RUNNERS FOR KING

Taranaki Daily News, 13 July 1935, Page 7 (Supplement)

RUNNERS FOR KING

MARATHON OF BOYS BRIGADE. PEACE ON THE KING’S HIGHWAY. From John o’ Groats and Land’s End, from Londonderry, Lowestoft and Neath, picked lads of the Boys Brigade have honoured their patron the King in a way which is as old as history, says the Children’s Newspaper. They kept the King’s jubilee by carrying good tidings of peace and goodwill along the King’s highway. Their messages of greeting were carried by relays of runners just as messages were carried across the Persian Empire to Xerxes on his throne at Persepolis. The Boy Brigaders who ran across our land were called Marathon runners after the famous battle in which the Athenians flung back the invading hosts of Persia, a victory announced to Athens by the champion runner of the Greek Games, Pheidippides, who fell dead before the. Council of Rulers on the Acropolis, gasping out as he died, rejoice, we conquer. This was not the only long-distance run of Pheidippides at that momentous time. He had just before run for two nights and days, swimming the rivers and climbing the mountains on his path to urge the reluctant Spartans to march to the aid of Athens. A bitter sadness must have dogged his steps as he hurried back with their refusal. But the jubilee marathon of the Boys Brigade was roses all the' way. The direct routes covered by the 1700 bearers stretch for 2290 miles, the longest being the 990 miles from John o’ Groats, in the course of which the runners crossed the Forth Bridge. But how many thousands must be the sum total of every journey made by the 116,000 members who assembled at fixed points to welcome the bearers with fitting ceremony! Whole towns turned out to greet them. Each bearer of the message, with two other boys as an escort, ran four miles, and every bearer signed his name on a Roll of Honour. The first runner started from John o’ Groats on the evening of April 16, and by day and night, except on Sundays, the message was carried along, the five bearers on the final stages reaching the Albert Hall on May Day.

Here the Duke of York received the messages on behalf of the King and saw the magnificent jubilee display in which the famous Boys Brigade showed how physical training can made the body supple and graceful. A golden jubilee it was, too, for one of the London companies marched into the arena to celebrate its unbroken record of good work for half a century, receiving a warm cheer for their proud record in this proud movement of our British youth.