From Light to Dark , livre ebook

Pitch Publishing Ltd - Dave Heeley

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158 pages

English

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Born sighted, 'Blind' Dave Heeley showed athletic promise from an early age, smashing his town's 1500-metre track record aged just 11 years old. However, a devastating diagnosis shattered his sporting dreams and he hastily gave up on sporting activity. From Light To Dark charts Dave's story and how he rediscovered his boyhood talent for running and went on to undertake some of the world's toughest challenges, including John O'Groats to Land's End (with a difference); ten marathons in ten days; 700 miles of cycling across seven countries in seven days; and the 2015 Marathon des Sables, dubbed the 'toughest footrace on Earth'. In 2008 came Dave's greatest achievement, his name entering the record books as he became the first, and to date the only, blind person to have completed the ultimate endurance challenge of seven marathons, in seven consecutive days, on seven different continents. With a foreword by the veteran and record-breaking English adventurer Sir Ranulph Fiennes, From Light to Dark is a heart-warming, inspirational tale of triumph over adversity.

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United Kingdom

Great Britain

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Publié par	Pitch Publishing Ltd
Date de parution	01 novembre 2016
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781785311697
Langue	English
Poids de l'ouvrage	2 Mo

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0374€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

Extrait

First published by Pitch Publishing, 2016
Pitch Publishing
A2 Yeoman Gate
Yeoman Way
Durrington
BN13 3QZ
www.pitchpublishing.co.uk
Dave Heeley and Sophie Parkes, 2016
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the Publisher.
A CIP catalogue record is available for this book from the British Library
Print ISBN 978-1-78531-119-2
eBook ISBN: 978-1-78531-169-7
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Front cover image: MDS2015:copyright:WAA/CIMBALY
Reproduction of the poem The Quitter : by Robert William Service courtesy of Mrs Anne Longepe
Ebook Conversion by www.eBookPartnership.com
Contents
Acknowledgements
Foreword
Preface
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Photographs
Acknowledgements
There have been a great number of people who have given their time to the writing of this book. Dave and Sophie would like to thank: Tim Andrews, Jane Camillin and all at Pitch Publishing, Steve Dourass, Steve Dugmore (Duggie), Tony Ellis, Peter Emmett, Sir Ranulph Fiennes, Raphael Fraga, David Gagen, Adrian Goldberg, Mark Green, Annie Heeley, Rob Lake, Dave Long, Eric MacInnes, Karl Moore, Rosemary Rhodes, Darryl Webster and Garry Wells.
Don t be fooled into thinking that writers enjoy quiet seclusion when putting together their memoirs. Oh no - this book has been compiled during the course of weekends, weekdays and evenings; in the early hours and the more-sensible hours; in between training stints; around film crews, holidays and speaking engagements. This book has survived Sophie s car crash and has been subsequently edited one-handed. This book has been pored over by adults and children, alike.
Dave would especially like to thank his wife, Deb, and his children, Grace, Georgie-Lee and Dannie, for their relentless love and support.
Sophie would like to thank Chris for his calming influence and patience; her parents, Pat and Loz, for being constant sounding boards; and her brother, Matt, for always making her smile. Thank you for the additional, otherworldly help you ve all given her this year. She would also like to thank Deb, Grace, Georgie-Lee and Dannie for being so welcoming and letting her infiltrate their home. Finally, she would like to say a massive thank-you to Dave for being so thoroughly entertaining and a joy to write for. Sophie will never look at life quite the same way again.
Foreword
I N 2003, my good friend Dr Mike Stroud persuaded me into running seven marathons in seven consecutive days, on all seven continents. It was to be a world first and it took some organising, but we believed we could do it.
Our chances of starting the marathons - let alone completing them - seemed somewhat scuppered when I experienced a heart attack that left me in a coma and in need of a double bypass just 14 weeks ahead of the start date, but thankfully my recovery was quick and I was back to training.
But, heart attack aside, Mike and I hadn t anticipated the intensity of the challenge. It wasn t clocking up the mileage that was the problem - we had done enough marathons in our time to keep to sensible paces and to watch out for the wall - but it was the heat, the cold, the altitude, the wind, the constant dehydration, uncooperative muscles, an old back injury and the jet lag brought on by lack of sleep through ever-changing time zones.
And even with our luxury of British Airways-sponsored first-class flights and the odd sumptuous hotel that the profile of our challenge made possible, it was still seven days of discomfort, which sometimes could be classified as downright pain.
So when we returned, like jubilant, staggering war victors, and I received a letter from a chap from West Bromwich telling me he fancied having a crack at the same thing, I thought he was completely and utterly mad. Back then, Dave Heeley didn t call himself a runner - he had done one or two London Marathons, I believe - but that was about it. He didn t have the experience and knowledge that Mike and I had built up during the course of our careers, in medicine and the armed forces respectively, and to top it all off, he told me that he was blind.
