Graham Young

A conversation with the well known race walker and character, Graham Young, covering his early years growing up at the newly built Spring Valley estate in the forties and later on as a child living across the road from the Douglas Holiday Camp, a heaven for young boys with a roller rink and weekly shows, living minutes from the beach, there are stories such as when someone's finger got trapped in a folded deckchair and was subsequently cut off at the top, the chunk of finger was then picked up by a seagull who flew away with it!

With a disciplinarian father recently returned from three years in a Prisoner of War Camp, life was not always easy and Graham remembers being sent to buy a cane at the local newsagent with which he was then beaten. A difficult relationship with his father led to two years working in the UK, after this Graham returned to the Isle of Man where in 1963 he got casual work at the Isle of Man Post Office (then a part of the GPO), he stayed in employment there for 47 years before retiring in 2010, Graham has a number of stories of his early years in the sorting office. In 1960, the Parish Walk was revived and Graham entered, finishing at Peel when only 15 and the following year finishing it in under 16 hours, his great grandfather John Young had completed it on a horse in 1915! As a 'Centurion', Graham also talks of his early years race walking and taking part in Post Office walking races around Europe and on the Island (originally completed in full GPO uniform carrying a weighted 'post bag').

The tip of the ice burg in a lifetime full of stories.

Interviews

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• Graham Young