Open Writing

In September 1971 a new member of the teaching staff arrived at the Polytechnic; an ex-first category rider from the UK. Frank Eastwood had moved from Zambia where he had been regularly competing in races. His expertise and ability soon made its mark on the Malawian cycling scene. By this time I had written to my father back in the UK urging him to get the Nottingham Evening Post interested in what I was doing. He succeeded in getting a report on my activities in Malawi with a request for any discarded cycling equipment be sent to him for onward transportation to me.

By this time, Raleigh Cycles, based in Nottingham, had become aware of me and the company agreed to pay the freight cost of sending a crate of cycling equipment donated by Evening Post readers. The company's South African subsidiary also wanted to make contact. It later transpired that this was not for altruistic reasons but arose because the company had been losing market share to the Indian made 'Hero' cycle manufacturer.

Towards the end of 1971 it became clear to me through my representation of cycling on the Olympic and Commonwealth Games Committee that the Malawi Government wanted cycling to be represented in the Munich Olympics the following year. By this time I had persuaded Raleigh in the UK to supply me
with some machines suitable for this purpose. Three track bikes and three road racing bikes were duly shipped out to Malawi. The Cycling Association of Malawi would need to be registered with the international cycling organisation; Le Union Cyclism International (UCI). The annual fee was 10,000 Swiss Francs, not a large cost to a rich country but a lot for a poor country; Raleigh agreed to foot the bill.

Although the Malawi Government would meet some of the cost of sending participants to Germany there was inevitably going to be a limited budget. The organising committee of which I was a member decided that we would send eight participants to the Games, two cyclists, two boxers and four athletes. There would be two female athletes in the party. An Australian sports trainer working in the country would travel as team manager.

Frank Eastwood had been teaching in Zambia for a number of years prior to his arrival in Malawi. He had actively raced with fellow expatriates, mainly from the UK but with one Italian. There were a number of Zambian nationals who enthusiastically participated in training and racing. Although a Zambian cycling team had recently returned from successfully competing in the Tour of Malagasy it was not intended to send any riders to compete in Munich. Frank and myself thought it would be useful if we could persuade Zambia to compete in some races against Malawians prior to the Olympics. An invitation was sent to the Zambian Cycling Federation and to our delight they indicated that a six man team would be sent. We flagged up extensive publicity for the main event, a 110 kilometre road race from Blantyre to Liwonde in the Shire Valley. The Italian, riding for Zambia won the race with Frank third and our two Olympic hopefuls finishing in the first ten.

In an endeavour to raise money to support the team British Overseas Airways Corporation, now BA, was approached. Two free return tickets to London were offered as a prize in the raffle which we proposed to promote. There would only be a few hundred people, mainly expatriates, in a position to purchase raffle tickets at £1 each, but it would raise much needed cash. By the day of the draw we had managed to sell nearly a thousand tickets.

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Eric’s book The First Seventy Years can be obtained for £10 by contacting http://mary@bike2.wanadoo.co.uk or telephoning 01484-658175.

All the cash raised by the book goes to a water aid project in Malawi.