Hello, I'm Christy Young and this is a download from the Desert Island Discs archive. This edition may be slightly different from what was actually broadcast, but it's the only version we have. It comes from the British Library's radio collection. It was archived without the music, so although the castaways' choices are introduced, they're not part of this recording. Full details can be found on the castaway.com website. Castaway's page on the Desert Island Discs website. The programme was originally broadcast in 1980 and the presenter was Roy Plumley. Has been called the best all-round athlete in the world today. He was born in London and his name is Daley Thompson. Daley, do you play records a lot? We have quite a lot of spare time when we do our recovery and stuff between training sessions. Most of the time I listen to music then. During sessions I have a radio out and just listen to it while I'm doing my thing. Do you sing or play an instrument yourself?

Unfortunately I can do neither but I'd like to learn. Could you endure loneliness on an island? Well I have to train most... And afternoons myself so I suppose I could do it for a little while but obviously we get a bit boring. What's the first record you've chosen of the eight? Marvin Gaye singing, Abraham, Martin and John. Why do you choose this one? Um, just because I'm a singer. Because I like Marvin Gaye's voice and I wish I could sing like him. Marvin Gaye singing Abraham And John. Now Daley, you're in London and what part of London? I'm not in Hillgate. Ancestry or Nigerian and Scott. Good mixture? Oh well I haven't done too badly have it. Now you had the misfortune to... Lose your father when you were quite young. Do you think that's why you had a reputation as being rather an unruly child? Um, I don't know, I think it's just like... The area where I was brought up, it's a working class area and most kids sort of run around and get into a bit of trouble now and then.

You were getting into fights even at nursery school, I hear. Well, I was chucked out of nursery school, I think, when I was four, for fighting and things, but... I think most kids are fairly boisterous at that age. So off you went to boarding school when you were about seven, did they? They sought you out there? Yeah, I suppose, you know. I quieted down a little and got on with going to class and being normal. They gave you plenty of physical... Yeah, well we used to have games every afternoon so I obviously enjoyed that. What was the big thing in your life, the big sport? Football. Football? Yeah, football at the time. As I say, I was playing four or five days a week at school and then on Saturdays and Sundays I'd play for local teams and my county. You tried to do something about soccer didn't you? You wanted the beer. Yeah I loved being a football player because I had a child with Fulham and Chelsea and I was going fairly well but then I started doing athletics. And doing it ever since. They gave you a trial at both clubs? Yes. What turned you to athletics?

I started, I went down my local track and started doing it with a few friends and I just found that you know Doing an individual thing as opposed to a team thing, I got a lot more self satisfaction from it. So, you know, just started from there and been carrying on. Right, well we'll talk about that in a minute. Let's have your second record. What's that to be? It's James Taylor and You've Got a Friend. James Taylor, You've Got a Friend. Why'd you choose that one? Well, I've first heard... James Taylor when he was singing in a film called FM, which I saw in America. From there I got a few albums of his and I just liked him ever since. Right, now you turn from soccer to athletics, what sort of distance attracted you first of all? I started off as a sprint now. And 200 because basically this is the shortest distance so it's pretty easy. You did quite well in the English schools championship for the 200 meters. Fourth one year my first year trying them, the next year I came first. So obviously with the initial success you sort of start to train and...

Do a bit more. The AAA Junior Championships, and in a way that was the best thing that ever happened to you. Yeah, I suppose because you know you sort of feel dejected because you think you're some good and obviously you're not sort of making finals and stuff of junior things then obviously you're not quite as good as you thought you had. And I've sort of come to the point where I felt that perhaps I'm not as good as I thought I was and... Perhaps I should try something else. And on the day when I wasn't doing very well at the junior 3A's, I happened to meet one of my coaches. And he sort of gave me some encouragement and I think I've carried on ever since. - It's just 'cause you look so awfully miserable and dejected that you met this man. He came up and comforted you and a man was gonna be very important to you. - Yeah, you know, Bob sort of helped me as a sort of father figure ever since.

And I rely quite a lot on him for good advice. - Bob? - Bob Mortimer. - Well, partly thanks to Bob Mortimer, you won that event the following year. Now you're very bright scholastically too, you-- On to colleges of other education? Well, I'm no clearer than anybody else. I just happen to be very... Fortunate in some of the questions that come up on pages. - We've got a very impressive number of O's and A's. Now, whose idea was it for you to go for the decathlon? Bob's? - Actually, it was Bob's because at the time I was doing... Sort of high jump and some long jump and some hundred and four hundred for the club, Essex Beagles and we just decided that it might be a good idea not to specialise too early and try decathlon. And so we tried decathlon in June 75. It went fairly well and I've been doing it ever since. Now there aren't many youngsters who go for it, are there? Basically you're not allowed to do it, I think, until I was 17 or 18. So I was fortunate that the Welsh 3A's let me do it as a guest. So this is the reason why you don't get many gangsters doing it.

Before we talk about the decathlon in detail, record number three and that's Sure enough must be loved by heatwave sure enough must be loved By Heatwave and I'm not to ask you why you like it. Thanks. We can gather from the first... Records that you daily must be a romantic. We're going to continue in this mood musically, are we? Oh yeah, basically I don't like too loud music and any kind of music that I like dancing to. Right. I like dancing with a partner. Let's talk about the decathlon. Obviously, from the name Ten Events, can you list them? You do five of them. - You do a 100m long jump, a shot foot, a high jump, and 400m. - That's the first day? - That's the first day. That's the first day. That's the first day.

Second day you do 110m hurdles, discus, pole vault, jab, and 1500 obviously when you started there must have been some events you had never even tried when I did my first decathlon I think I hadn't done five events and they were things like hurdles, pole vault, discus, 1500 and shot now there must be one complication though shot is for big muscular chaps and you don't need all that weight for high jump for example Yeah, so the obvious thing to do is to find... The sort of optimum body weight that you can carry without it being detrimental to your speed. So as the years go on you try to be a bit heavier, some years a bit lighter. You try and find what's good for you.

You've got to... Well obviously you have to do lots of weights and things for the throwing event but then you have to do lots of mobility for things like hurdles and pole vault. How's the scoring done? The tables that you use were done in 1962 and a thousand points was for the average of the top hundred The world for each individual event and it was done in a straight line graph down and above it. Just get on with it, you don't worry about the scoring, you leave that. Oh no. Well, it comes in a little book, and once you get the book and you know what it looks like, then it's pretty easy. You just run first and leave it to the chaps with the stopwatches. We must need a lot of organization, the decathlon. I presume they don't have many of them, they don't have them at most meetings. You can just see them only run over half an hour or a couple of hours and as a decathlon it takes two days. It will be pretty difficult. Quite a lot all around the place. It depends on what kind of country you go to. If you go to European countries where they have sort of a long history and tradition of...

And you'll find that they have a lot of them on, but in places like Britain where they've never actually had anybody who's very good or they don't have a tradition of it, then you don't find very many. And you'll compete it for the first time in the Welsh Open and you won that. Yes. Now since then... You've been strictly a decathlon man. Have you competed in other events? Oh yeah, all the time. I mean like every week you do something about that. