♦ Claude Bell is enjoying life, and is more than willing to help others reach their potential
by Maria Koropecky
the Peninsula News Review newspaper
Wednesday, September 16, 1998, page B1
Winners come in all shapes, sizes — and ages. And 80-year-old Claude Bell can jump start anyone into leading a more active life.
The blue-eyed gentleman with a full head of wavy, gray hair, started athletics at the age of 10, and has been running down any track he can find ever since.
His grandfather, a well-known English runner, encouraged him to enter his first competition and so far, he's won 59 races.
In 1939, when he was 21, Bell was drafted by the Royal Air Force and joined the Maintenance Command Athletic Team. During the war years, he had the opportunity to sprint through towns in England and Wales every Saturday and was awarded prizes like clocks, silverware, or crockery for winning. "They didn't dish out medals in that day."
Five years ago, Bell found an even greater enthusiasm for sports. He coined his own "Come Alive at 75" slogan, went back into tennis and athletics, and has done well at both ever since.
These days, he continues to keep fit and train for up-coming races. He and his wife Beatrice live a kilometer away from the Parkland Secondary School track for a reason. Bell power-walks five miles every morning and cross-trains on the tennis court twice a week.
He definitely knows how to take care of himself. He says he's very careful of what he eats, doesn't smoke and only drinks a small glass of sherry from time to time.
As a runner, he keeps himself motivated by telling himself "I can do it. I can do it."
He urges seniors — even those who aren't world class atheletes — to start walking, start running and even competing.
"I'll go out and walk with anyone that wishes," he says as an added incentive.
Bell's passion for running has given him opportunities to run on all kinds of unusual surfaces all over the world. When he was in the Persian Gulf during World War II, where it was 125 degrees in the shade, they held a track meet on desert sands.
"I've also run on the grass of England, on the Tartan tracks we have here in Canada and ran the 60m on a sundeck of a troop ship off the African Coast."
For Bell, nothing compares to running. "It's an exhilaration, a high. No two ways about it."
So far this year, he's already logged 700 training miles behind him and strives to cover 1000 miles a year between running and playing tennis.
He's serious about running and thrives on competition. "I'm so used to hearing the gun go [to mark the start of the race], it's like an old friend. My wife says 'maybe your hearing is going a little' — but I can still hear the gun."
Born in a tiny village in Yorkshire England, from the same neck of the woods as George Washington, Captain Cook and Chippendale, Bell started off as a mining engineer.
But after he and his wife took a first class boat across the Atlantic and moved to Saskatoon 50 years ago, he got a job at the University of Saskatoon in the Bio-Engineering department. Later, he was transferred to mechanical engineering where he taught fourth year students till he retired 30 years later.
He and Beatrice have been married for 56 years.
"And the crucial part is, my wife and I were in the same class at 10 years old. Not too many people can say they've known the same lady for 70 years."
The Bell's moved to Sidney a year ago. Sitting at his home, with its view overlooking one of the marinas, Bell said Sidney is the only place where it's easy to ride a bike, play tennis and run the track on a regular basis.
"It's the best place we've seen in Canada so far."