But in conversation with Dave, I detected a certain challenge-hungry madness, a determination to do something that others gawp at, to push the body and mind to its utmost limits. Dave s blindness adds another layer of complexity that must be taken into account - though Dave is so eager and able that, after a while, one forgets he even has a disability at all. In fact, I would go as far as to say that his achievements put many able-bodied athletes to shame.
After Dave and his guide finished those punishing seven marathons, we kept in touch through the occasional e-mail and telephone call, but I wasn t at all surprised to learn that in 2015, when I hoped to be the oldest Briton to complete the gruelling Marathon des Sables, Dave was also in training to do it. And, of course, he and his two talented guides not only completed it, they also raised thousands of pounds for a worthy cause.
I m sure Dave will continue in his endeavours well into his twilight; after all, his fitness outstrips many younger men. And even when his legs can no longer carry him, I am certain that the causes in which he believes so passionately will continue to be trumpeted - that s just the kind of man he is. A true inspiration.
Ranulph Fiennes August 2015
Preface
You ll have to write it all down, Dave. When s the book out? Where can I read more? Have you censored any bits, Dave?
I HAVE regularly been asked to write the story of my life, especially since undertaking the challenges for which I have become known.
But where the hell do you begin? How do you pick your opening gambit?
When I think back to my early life and my proudest moment, it was easily 14 May 1970: the day I won the 1,500m in five minutes and 13.09 seconds to become the town champion and break the record. It instilled in me a lifelong love of running, albeit across longer distances and in pursuit of more significant personal achievements.
Or I could easily start the book on the day, not so long ago, that I eloped to Gretna Green with the love of my life, Deb, or my presence at the births of my three daughters, Grace, Georgie-Lee and Dannie.
If I wanted a fast-paced opener, like a scene from an action movie, I could tell you about the time I drove a tank in the Scottish Highlands or the occasion I steered a fast car around Brands Hatch, or threw myself off steep cliffs in Corfu in the name of fun. Or maybe a humorous anecdote, something unexpected - like the time I was lost in a snowy Ostend, Belgium, dressed only in a belly-dancing outfit.
Maybe the first few pages could be devoted to one of the big ones , picking up the pace during the adventure of a lifetime, running seven marathons in seven consecutive days across seven continents, or the ten days I dragged an ever-growing team of weary cyclists and runners from John O Groats to Land s End through ten marathons and 700 miles of cycling, when fundraising opportunities presented themselves mid-pee and failing brakes shook our nerves to the core.
I suppose the most obvious place to start would be that day in 1968 when Mom and I visited the Birmingham Eye Hospital. I can remember that moment like it was yesterday. The consultant shut the door, sat down and said to me, You ve got a disease of the eye, young man, called Retinitis Pigmentosa. I must have looked blankly back at him. That was a term I hadn t heard before. You re going blind, he clarified.
I remember the consulting room. It had big, high windows. As he said it, I looked out of one of them. I noticed that the sky was blue. I could see the sun. A bus went past on the street below. I was confused. I wasn t blind; I could see. At ten years of age the realisation just didn t dawn on me. So perhaps that isn t the place to start. After all, it was only later - when the career I had banked on became a no-go - that the diagnosis hit me like a sledgehammer. It was only later when I realised that my entire lifestyle would have to be adapted, shifted, tamed.
I actually tried to start this story, initially, as many people do, with my birth. I looked up a weather report from November 1957 and thought this would set the scene for readers, contextualising my arrival in West Bromwich. I took it seriously, reeling off four pages with the weather report as its foundation, and, after a hushed couple of hours, I printed off pages for Deb, my fiercest critic, to read. The next thing I heard was not the sound of astonished gasps or proud sobs. No, instead, all I heard was the aggressive, greedy whir of the shredder. What a load of rubbish, she said, bluntly. She was right, though. It was.
This time, hopefully, I ve got it right. It s a strange thing, to sit in your comfy chair and wonder whether your memory can serve you right, piecing together your life bit by bit, from being a kid right through to old codger days. I ve cringed, shed a tear, smiled and laughed out loud, frowned and wondered how the hell ?
And with so many people asking me to write my story, challenging me to write it - well, you know how I like a challenge. I simply thought it had to be done.
1
I T WAS more commonplace, back then, to be born at home as I was. The home in question, 60 Elizabeth Road, West Bromwich, was, at the time, cutting-edge: a Smith house constructed from steel and bric