4 Minutes And 20 Years

It is an impertinence," declares the Secretary for Science and Education, in opening the British Medical Association Seminar on Sport and Sport Injuries, "to offer an introduction to our first speaker, who the other day made us feel so very old by celebrating the 20th anniversary of his running the four-minute mile—Dr. Roger Bannister."

Bannister, still an angular, though slightly stooped figure, faces a stuffy gathering of perhaps 80 physicians, nearly all male and middle-aged, putting aside their morning papers. Few appear physically fit, and some display beneath their tweeds and pinstripes sizable convexity. They seem the sort of staid British doctors who, in the phrase of Dr. Hugh Burry, regard sports injuries as "self-inflicted."

Bannister's talk is graceful and conciliatory to those in his audience unconvinced of the causal connection between exercise and disease prevention. "The relationship of health and sport is a tangly web," he says, "but I believe sport is a natural, wholesome, enjoyable form of human expression comparable to the arts, which deserves support for its own sake. Whatever improvement in health that may come through participation ought to be viewed as a bonus." He outlines the advice doctors might give to patients champing to take up sporting pursuits, warning against sudden unaccustomed exertions and the "unfortunate fizzling out of fitness schemes like physical jerks [calisthenics], which often seem too sterile to truly engage many participants."

He describes his hopes as chairman of Britain's Sports Council, which this year will channel $16 million in government funds into sport. Its theme, "Sport for All," is based upon the assumption that in England's highly urban society all that is needed to promote sporting activity is to provide facilities. Hence the council has encouraged the construction of indoor sports centers in major population areas, of which 200 of a projected 800 are in operation. "Sports facilities—squash courts, recreation rooms, swimming pools," Bannister predicts, "will become a mandatory part of every new hotel, factory, flat or office building, as usual and necessary as modern plumbing."

He remarks on the boredom and vague unease which send one-third of all patients to general practitioners. "Sport is not a panacea or religion, but I think we have yet to find how many of these troubled people might be helped by recreation and physical activity. As doctors, we seem cast in the bleak role of saying 'no' to so many things—eating, smoking, drinking, drugs and now even to too many babies. Our cumulative advice is deadening, giving people a negative view of health. Instead, could we not say a massive 'yes' to recreational pursuits, thus giving a buoyant, positive view of health?" His audience murmurs approval.

Bannister first began giving this speech in 1972, had it printed in the British Medical Journal late that year, and squeezed most of it into an article written for The New York Times this spring on the anniversary of the four-minute mile, yet his delivery gives no hint of the age of his material, and his listeners are rapt. He is a bubbly man, informed with energy, given to quick leaps. Often he speaks from a crouched, praying mantis position, straightening suddenly and throwing out his hands at the arrival of a crucial point. It becomes clear in a brief question and answer session that he has aroused a rather naive fervor. One excited doctor propounds an impromptu plan "to turn Hyde Park into a country club for the working people." Another asserts that the health of the nation surely would be advanced by showing a film of Dr. Bannister jogging on the common in his neighborhood. A third proposes a revolutionary physiological course: rather than exercise so vigorously that the heart rate rises and respiration increases, he urges moving so slowly that none of this happens. "More beneficial by far," he says, "to exercise so gradually that every muscle fiber must for a moment bear the weight of the entire limb." The man seems to have arrived independently, though thousands of years late, at the oriental discipline of Tai Chi Chuan.

Bannister is equal to these eccentric schemes, explaining that the sports centers all contain social facilities, and Hyde Park might present problems in that its royal charter goes back to Henry VIII. He says he is reconciled to the fact that only a small proportion of Britons find enough enjoyment in running to do it regularly, so he would prefer a film showing a variety of the 100 or more sports available in the country. He gives his blessing to the proponent of slow motion, "especially with geriatric patients."

At lunchtime the assembly removes, with some haste, to the Great Hall of the British Medical Association, an echoing chamber of marble columns and vaulted ceiling, adorned with flags and coats of arms. Uniformed waiters circulate through the crush, dispensing three shades of sherry. "This is testimony to the drawing power of Dr. Bannister," says one physician, protecting his glass of amontillado against the jostling of his colleagues. "There are twice as many attending today as there usually are."

As the members fill plates from a vast buffet and take seats at tables ranged among the pillars, Bannister floats and darts among the most influential. "I hope you'll forgive me for repeating the same old things," he says to one, "but I believe it's a matter of getting the message out to the widest audience." He deftly slips from the grasp of an elderly gentleman who is rapturous over meeting the man who renewed his faith in British force of will during those difficult years after the war, saying, "You're too kind, really. Will you excuse me? There are several people here whose attitudes I must modify." He goes off toward an adviser to a cabinet minister while the old man looks after him with longing. " Dr. Bannister captured the imagination of Britain 20 years ago," he says, "and I don't believe he's relinquished us yet."

Memories pass into myth. Scattered across the downs and coal yards of England are dozens of cinder tracks upon which the locals now swear Bannister ran the first four-minute mile. A jogger being teased today is as likely to be compared unfavorably with Bannister as with present British record holders Dave Bedford and Brendan Foster.