On the run with copper Kendra

Start a ten hour shift at 8am, mainly on bicycle patrol - "so sweltering on Tuesday I thought I was going to pass out in the heat" - sign off at 6pm, run 16 miles home again, see to the kids, fall jiggered into bed.

A policewoman's lot? "Sometimes I just come in on my bike instead, " says Kendra, a Cleveland Wheeler as well as a Cleveland Peeler.

The single mother of children aged 12 and 17 is also an English international 100k athlete, women's champion of both the North-East Cyclo-Cross League and Cyclo-Cross Association and has won the 30 mile Osmotherley Phoenix running race across the North Yorkshire Moors in each of its six years existence - her record five hours 23 minutes.

Though unable to defend her Phoenix title tomorrow - "There are bills to pay and I have to work, but I'm very sad about it" - the wizard of Ossie will line up in the 40 mile Lyke Wake Race the following Saturday, aiming at a time of under seven hours.

Lovely lass, she is a beat officer at Coulby Newham, Middlesbrough, where her "supportive" inspector is former Boro footballer Charlie Bell.

She is also a member with fellow Cleveland officers Alan Crackell and John Graham of a successful six-member relay team called Cops and Robbers - the Robbers are the civilians, the wrong 'uns, as it were - and last year single-handedly completed the 20 mile Cleveland lap of a nationwide police charity run.

It was the middle of the night, her support driver Assistant Chief Constable Adam Briggs until he spotted a car being driven without lights, chased and arrested the driver for drink driving and had thereafter to be about constabulary duty.

"It was quite funny, " says Kendra. "After that, all I saw on the road was two hedgehogs and a frog." Not even the fiercest cross-examination, however, will persuade WPC White to reveal her age. Assiduous further investigation reveals that she's probably 37.

And the motive? "I just don't want to get fat, " she insists.

Though a police officer perfectly equipped to run them in - "It really helps being fit in this job, especially with all the heavy equipment we have to carry these days" - she insists that her principal sport is now cycling and is training for a "24 hours in the saddle" event across rough terrain.

"Everything I've tried to do, I've seemed to do quite well at, but I'm not really a natural athlete, especially in fitness terms.

"It's all down to 150 per cent hard work, nothing gifted to me.

I've had to graft very hard for what little I've achieved, and to fit it around the children and getting them to their sports.

"I'm hoping to be able to get into a bit more seriously in a couple of years time." Arresting sight or otherwise, she will still be pedalling around Coulby Newham tomorrow when many others will be legging it across the North Yorkshire Moors.

"I'm quite upset really. I like the event, the atmosphere in the village is great and my dad is usually waiting for me with a pint of Guinness at the finish.

"My mind will be on law enforcement in Teesside, but my heart will be racing around Osmotherley."

THE Osmotherley Phoenix event, held since 1998 as part of the traditional Summer Games in the picturesque village six miles east of Northallerton, has a mass start at 9am tomorrow - open to both walkers and runners but with three different routes.

Though officially they're 17, 26 and 30 miles, estimates vary.

"I get a bit of stick over allegedly bad measuring, " says race organiser Gerry Orchard, who lives in York and is an industrial chemist in Northallerton.

"They're known as orchard miles, " says Kendra White. "The 30 mile race is 33 miles, at least." Distances may further vary after the effects of recent flooding in the Hawnby area. "I just hope the contestants on the 30 mile route don't suffer from vertigo, " says Gerry. "There's an amazing stretch of the track which has washed away to a depth of 15 or 20 feet." Kendra would have been running against fellow England internationals Caroline HunterRowe and Sharon Gayter - our asthmatic old friend, the former bus driver from Guisborough.

"It would have been a tremendous tussle between the three of them and we were really looking forward to it, " says Gerry.

Entry is still available, £7 on the day, light refresments en route and all finishers receiving a certificate with an Osmotherley scene - this year featuring Mrs Thompson's locally fabled shop.

For those who've never seen Mrs Thompson's shop, that's just another reason for spending a summer games Saturday in Osmotherley.

