A Day to Remember a Lifetime
October 14, 2021
by Len Corben
From the North Shore Outlook's Instant Replay column on August 6, 2009
by Len Corben
It was 55 years ago – August 7, 1954 – that the world turned its eyes on Vancouver.
That’s the day of the greatly anticipated Miracle Mile between England’s Roger Bannister and Australia’s John Landy at Empire Stadium and the most unexpected drama of English marathoner Jim Peters and his brutally agonizing attempt to finish the 26-mile, 385-yard race on hands, knees and rubber legs.
The drama wasn’t only down on the track.
Some of the more than 35,000 that packed the place that final afternoon of the British Empire and Commonwealth Games have their own incredible stories to tell of how they got to see those unforgettable events. Here is one.
Jim Carter was a 22-year-old university student working as a tower inspector between Kitimat and Kemano in the summer of 1954. He wanted desperately to see the Miracle Mile but couldn’t afford to leave his job a month early and forfeit much-needed tuition funds.
Until, that is, he hit the jackpot… and begged to be fired – or at least laid off.
Each payday, he had risked no more than $10 at the always-available blackjack games. He never won a thing.
But the Saturday before the B.E.G.’s featured mile, Carter’s luck changed dramatically.
Drawing a timely ace, he doubled his growing winnings from $190 to $380 and decided to exit the game. “I got up,” he was recalling last week, “and this bulldoze operator grabbed my shoulder, shoved me back down and said, ‘Sit down until you lose the deal, kid.’”
But Jim kept winning, ending with about $450.
Now he had enough to forego an August paycheque, though he really didn’t want to fork over the plane fare home which he’d have to do if he quit. “That would have cost me a fair bit of my ill-gotten gain,” he admits. So he pleaded to be laid off so his fare would be covered.
The boss wouldn’t go for it at first but finally relented. His pink slip confirmed, Carter was on the next plane.
However, Carter – who went on to become Principal at Sentinel and West Van high schools from 1967-75 – still didn’t have B.E.G. tickets and the final day was sold out.
That’s when he hit another jackpot.
A friend had a sister living in Texas who was unable to come to Vancouver. Carter bought her tickets, including one for the Bannister-Landy race day which ultimately also included the mesmerizing, show-stopping Peters spectacle.
Carter’s west-side seat in row 29, section C, gave him a view of the spot where Bannister’s passing of Landy was captured forever in Charlie Warner’s photo, Frank Crymble’s painting and Jack Harman’s statue at the PNE’s Hastings-Renfrew entrance.
Carter – who had stints as B.C.’s Deputy Minister of Education and then Social Services and Housing in the 1970s and ’80s – was Chairman of the Sports Committee for the 1994 Commonwealth Games in Victoria. Bannister and Landy were there as guests for the 40th anniversary of their magnificent, sub-four-minute Vancouver mile. Carter had them sign his ’54 program and the story in Sports Illustrated’s inaugural issue (pictured above).
by Len Corben
It was 55 years ago – August 7, 1954 – that the world turned its eyes on Vancouver.
That’s the day of the greatly anticipated Miracle Mile between England’s Roger Bannister and Australia’s John Landy at Empire Stadium and the most unexpected drama of English marathoner Jim Peters and his brutally agonizing attempt to finish the 26-mile, 385-yard race on hands, knees and rubber legs.
The drama wasn’t only down on the track.
Some of the more than 35,000 that packed the place that final afternoon of the British Empire and Commonwealth Games have their own incredible stories to tell of how they got to see those unforgettable events. Here is one.
Jim Carter was a 22-year-old university student working as a tower inspector between Kitimat and Kemano in the summer of 1954. He wanted desperately to see the Miracle Mile but couldn’t afford to leave his job a month early and forfeit much-needed tuition funds.
Until, that is, he hit the jackpot… and begged to be fired – or at least laid off.
Each payday, he had risked no more than $10 at the always-available blackjack games. He never won a thing.
But the Saturday before the B.E.G.’s featured mile, Carter’s luck changed dramatically.
Drawing a timely ace, he doubled his growing winnings from $190 to $380 and decided to exit the game. “I got up,” he was recalling last week, “and this bulldoze operator grabbed my shoulder, shoved me back down and said, ‘Sit down until you lose the deal, kid.’”
But Jim kept winning, ending with about $450.
Now he had enough to forego an August paycheque, though he really didn’t want to fork over the plane fare home which he’d have to do if he quit. “That would have cost me a fair bit of my ill-gotten gain,” he admits. So he pleaded to be laid off so his fare would be covered.
The boss wouldn’t go for it at first but finally relented. His pink slip confirmed, Carter was on the next plane.
However, Carter – who went on to become Principal at Sentinel and West Van high schools from 1967-75 – still didn’t have B.E.G. tickets and the final day was sold out.
That’s when he hit another jackpot.
A friend had a sister living in Texas who was unable to come to Vancouver. Carter bought her tickets, including one for the Bannister-Landy race day which ultimately also included the mesmerizing, show-stopping Peters spectacle.
Carter’s west-side seat in row 29, section C, gave him a view of the spot where Bannister’s passing of Landy was captured forever in Charlie Warner’s photo, Frank Crymble’s painting and Jack Harman’s statue at the PNE’s Hastings-Renfrew entrance.
Carter – who had stints as B.C.’s Deputy Minister of Education and then Social Services and Housing in the 1970s and ’80s – was Chairman of the Sports Committee for the 1994 Commonwealth Games in Victoria. Bannister and Landy were there as guests for the 40th anniversary of their magnificent, sub-four-minute Vancouver mile. Carter had them sign his ’54 program and the story in Sports Illustrated’s inaugural issue (pictured above).