AN interesting week news-wise as far as the hammer attack trial was concerned.
This week we saw verdicts handed down from the second trial at Bristol Crown Court following the brutal playground assault on Ridgeway School pupil Henry Webster a year ago
Sentence will be passed on those convicted from the two trials at a later date, but possibly the story which might have taken many Adver readers by surprise was the report in Thursday's paper on how poor security is at the Wroughton School some 15 months after the incident.
One of our reporters was freely able to wander about the school, through a dance class in the main hall and to a classroom where one of the teachers asked a pupil to take my reporter to reception.
This was a story we thought long and hard about; whether it was right to test the security, since we had been made aware of loopholes which did exist at Wroughton, and also how we went about it.
I made it clear to the reporter that there was to be no subterfuge. That if he was stopped and asked for his identity he was to give it, and then take the letter which he had been given to be presented to the headmaster.
The reporter wandered freely, took pictures using a mobile phone, even sat in a chemistry laboratory alone where he called the office asking how long he should stick around.
Were we justified in doing this? Absolutely. Can any lessons be learned from this? I would hope so.
I would hope the headmaster and governors take on board the lessons learned and complete the security measures they had talked about putting in place as far back as May last year.
One question was asked why didn’t we test the security at other Swindon schools? The reason was that it was pertinent to test Ridgeway since here was a school which had been the focus of not just one attack on Henry Webster in January 2007, but the previous summer term there had been a number of incidents at the school.
It was relevant because security was discussed; the building of a fence, the installation of security key pads. The fence was built, the key pads were never fitted.
We gave the school a week’s notice of our intention to publish the story. We gave them; the head teacher and governors, full opportunity to comment. We also gave them time to put in any extra security measures they considered fit before the resumption of term the week after next.
As for other Swindon schools’ security. Who knows? Maybe we will test their security at another time, but we will do so not in the hope of finding flaws, but more of seeing security which is in place which guarantees the safety of our children.

Many thanks for the positive comments in the wake of last week’s blog. While the negative comments are always in the minority, I feel it is only fair to address them. I would never expect consensus, I know our readers will take us to task if we get things wrong, however I do get annoyed with senseless, small-minded comments, which don’t serve to fuel debate.

