It takes a bit of finding, but on the front of the old Carlton hotel in the sleepy seaside Kent town of Broadstairs hangs a blue plaque. It’s an apartment block these days, but it marks the spot where some of the British team stayed and trained before embarking on their trip to the Paris Olympics almost 100 years ago.
More obvious is the confusion on the faces of the folk who stop and read it, desperately trying to reconcile their view of nearby Viking Bay and their memories of the opening scene from the 1981 film Chariots of Fire, where the cast splash along the surf to the soaring electronic score by Vangelis.
