Derek Dent 1936-2008

It is with great sadness that we have learnt of the sudden death of one of our founding members, Derek Dent, at the age of 71. Derek was a legend in the club, known for his prodigious training mileage, dedication and his encouragement of others. He is still the holder of 6 club records. After his enforced retirement from running several years ago, Derek brought the same dedication to his many other interests, among them cycling, bowls and wood turning. He will be greatly missed by very many people and our sympathies go to Frances and his family.

Derek is pictured on the left below - the picture was taken at the Newark Half Marathon in 1984 and was sent to us by a former member.

William Scott and Tony Barry are now dedicating their John O'Groats to Lands End run in memory of Derek and raising money for prostate cancer research. Another former club member will be cycling to Lands End to meet them!

This is the oration written by and read at his funeral by one of his long-standing friends, Bernard Jarvis:

I am writing this on the morning of the London Marathon, an event which, from the earliest days, Derek successfully made his own.  He used to organise the Running Club’s outing down there and was always one of the Club’s first members home at the end.  But the Marathon itself was nothing in comparison to the pre London training Derek usually led.  His favourite epic outing usually got called the “Two Bridges” but you were very lucky if there were only two.  The standard route went out over Gunthorpe and back over Trent Bridge.  (In those days Lady Bay Bridge was still a derelict railway bridge.)  However he was quite capable of throwing in other ones and certainly on at least one occasion crossed every bridge between Trent Bridge and the bridge in Long Eaton.  Both ways.  What he really liked was the challenge and the commitment – when launched on this run there was no crying off half way round: once started you had to finish.  Going off with Derek on a Sunday morning was more an adventure than a training run.  When Derek set out to cross every bridge; he meant just that:  every bridge.  And if some were live railway bridges well that just added to the fun. 

On one occasion he tried to persuade me, after having illegally crossed the railway bridge at Radcliffe on Soar that it would be an interesting variation on the route to follow the railway line through the tunnel and come back a different way.

“Derek – I’m not going in that bloody tunnel – it’s full of trains.”

“Oh it’ll be all right.  It’s early Sunday morning – there won’t be any trains for hours…”

At this point an InterCity 125 came out of the tunnel at about 90mph and he had the effrontery to say:

“Well the tunnel will be empty now….”

Derek didn’t seem to know what “second best” meant; he didn’t do things by halves.  There was an occasion, many years ago, when I’d managed to get in front of him during one of the early Robin Hood marathons.  (In those days anyone getting ahead of Derek – and it didn’t often happen – spent most of the race nervously looking over their shoulder.)  But in front of him I was and for once stayed there till the finish.  I later discovered he was getting emergency treatment in the first aid tent after a very tough last few miles.  We even later discovered by comparing intermediate times, that although his body was in trouble, his spirit remained indomitable; even though he was in some difficulties he was still closing on me and in another mile would almost certainly have caught me.  This was the occasion too when I later claimed to have asked Frances (and remember in those days that Gore-Tex was something really special) “If he dies can I have his Gore-Tex suit?”  The point of this rather dubious joke being that we all thought of him as indestructible.

For years and years Derek set the standard for the longer events in the club.  If you wanted to be anybody you had, at some point, to mix it with Del boy.  But the racing wasn’t the half of it, the real standard he set was in the friendship. If you went out on one of his epics you never came home on your own, however bad you felt.  He’d look out for you, look after you and he was always the one conjuring drinks of water out of bemused residents or, apparently, thin air in some cases.  And he was a great encourager and supporter of other younger runners who often sought his advice.  And they would get lots of it – both advice and encouragement – and of much better quality than you could get in the magazines.  Usually this advice came down to “If you want to run a marathon – you need to train at that distance, so why not next Sunday….”

 Although he involved himself with great enthusiasm in most club events, especially the Long-distance Relays, where he always  gave tireless and utterly reliable support,   his best event was probably the Marathon despite the fact that he wasn’t really built for it.  He was a big man in every way and marathon runners are usually skinny and wiry. Mere detail like this though would not trouble him and his hard and uncompromising running produced a string of really good results.  Probably the best of these is his 2 hours 54 minutes 45 seconds set in London in the spring of 1987.  That has now remained a club record for men over 50 for 21 years and there doesn’t appear to be any danger of it falling in the near future.  In fact no-one has got near it (though I’ve tried often enough!)  But he was also an all rounder as he still has his name in the record books for distances from the mile up and in fact most of the longest standing records are all his.

Sadly a knee injury forced him to give up running some years ago.  He could have continued at a lesser pace – as a recreational jogger reminiscing on past glories.  But that wasn’t Derek’s style.  He always set himself very high standards and if he felt he wasn’t living up to them he’d quit while he was ahead – no half measures or second best for him.  For years he’d had a big powerful motorbike but, once he felt his reactions weren’t quite as sharp as they were, it went and he concentrated on cycling and proper bikes.  Again though, this wasn’t easy tea time spins, but serious long outings on a series of fast road bikes with a few equally hard riding friends well into the Vale of Belvoir and beyond.

And then there was the woodwork.  Both Frances and Derek were very capable wood turners when he decided to diversify into cabinet making.  We both signed on for a full time furniture making course at Basford Hall College along with a few other older people in a class really planned for school leavers and apprentices in the trade.  Very soon both staff and students realised he was a bit of a star in this area as well, so that when he wasn’t turning out immaculate dovetail joints himself he was coaching others in how to do so.  And he rescued a couple of my pieces from almost complete oblivion, and by the second half of the year was a student in the day and a teacher on the same course in the evening.  His finished pieces are a joy to behold and are clearly the work of a master craftsman. 

The only thing he couldn’t cope with on the course was the diagnostic literacy test at the beginning.  Not at all because he couldn’t do it but because it was so easy he kept thinking there must be some hidden trick he hadn’t spotted.  Reassuring him that there wasn’t, was probably the only piece of help I was able to give him during the year’s course.  He became an absolute master of terrifying wood working machinery, operating it with a cool confidence so that it virtually would sit up and beg like a well behaved dog.  Strangely this skill didn’t extend to mobile phones.  For years he used to carry one round because Frances had told him to; he also carried round a neatly written sheet of paper with careful instructions from Frances on how to use it.  As far as I know he never did.

I know I’m not alone in thinking of Derek as first port of call when stuck on some practical problem.  We always called on him first partly because he always knew what to do and partly because the help was so generously given.  On several occasions a phone call would very rapidly be followed by a visit from Derek on his bike followed by several hours of graft often under bits of equipment with tools lying all over the floor.  Once he got his teeth into the problem, bulldog like he would never abandon the task  till it was solved.  Somehow we’re going to have to muddle through on our own now.  But we’ve learnt, Derek, from your example, of being alert, thinking things through and just never giving up.

Very few people can have been as good at so many things – and I haven’t even mentioned the family or the Bowls Club.  Everywhere he was the quiet, strong, chuckling anchor man, holding things together and never flapping.  A kind, generous, wise  but unassuming man who showed people what being a good friend meant.

To his friends in the Running Club he was the gentle hard man who set the standard we all try to live up to, and we’ll all miss him greatly.

Bernard Jarvis  13 April 2008