How I met Alf
I
have fond memories of the strip from the early 70s in The Victor. Most
memorable of all
was when he went blind [for a reason I can't remember]
and spent some
time running with a bandage over his eyes. He had done so
much running on
various tracks that he could do it sightless, even
jumping hurdles
from memory. On one track this meant he could tell the
hurdles were positioned incorrectly because he fell
over them.
As I recall, the
series involved him working his way up to the British
Olympic team and
ended with his running in the final of the Olympics. Of
course he won
and became the "only blind man ever to win the Olympics".
Then came the
finale as he removed the bandage and revealed that some
treatment he'd
been having had actually worked and he could see again! I
was actually a
bit disappointed, as I thought it would have been cooler
to have been
blind when he was running, not simply blindfolded.
All this could
have been the product of my fevered imagination of
course, but I'm
sure it happened in all its improbable glory. Do you or
any one else
remember this?
Other exciting
events include the fire at his parents' house that made
him an orphan [I
think] and the time he did his back in and couldn't run
- but was saved
by a visit to a - then- backstreet and very dodgy
osteopath.
Alf Tupper -
we'll miss you...
Simon Clarke UK
