The only section of the Highgate Harriers club that kept open during the Second World War was the walking section and amongst those who still trained from Parliament Hill was Charlie Megnin.
Megnin who came 3rd in the European Championships 50k, walk, on the 23rd of August 1946 in Oslo; in 4hrs 57.04. One evening’ he even avoided a German plane bombing down a street he was in, while he was walking home as training!...
Maureen Bonno-Smith of Highgate Harriers was the 2nd woman ever in history to break 5 minutes for the mile. It was in July 1957 when she ran 4:53.6 At the White City behind Diane Leather who did a World record of 4:50.6.in first place.
Another memorable time for Highgate Harriers was when they organised their first ‘Highgate Marathon’ in 1968 from a stadium track in Hendon; which they held the next year as the London Marathon. The idea was picked up eventually by Chris Brasher from the Highgate organisers to be run through London in 1981.
In 1970 on the 18th of July Highgate’s Bill Sutherland, competing for Scotland, obtained a bronze medal in the 20 miles Walk at the Edinburgh Commonwealth Games in 2:32.24. The walking section of the club was still strong at the time.
It took over 100 years for Highgate to be National Champions on the road. On the new course, the recent National `12 stage relays, were run at Sutton Park since 1967, Highgate Harriers won gold medals in the National 12 stage Road Relay for the first time in 2016 in 4hrs 16.30.ahead of Aldershot Farnham & District who ran 4:17.15.
One must note that someone who was a good runner Ian Manners holds no less than 4 senior club records between 1989-1991 and they are still on the books and they were for 1500 3:42.6, Mile 4:01.27, 3000 7:57.01 and 5000 13:57;84.
Nicky Martyn has several Junior Highgate records and in the team that got bronze medals in the World cross country junior for England in in 1984 and remarkably he was first ‘Over 45’ runner in the London Marathon of 2009 in a time of 2:28.41.
Sprinter Simeon Williams came up from being AAA’s Junior Champion in 2005 in 10.22, and European Junior Champion 10.10 and an Olympian. Although he did not have luck at the Olympics, he did beat a few World class sprinters over 100m in his time which included Asafa Powell (USA).
Tyron Edgar was a successful sprinter when he helped Highgate Harriers to qualify for the National League in 1998, No doubt the Middlesex President for 2015 & 16 Richard Prislety as Manager, who was twice Middlesex Athletics President, kept Highgate to be one of the top clubs in the South.
In 2013 Ex- international runner, Ben Pochee organised the first of his international and standard race evenings over 10k’s at Parliament Hill track. Called-‘ Night of the 10,000m Personal Bests’