THANK heavens for that. After 365 days of running, my single-minded challenge to run around the British Isles came to an end at 12.05am on New Year’s Day.
As climaxes go, the finish to my fund-raiser was a huge anti-climax with a capital A. Just a handful of folk had congregated outside a social club in Milford, Derbyshire, to witness the finish of the Bryan Clifton Memorial 5km race.
Among them was my dad who has been a huge supporter of the challenge. He’s been to quite a few races to encourage me, including the London Marathon where he was on hand at the 19-mile mark to dole out Kendal Mint Cake and jelly babies.
The contrast between that sweltering hot day last April, and a dark sidestreet in the heart of the Derwent Valley couldn’t have been greater. But this, after all, was the place where the challenge began on December 31st, 2006, so having run into 2007 at Milford, it was only appropriate to run out of it.
New Year’s Eve had been quite a day, though. It began with a quick radio interview on BBC Radio Solent with Jon Cuthill live on air, before dashing off to South Wales. The destination was Mountain Ash in the Rhondda Valley for Nos Galan – an annual 5km race through the streets of this Welsh town which takes place every New Year’s Eve.
The race commemorates the legend that is Guto Nyth Bran, a man who could catch a bird in flight, chase and capture a hare in the field, and run from Porth to Pontypridd and back in the time it took to boil a kettle!
Guto was the Linford Christie of his day, a man who worked on a farm, tending sheep, but who became famous in the Valleys for his running prowess. He would regularly compete in races winning convincingly, and as the challengers became fewer and fewer, Guto chose to go into early retirement. That was until a few years later when, at the age of 37, a new challengers persuaded Guto for a head-to-head race from Bedwas to Newport – a distance of 12 miles. Guto won the race in a remarkable time of 53 minutes (the current half marathon record is just under 59 minutes). However, in the celebrations which followed, Guto colapsed and died in the arms of his loved one, Sian-O’-Shop. He was carried to his final resting place at Llanwonno Church.
Guto’s life is celebrated every year in Mountain Ash when a representative of the current sporting elite visits Guto’s grave to lay a wreath in recognition of his superhuman achievements before the start of the Nos Galan races. Among those who have carried out the task are Ron Jones, David Hemery, Steve Jones, Kirsty Wade, Nicole Cooke, Neil Jenkins and Iwan Thomas. That sporting hero this year was a rugby player from the Ospreys who I hadn’t heard of, who ran into Mountain Ash with a flaming torch to light the beacon.
It is a major event in Mountain Ash, with the whole town closed off for the evening. There is a fun fair, street entertainers, and children’s races, as well as the main adults races. A spectacular firework display is one of the highlights of the event.
This was clearly a race I had to take part in if my journey around the British Isles was to be fullsome. The difficulty was that I had to be in Derbyshire, some 160 miles away, by 11.57pm for the 80th and final race.
At Nos Galan, there are two races, one for the elite athletes and then the general adult run. To qualify for the elite race which sets off at 7pm, you have to be able to run 20 minutes for 5km, a feat I have achieved just once. I tend to run around 21/22 minutes for the distance. The trouble was, I needed to get away sharp from Mountain Ash to reach Derbyshire in time, and with the main adult race beginning half an hour later, I decided months ago to enter the elite race.
Warming-up in the streets beforehand, I was bricking myself and beginning to regret the decision to line up with the whippets. The announcer was telling the crowds how the winning runners would take 15 minutes, with a couple of internationals in the field, and the slower runners 18 to 20 minutes. Little did he know about the Stubbington Green snail warming up in the distance. This was going to be such a public humiliation on a three-lap course around tightly-packed streets. For the first time I ever I was going to come last.
The fireworks display and the prize-giving held up our start. As the delay lengthened so my anxiety heightened. There was no friendly banter among the elite runners, no smiles exchanged. I was crusing for a bruising. When we did get going I was caught by the suddeness of the start, and it took me a good minute to settle.
Boy was the pace fast. I knew I was going to have to run out of my skin to be competitive. I ran hard, I ran fast, trying to not be disspirited by the runners passing me.
Half way round the first lap you looped back on yourself so you could see the field behind you. I was comforted by the sight of nine or ten runners behind me. There was no way they were going to pass me, my target was to draw in those in front. The crowd support was huge. It was like a city centre race. We passed the finish funnel at the end of the first lap. I was trying my guts out. No-one did overtake me after that initial burst, and I passed a couple of runners by finishing strongly to cross the line in a time of 20min 20sec. I was happy with the time, wishing it could have been 21 seconds faster, but delighted to have survived and not disgraced myself.
It was then a dash to the car waiting on a side road and the drive to Derbyshire. Fortunately the roads were quiet on New Year’s Eve and I made smart progress to Birmingham and then on to Derbyshire. It took just two-and-a-half hours to get to Milford where my dad was waiting.
We made our way to the social club in the village which was the base for the race. The wallpaper had changed but the atmosphere was the same. Organiser David Denton was there in the corner taking race entries. I wasn’t expecting a fanfare or any great announcement, but there was no mention about this being my 80th race. A year ago, David had made an announcement before the race about what I was doing. This year he seemed strangely offhand about it all.
I changed and stripped off for the race. We assembled at 11.50pm on the road outside the social club, David gave a few brief instructions, and with a whistle we were off at 11.57pm. I was feeling slightly tired from the 5km earlier in the evening, but got into a good pace as we headed up the main road towards Duffield.
At midnight, fireworks blazed into the air. The air was warm and the night still. I was chasing a family of three who had overtaken me, including a young whipper snapper who couldn’t have been more than 10-years-old, followed by mum and dad. We turned by a cone at Duffield at the 1km mark and headed back to Milford.
Suddenly, the realisation that this adventure was almost over, dawned on me. This was it. My last ever race of the 80. The end of a year-long voyage of discovery. It was now 2008 and I was about to complete what I had set out to do.
A final uphill stretch to the social club awaited. There was my dad, camera in hand, to photograph my finish. A timekeeper called out my time – 8 minutes 30 seconds, for ninth place, and that was it.
Such an anti-climax. No champagne, no party poppers, no brass band. Wearily, I headed into the social club where David announced that toast was available to those who wanted it. No presentation, no announcement, no speeches. That was it as I put my head in my hands, exhaustion passing over me like a wave.
I changed clothes, picked up my belongings, and without so much as a goodbye, I walked out of the social club in Milford and into the night air of 2008. Over and out!

