DAY 147 - LJUBLJANA, SLOVENIA

16 September, 2011

Total: 1404.14 miles Total: 2,760, 481 steps

The highlight of the day came at the end of the day when the Embassy arranged for me to meet the most famous Olympian in Slovenia, Marko Racic, who had competed in the 1948 London Olympics.  We were to walk with students from the British International School in Ljubljana part way round Path of Remembrance and Comradeship, which is a 33km path, which follows the route of a barbed wire fence, erected by occupying forces during World War II around the entire city of Ljubljana. If the British Embassy had tried to tick every possible box for a photo opportunity on the Olympic Truce for London 2012, it is difficult to see how they could have scored more highly . . . and it worked.

Marko Racic (pictured holding Walk for Truce t-shirt which I presented to him), is 91 years old and yet left us all standing as the walk commenced.  He is so physically and mentally fit that he is still the most reliable point of reference for sports statisticians on athletics. Through our translator from the Olympic Committee of Slovenia, we talked  about what life was like for an athlete at the London 1948 Games: the accommodation for the Yugoslav national team was in Royal Air Force barracks at West Drayton. They had been told that because of food rationing they would need to bring their own food supplies and therefore they lived off salami for the entire fortnight. They had been instructed on arrival to place two pictures, one of Tito and the other of Stalin, at either end of their barracks, but the Olympic organisers came round and insisted they were removed or they would be sent home for violating the ‘no politics’ rule of the Olympics. Marko was competing in the 400 metres and he managed a respectable 50.2 seconds, which wasn’t bad on a diet of salami and running on a cinder track, and was enough to get him through to the quarter finals.

I felt for Marko as his Olympic career was like far too many athletes in the twentieth century: cut short by wars and boycotts. He was born in 1920 and the 1936 Games came a few years too early; the next two Games were cancelled and the London 1948 Games came just a few days after his peak. He wasn’t in the slightest bit bitter about the run of events; athletics had given him a wonderful long and healthy life through which he had travelled the world both as a competitor and then as an official and through which he had made many, many enduring friendships. It was wonderful for the young people to hear Marko’s story, not least because it reminds them that sport is not just about sponsorship deals and seeking celebrity status, it is a lifestyle choice of which Marko Racic is an inspiring example.

Marko and the students asked me many questions on our long walk interspaced by shouts of ‘bike’ as a cyclist would hurtle past us, often cursing under their breath—the cyclists of Ljubljana are like none other I have encountered in the world; they have such belief in their right of way that I saw them ride out in front of buses and trucks causing them to screech to a halt. One question, which I was asked a number of times, was whether I had ever been a sportsman. The short answer was “no”, apart from completing the Great North Run on five occasions. They asked why and I suppose I never really thought of it—I had tried out for the football team at every school I attended, but never made the team, although I was appointed my Mr. Durham Chief Supporter because I was the only person to turn up and watch Kells Lane play away to Oakfield on a freezing and rainy Saturday morning. I then said that when I was at the Breckenbeds School  we all had to sign up for a sport and I chose the 1500 metres and won both years I competed by a full lap in one race. I wasn’t fast, but I seemed to be able to just keep going and I had been inspired by local Gateshead hero Brendan Forster. I wondered whether at that time I had been encouraged or had a bit more self-belief, I might have gone on to do some distance running, but I am glad I chose politics which has been and still is my passion.

In many ways it was a day of a bit of reflection and self education, perhaps started by Doreen Lawrence, and helped along by conversations in between meetings with James Hampson of the British Council and continued through the questions of the students on our walk and two in depth interviews.  The first was with Ana Straus at RTV (with whom we discussed the writings of Stephane Hessel the French protest leader and philospher) and the second with Mankica Kranjec at NeDelo.

It was one of those very special days that had been a real education and that continued late into the evening when the ambassador, Andrew Page, arrived back from his conference and we went for dinner down by the river in the spectacularly beautiful old town of Ljubljana. We enjoyed an informative and stimulating debate on foreign policy, which largely consisted of me offering up a limp serve that just skirted over the net, only to find Andrew waiting there giving an elegant return volley at an impossible angle for me to reach even if he had told me before hand where he was going to place it.

I love debate, even when I am been trounced (as is usually the case, because my mind simply can’t move as fast of others).  I love debate not because I win, but because I am informed and when I am informed I am able to understand and that is for me the purpose of living—to understand and in the context of that understanding then to act. That is what freedom is for, to increase our understanding through unfettered public debate that we first understand and then act. That is civilization. The purpose of politics is to protect that freedom to speak up in the debate even when the arguments are clumsy and the views which are put forward shock and offend.  For upon that fragile principle, the advancement of all human civilization depends. Thank you Ljubljana for reminding me.