LK: Good evening, sir Arthur.
SA: Good evening, good evening, good evening.
LK: By the way, sir Arthur, I’m so sorry about the mix up yesterday with the four enormous larks. The man responsible has been dismissed.
SA: Don’t be so silly, not at all. I mean, that’s all water under the bridge. All forgotten now. You destroyed his career, I imagine.
LK: Yes.
SA: Good, good, good, good. Everything all right for today?
LK: Yes. Five gold rings.
SA: Five gold rings, lovely, lovely, lovely, lovely.
LK: So five gold rings, sir Arthur. Is there some connection with the Olympics there perhaps?
SA: Oh, yes indeed. The Olympic symbol. I have extremely fond memories of the Olympic games.
LK: Were you an athlete as a young man?
SA: For me, an athlete? Good lord. Now I was absolutely hopeless, completely feeble. Asthma, flat feet, huge wobbly bum … the lot. I always came in last in everything.
LK: So your memories of the Olympics are as a spectator?
SA: No. As a sprinter.
LK: You competed in the Olympics?
SA: Yes indeed. Berlin ‘36.
LK: You ran for Britain in the 1936 Olympics?
SA: No, for Barbados.
LK: Why?
SA: Because Hitler asked me to.
LK: Hitler?
SA: Yes. He asked me, and obviously, I was terribly flattered.
LK: Why did he ask you to run for Barbados?
SA: Well, he said he didn’t want the Germans to win everything because it would get a bit monotonous.
LK: I get the feeling you didn’t know Hitler terribly well.
SA: Not terribly well, no. In fact, I only met him once.
LK: Where?
SA: Wine and cheese party at his place in Berchtesgaden. Just a few friends, Leni Riefenstahl, the Mitfords who dragged me along as usual, and the normal crowd, basically. Drinks, not dinner, but it was a fairly formal affair.
LK: Black tie?
SA: Black tie, black shirt, black underwear, black boots, black everything. Come to think of it, it was a very formal affair indeed. Anyway, I was chatting to a couple of blondes, and Hitler drifted over with the sausage rolls and casually asked me if I’d like to run-in the Olympics.
LK: What did you do?
SA: Well, I’m ashamed to say I totally ignored him at first, tiny little man in uniform. I thought he was the waiter. But after the blondes had, gently explained my gaffe, Hitler and I went over to a quiet corner and he, repeated the offer.
LK: Why did he choose you?
SA: Well, he said, that the black chaps were absolutely hopelessly inferior and only a white man could win a race. He was banging on about that for quite a while actually, and I’m afraid I nodded off. Didn’t get all the details, but the the gist was that I had to disguise myself as a black man for for form’s sake.
LK: Why did you go along with it?
SA: I mean, he’d been terribly sweet about the sausage roll thing, and, also, I got a fairly strong hint from the nail to my hotel room door when I got back that he’d have me shot if I refused.
LK: What happened on the day of the race?
SA: Oh, it was fantastic. 100 yards, climax of the whole games. 90,000 people waiting for the great German sprinter von Laufenberg to breast the tape victorious. I lined up with the rest of them. I’m fully expecting to trail in last. But then the bloody pistol went off, I got such a scare, I ran like the clappers and won. The crowd went absolutely wild.
LK: And Hitler too, I should think.
SA: I don’t know. He rushed out straight after the race. But during the ceremony, when Goring hung the medal around my neck, he told me I was definitely for the high jump. Well, I was very willing to give it a go, but unfortunately I had to nip straight back to London for something or other, so I never got the chance.
LK: What were your impressions of Hitler?
SA: Well, as we all know, he later required the reputation of an absolute sod, but in those days he was all charm. One could have had no inkling that he’d go onto blot his copybook in such a spectacular way.
LK: You didn’t suspect that he chose you to run because he wanted a black man to come last?
SA: What? Good Lord, no. He wasn’t the practical joking type at all.
LK: You can’t have struck him, though, as exactly the athletic type.
SA: I was holding the tummy in.
LK: And you didn’t notice any hint of evil about Hitler?
SA: No, no, far from it. Now you mention it, there was one thing that I found a little bit peculiar.
LK: What was that?
SA: He absolutely hated dogs, always thought that a bit odd. Quite honestly, that was the only sign of instability that I detected.
LK: Well, thank you, sir Arthur.
SA: Oh, thank you. I enjoyed that one very much. Care for a glass of sherry?
LK: Thank you, I’d love it.
SA: We have some nice, a Miniverde I think it is. Say when? There we go. Right well, my goodness me, yes.