PICTURE this: it’s a crisp Sunday morning and you’re on your hands and knees crawling on all fours across the mud flats of a river estuary. The rotting vegetable smell is retching, the feel of the gloopy mud presented in various shades of brown makes your skin crawl and the need to control your nerves with the mud clinging to your body, trying to suck you under is paramount.
This was the Maldon Mud Race across the River Blackwater in Essex. I joined 180 other souls for what amounted to a crawl from Promenade Park, across the river along a route marked by flags to the saltings, then a short slog running parallel to the Promenade before a final exhausting shuttle back across the river bed to the finish.
Of course, the race took place at low tide although there was still a 30 metre stretch of waist-high water to be crossed. Fortunately, marshals in wet suits from the Chelmsford Sub Aqua Group were on hand to help.
In total, the race distance was around 450 metres and watched by more several thousand spectators crammed on the promenade wall it was a gruelling slog.
The race began in 1973 following a dare waged with the landlord of the Queen’s Head pub in Maldon.The challenge to the landlord was that the regular wanted to enjoy a meal served on the River Blackwater saltings from the landlord while dressed in a dinner jacket. The challenge was accepted and completed.
The following year, a bar opened on the saltings when 20 locals made a mad dash across the River Blackwater, drank a pint of beer and dashed back. This was the start of the Maldon Mud Race, although in the following years so many people wanted to take part that there was a logjam on the saltings with people drinking their pint of beer.
So the alcoholic side of the race was scrapped and the mud race became a straightforward dash across and back.
The race continued from the Queen’s Head until 1989 when the Maldon Mud Race ceased, but because of public demand it was revived in 1994 as part of the Maldon Carnival Association’s calendar of events and run in conjunction with the Lions Club of Maldon.
So on Boxing Day, 1994, 52 people took part in the race which started and finished from its new venue in Promenade Park, with around 5,000 people watching from the shoreline. This event also raised more than £2,500 for local charities.
Though the race suffered a temporary blip between 1998 and 2000 when the Maldon Carnival committee decided to abandon the event because of safety concerns, though it has now been run throughout the new century by the Rotary Club of Maldon and the Lions Club and in recent years more than £100,000 has been raised for good causes in Essex.
For the 2007 staging of the race, it attracted a host of weird and wonderful costumes – several Santas, fairies, there was Spiderman, kilt-wearing Scots with ginger wigs, someone dressed up as a horse and his partner wearing a rider’s outfit, a fella in a dinner jacket, some blokes wearing these inflatable Sumo outfits, and one lady even carried round a palm tree.
I chose to wear the top and bottoms from the Santa outfit I wore in Liverpool earlier this month. It was disposable. Also, for the first time in this running challenge I wore football boots which were heavily taped up to my ankles to prevent them from being sucked under.
Just before the start a guy stood next to me gave me the best possible advice: save your energy and don’t try to walk through the mud, it will sap your strength – just crawl.
A mud-fight between competitors just before the start got everyone dirty and in the mood and then it was off. We waddled down to the river bed and across the icy cold water. The first task was to climb up the sloping river bed on the other side of this channel. It was so hard to get any momentum going. Everyone was scrambling, clinging onto each other for support, pushing each other up the slope.
Walking was futile. You had to get on all fours and crawl. The mud crept to the top of your arms, you had to lift your head out of the way for fear of getting a mouthful. The smell was awful, the mud was icy cold too. It was hard, it was exhausting, and it was slow progress.
I managed to get to the saltings, and found a solid piece of ground on which I could walk slowly, before plunging myself into the mud for the return crossing.
It wasn’t frightening, but I wasn’t comfortable stuck in the mud. My clothes were being weighted down by the mud. My trouser bottoms were slipping off and I had to pull them up to keep them on. We clambered down the slope into the water, managed to walk across the river bed, and with the huge crowds cheering us on, plus a battery of newspaper and TV cameras filming our progress, we pushed on for a final surge/crawl to the finish.
Sad as it was, but my mud-splattered watch recorded a time of 10 minutes 17 seconds for the distance. The winner was home a good couple of minutes ahead, while some of the other competitors would take another half hour to finish.
There were cold showers waiting for us outside the finish area. I stripped off to shorts and a t-shirt, throwing my Santa outfit, football boots and socks in a bin. I managed to get a second shower in the public changing rooms. The mud was clingy and horrible, as a sea of brown dirt ran across the changing room floor.
“Don’t worry about it mate,” said one guy. “It will take at least a couple of days for the smell to go! You’ll be smelling the River Blackwater on New Year’s Day!!”

BOXING Day on the beach? Sounds appealing, but how about Boxing Day on the run?
The Round The Lakes 10km has become one of the most popular races on the south coast over the Christmas period.
Organisers Poole Athletic Club were allowing on the day entries, but these were quickly snapped up an hour before start time, and some runners who had turned up on Boxing Day morning hoping for a cobweb clearing run around Poole Park were sadly disappointed.
Four hundred runners lined up in Dorset for the race which consists of a four-lap run around the boating lake at Poole Park, and then a one-lap circuit of the cricket pitch to finish.
In the summer, there is an extremely popular 10km race organised by Poole Runners as part of the Poole Festival of Running. This consists of two 5km laps from Poole Park, but heading out towards millionaire’s row along Sandbanks, beside the beach, before cutting inland to the start/finish line inside the park.
The Christmas offering is a little less scenic, though conditions were unseasonally bright and warm for this Boxing Day feast.
I ran with my son Ross, pushing him around the course in his pushchair.
We started off steadily and made good progress from the back of the field through the runners.
It was hard going at times, negotiating the speed bumps, coping with some impatient drivers in their gas-guzzling cars who were trying to edge past the runners, and pushing up one long hill which got harder with each lap.
Ross seemed to enjoy himself. Thankfully there was no rain.
It got a bit hairy by the end of the second lap when we were lapped by the front runners, some of whom were pathetically arrogant demanding that slower runners gave them a wide berth on some of the narrower paths. There are ways of asking and ways of asking.
I was going at a reasonable pace and these guys could just move round.
The atmosphere, though, among the middle-packers was good. We were there for an enjoyable Boxing Day run-out in a very pleasant location. I ran 10km in 52min 11sec which was nice and gentle.
Seventy races down in 2007 and three more to go!

