LAST week I asked if anyone had any details about the York Harriers athletics club, prompted by some excellent photos dropped in by Mick Liversidge. And as soon as the starting pistol was fired readers raced to the telephone and email to put me in the picture.

No two people could be a better advert for the benefits of running than Fred Mitchell and Herbert Baker, 93 and 92 years old respectively.

Although they might not move quite as fast as when they ran with the York Harriers in the 1920s, their memories soon sprinted back down the years.

Fred and Herbert recalled how the club, whose president was once Alderman Francis Terry, produced some class athletes. One of Herbert's training partners was Walter Beavers, who ran at the Olympics. "He was the greatest runner in those days," said Herbert. "He was a fine, strong-built chap."

Another name they recalled was Englehart who, although based in Selby, ran with the York Harriers and was an international miler, also competing in an Olympics.

Fred was at Poppleton Road School with a lad called Leslie Somerset. "At play time his mother used to give him a glass of milk through the railings. We thought he must have TB.

"That lad eventually became quarter-mile champion for the Harriers."

Herbert was a Scarcroft School lad, before becoming a printer at both Ben Johnson's and the Evening Press.

He was an excellent runner and made his mark when he won his debut race for the Harriers, aged 17, to pick up the Ben Acomb Shield, named after the club's founder. That race took place at York City's first football ground, Fulfordgate.

Elite runners like Herbert and Walter Beavers would run together. They trained on Tuesday and Thursday nights, and Sundays, and would race on Saturdays. Herbert's training grounds included the old Yorkshire Gentlemen's Cricket Ground, where the hospital stands today.

He ran in front of crowds of 20,000 at major Leeds and Bradford meetings in the famous amber and black hooped Harriers kit.

Large crowds would also watch the club athletics meetings at York, and the unofficial bookies would take bets.

Fred was more of a social runner. This group trained at Knavesmire. At one point they ran around what was the polo pitch used by the cavalry from the barracks, found behind the "three bob ring" at the racecourse.

In the early days, the Harriers would change in stables near Knavesmire and wash in a sink with just a cold tap. Later they took over a wooden hut in Curzon Terrace.

In competitive races, the winners sometimes chose from prizes laid out on a bench. Otherwise, they were rewarded with vouchers which could be redeemed for items at certain stores, like Fattorini's jewellers in Leeds. Fred recalls Walter Beavers taking charge when he won some vouchers.

"My mother got fed up of towels and sheets. Once we got three quid for winning. Wally took the vouchers and purchased a penny tie pin, and got me the change in cash: £2 19s 11d."

Being such a good runner, Herbert was always in the prizes. Among them were Waterford cut glass vases, a wristwatch and cutlery.

After one successful outing at Wakefield he celebrated with a meal at the hotel and then caught the milk train back to York. Only one problem: his prize was a grandfather clock.

"I had the grandfather clock under one arm and my kit under the other. In those days we never thought of having a taxi, they weren't for the working man. I walked home."

One man to have even earlier memorabilia of the York Harriers is Leonard Atkinson. Mr Atkinson, 81, has the medal his father Albert won in January 1912 when he claimed the Faber Cup on Knavesmire.

"My mother always used to tell me it was snowing at the time," he said.

Unfortunately, Albert was badly injured in the First World War and never ran again.

Ronald Heath brought in a photograph featuring him and his brother Denis and some of the items they won with York Harriers. Their father was a coach of the team at the end of the last war. "He coached the sprinters, and little Jimmy Dawson coached the long distance runners.

"I ran with the York Harriers when I was three. My father took me on his bike. Because he was a coach, I had to run as well."

The early training clearly worked: Mr Heath won the Ben Acomb Shield, the Wilson Cup, the Faber Cup and many more.

"There was a marvellous spirit at the club," Mr Heath recalled. "They all helped if you were lagging behind."

Peter Littlewood was another successful York Harrier. He joined just after the Second World War, aged 17. He followed two uncles into the Harriers, one of whom, Harold Douglas Clark, was a cross country champion.

In 1950, Peter became the only York runner to win the York Open race.

He was also one of the torch bearers when the Harriers ran round the city walls to celebrate the Festival of Britain in 1951 and the Queen's Coronation in 1953.

They would set off from Clifford's Tower in two groups going in different directions. The torches "had great wooden handles, like a broom handle. They were filled with paraffin."

It must have been a great spectacle for the crowds who gathered to watch.

In the main picture we featured last week, Reg Lambert spotted his father, Tom. By coincidence, Tom, a painter and decorator, did work for Edwin Ridsdale Tate, the architect and artist also featured last week in a separate article.

In one of the smaller pictures, David Shaw of Poppleton spotted his dad, William. He was the Harriers' team captain and won prizes including a bureau and a barometer, before finishing at the grand age of 42.

French polisher and Harrier James Barrell was spotted by his granddaughter Peggy Robinson of Dringhouses. "He was a great sportsman. He swam and played football as well," she said.

Jack Wood contacted me with memories of the two mile team featuring Walter Beavers, Harold Potter, W Richardson and W Cammidge. Mr Potter was a relation of Jack's wife, Eileen. "Apparently Uncle Harold ran in the 1924 Olympics," he said.

These were the Paris games featuring Eric Liddell and Harold Abrahams who inspired the film Chariots of Fire.

Two key members of the thriving modern athletics club Knavesmire Harriers, Malcolm Fawcett and Brian Hughes, told me that there is no direct connection between that organisation and the York Harriers. It seems the latter ended sometime in the Sixties, and the Knavesmire group was set up 25 years ago.

Malcolm did run with the York Harriers, and remembers in winter having to break the ice in the sink at their Dringhouses HQ in order to get a wash.

Historian David Poole helped me with some locations. "In 1902 the York Harriers HQ was the Queen's Head Inn, Fossgate, which was between Lady Peckett's Yard opening and the entrance to Merchant Adventurers Hall," he wrote. "The site was redeveloped circa 1960."

He believes the race picture published last week "could have been taken on what is now the car park of York City Football Club, the houses in the photo being the rear of Newborough Street."

Finally, Gill Pawson of Wigginton has a York Harriers medal. This was no family heirloom, but she bought it from a junk shop 40 years ago... in Devon.

Updated: 10:41 Monday, September 01, 2003