners of the London Marathon; running the London Marathon in the very early days of the event, and how it has changed over the years, both in terms of popularity and the route – ‘we got inspired by it, you know’.
35:55 Running both the Moscow and New York marathon in 1988, with his running partner, Ken, to celebrate his fiftieth birthday; visiting the American Embassy for an evening event in Moscow, having been invited by the American Ambassador; the various sights and experiences of running in the Moscow marathon; David states that he has run the London Marathon three times (eight full marathons in all), in addition to nearly 100 half marathons both in Britain and abroad.
39:50 David describes winning the Canterbury half marathon and his rigorous training regime, including running roughly 30 miles at the weekend; David has run 35,000 miles in his career, by his calculations; his wife Dawn’s thoughts on his running – ‘she didn’t get enthusiastic about it’; meeting Dawn playing table tennis at the Post Office – ‘she came in the room, I looked at her and I knew I was going to marry her, strange isn’t it?’ – and marrying her six years later: ‘We’ve been together now fifty-five years.’ David explains how they came to realise that Dawn, who was a hairdresser and a keen tennis and table tennis player, had Lewy bodies dementia, and was eventually diagnosed in 2013; how David cared for Dawn at home for as long as he could before she eventually had to go into care; David explains how good Folkestone Care Centre has been in caring for Dawn, and that he, their three children, and grandchildren are often at the care home.
47:40 David explains that he eventually had to make the very difficult decision to stop running in order to care for Dawn – ‘it was such an important part of my life, even now I miss it, it’s the one thing I really miss in my life’; the ritual of running daily – of seeing the same people and places – and the joy of running early in the morning (three o’clock in the morning during the summer); spotting Audrey Hepburn while running along the Leas, a clifftop promenade in Folkestone – ‘She said hello to me, my biggest regret because I was quite a fan of hers was I never stopped and talked to her!; being attacked by a seagull while out running – ‘this one caught the top of my head!’ – and his relative lack of severe injuries during his running career, which he attributes to his good running pronation.
54:30 The mental side of running, and how running worked as a form of therapy for David, allowing him to switch off or talk through his problems with a running partner; how the equipment, particularly running shoes, have improved, and how David first began running in plimsolls; running while on holiday in Italy and Spain, and the immense enjoyment he has derived from the sport – ‘it opens up a sort of whole new world to you really, getting out when nobody else is about. Yeah, it was good. Sadly it’s all gone.’