CHRISTMAS pudding and mulled wine – what an irresistable combination for a race.
The place was Battle in East Sussex, some five miles from Hastings and the site where William, the Duke of Normandy, defeated King Harold II in 1066 at the Battle of Hastings.
Now the town is centred around the Abbey, founded to commemorate this historic event which saw the Frenchman crowned William I, and which was dedicated in 1095.
But that’s not all the history. A few miles outside of Battle lies Ashburnham Place. Set in idyllic grounds extending over 220 acres, it is now used as a Christian conference and prayer centre. But the grounds were designed and constructed in the mid-18th century by Lancelot ‘Capability’ Brown who laid out the three large lakes which encircle the house, and he also built the Orangery, which is home to a number of interesting and unusual plants, as well as the oldest camellias in the country
The whole area looked spectacular on a frosty December morning with the lake frozen over. The area is rich in wildlife and part of it has been designated as a Site of Special Scientific Interest because of the valuable flora and fauna.
That didn’t stop organisers from hosting a five-mile multi-terrain race around the stately home grounds. More than 200 runners and joggers lined up on a crisp Saturday morning for the two-lap race. There was a children’s race beforehand and we enthusiastically applauded all the finishers, before setting out ourselves on a tough, little course, with a nasty long hill midway through each of the two laps.
I started off suicidally with a 6min 26sec first mile. A friend of mine, Paul Hammond, who is a team-mate at Stubbington Green Runners, caught me up by the first mile as we stepped off the tarmac and into woodland where it was muddy and treacherous. Paul, in fact, chose to walk up the tricky uphill stretches, but soon zoomed past me on the flatter sections.
It soon warmed up and I felt a little overdressed with a thermal top and a running vest on top. The race had a lovely downhill stretch towards the main house at Ashburnham Place, and then it was onto the second lap.
Paul and I played a bit of ying-ing and yang-ing on the uphill stretches, but he finished a good half a minute ahead of me at the end. The course was 4.75-miles long on my Garmin and it took me 36min 48sec for 36th place.
A wonderful race in a wonderful setting. A perfect place to run.

EVER heard of Merthyr Mawr? No, nor had I until I turned up in the Mid-Glamorgan village on a cold Sunday morning in December. But I won't forget the place too quickly either.

Merthyr Mawr is an idyllic little settlement, as picturesque as they come, with an outstanding collection of Thatched Dwellings straight from the pages of a Thomas Hardy novel.

Surrounded by meadows and woodlands, the Ancient Church dates back to the middle of the 19th century.

But Merthyr Mawr also packs a big surprise. It is surrounded by a huge network of sand dunes which stretch along the coast towards Porthcawl and the Mumbles. Parts of the 1962 Hollywood blockbuster Lawrence of Arabia' were filmed there.

And sitting at the heart of the dunes if the grand-daddy of them all, the Big Dipper - a 245 metre climb on soft sand and the biggest sand dune in Europe.

The Big Dipper also provided an unenviable start to the Merthyr Mawr Christmas Pudding 10km Challenge, rated as among the most popular races in Britain. It is no surprise why.

Okay, the Big Dipper is tough, very tough. Arms pumping, legs driving, this is a lung-busting climb which hurts. There were around 700 runners at the foot of the Dipper who set off to the summit. The sand churned up and was flying everywhere. It was difficult to get a grip.

It was hard to run all the way to the top. You lost the momentum and with lots of runners around you it was hard to keep driving up the sand dune.

Once at the top, with hearts beating fast, and lungs straining, there was something of a bottleneck and runners queued to head along the ridge of the Big Dipper.

Then, there was a wonderful descent and once into proper running the beginning of a thoroughly enjoyable race.

The course was challenging and picturesque. The climbs were hard, but the pay back was divine. At half way, the enthusiastic marshals were offering water, mulled wine and mince pies.

The atmosphere among runners and marshals was friendly and fun. The one sting in the tail were two streams to cross near the finish where the water was icy cold.

I had a blast finishing the 5.7-mile course in around 51 minutes. With soup and rolls waiting at the finish and a bountiful goody bag which included a Christmas pudding, this was a fantastic, friendly run.

You could even forgive the Big Dipper for providing such a harsh welcome.