Did you know that your Granny ran the world? Yes, it’s true. On Sunday 25th May 1986 Granny took part in an ‘international’ run around the city of Leicester. Sport Aid 1986 – The Race Against Time was the inaugural sport relief run in which people of all ages across 274 cities in 78 countries walked or ran 10km in an attempt to draw attention to fighting famine in Africa. It was endorsed by Bob Geldof as a partnership effort to Live Aid. In Leicester, hundreds of people took part in the event to run around the city in support of the initiative … and your Granny decided that she was going to participate! Typically of Granny, she heard about the idea, thought it needed support and decided that she would do more than say it was a good cause but that she would actually take action to show her support. 1. Her first step was to research details of when and where the local leg of the run would take place then register the two people (yes, two people) from our household who she thought should take part. 2. Her second step was to find her running partner and persuade them that they did, in fact, want to take part even though they might not have given it much thought beforehand! (Oh, that turned out to be me!) 3. Her third step was to organise a series of hardcore training runs: but we decided that, as warm-up hadn’t really been invented, we’d go out for the occasional evening stroll and chat instead. … and then we were ready. I remember that on the morning of the run Mom wanted to get to the starting point fairly early (she was an excellent timekeeper) so that we might get our photo taken by the Leicester Mercury and so that we wouldn’t finish last. After 10 kilometres of run/walking, waving, smiling and posing we arrived at the end of the run (I think it was at Victoria Park) and saw many familiar faces one of whom bravely or rashly expressed surprise at seeing “Mrs Horsford” not only running but completing the course. You know Granny, she wasn’t let that go so quickly replied, “Yes, of course I’m doing it. How come you’re not doing it too?” More cheering and shouting followed and we were rewarded with our commemorative t-shirts, a small certificate and the knowledge that Granny really did ‘Run the World.’