Entrepreneur Mileson is now a wanted man

ALREADY re-writing the Gretna love story and helping sustain umpteen smaller clubs, entrepreneur extraordinary Brooks Mileson reveals that he has been approached by one of the country's biggest - and turned them down flat.

"It wasn't North-Eastern but it was one of the best known teams in the Premiership and they wanted me to take a significant shareholding, " he says. "I have no interest in clubs like that. It isn't me, is it?" The Sunderland-born former English cross country international is now chairman of the Durham based Arngrove group - sponsors in perpetuity of the Northern League.

"People tell me that it's all very well getting to heavily involved with Gretna, but what happens when a really big club comes along. Now a really big club has come along and that's their answer.

"I love Gretna and I love being involved in everything. Our Football in the Community scheme is massive and we don't charge a penny for it.

"So far as I'm concerned next season, the premier leagues are the Northern League and Scottish division two."

A BIT old for occupational hazards, Doug Jemmeson is hobbling on two sticks around Middleham, the horse he was shoeing having - once again - fractured his hip.

"He's a sorrowful sight, but he's still trying to get about, " reports his friend Raye Wilkinson.

Doug's 78, been with horses all his life, a member of the Worshipful Company of Farriers and still riding out every morning, an' all.

We'd last seen him at Sedgefield races two years ago - Doug was a Sedgefield lad, sang in St Edmund's choir - when the Doug Jemmeson Lifetime in Racing Handicap Hurdle was run in his honour.

At the time, the hit list included a fractured skull - "unconscious for a week" - three broken legs and another 20 or so assorted breakages.

Now there's another for the casualty department, but they won't have seen the last of the farrier. "No one in Middleham's in any doubt, " says Raye. "He'll be back shoeing, and ridng out, before long." AS if Mr Dennis Skinner were not sufficient delight, next week's Durham Big Meeting will be further entertained by the first public airing of Not Bad For a Bunch of Miners - a song about how West Auckland twice won the World Cup.

"We're on the main platform just before the speakers, " enthuses Ian Luck, who co-wrote the song with familiar Stockton folk singer Eddie Walker.

Backed on concertina and melodeon by the String Band from Trimdon, all concerned will wear West's original black and gold strip. The Sir Thomas Lipton trophy may also make an appearance, and John Wotherspoon's recently published book on the West side story will be on sale for a fiver.

Ian, Gainford based, is delighted to have so ready an audience. "We can't compete with Dennis Skinner but we still hope to be a bit of a scene stealer.

We'll still be giving it rock all." By way of keepy-up appearances, they're also hoping that someone may have an old caser they can bounce about on stage.

Ian's on 07813 998003.

TUESDAY'S column told of a do in Tow Law FC's clubhouse tonight to salute the extraordinary loyalty and service of former chairman Harry Hodgson, the man who helped dig the club out of the Great Hole. All are most welcome.

We also said that his picture had been shamelessly pinched from the Tow Law Times, the primary school magazine, but unfortunately failed to use it.

Misfortune offered the opportunity to ask Harry his proudest moment - the still remembered 5-1 hammering of Mansfield Town in the 1967-68 FA Cup, the 1998 FA Vase final at Wembley or winning the Northern League in 1995.

Harry has no doubt it was winning the League. "The 1967 lads were undoubtedly a better side but we didn't win the Cup and we didn't win the Vase. We won the Northern League."

And finally...

TUESDAY'S column sought the identity of the footballer who played in three successive European Cup finals in the 1990s and expected the answer to be Marcel Desailly - Marseilles in 1993, AC Milan in 1994 and 1995.

As Michael Rudd in Bishop Auckland points out, however, AC Milan also featured in the 1993 final - and Rossi, Maldini, Donadoni and Albertini played in them all.

Back for more, Michael Rudd further invites readers to name the player - with North-East connections - who was leading scorer in the 1996-97 Champions League competition.

More championship stuff on Tuesday.

Published: 07/07/2005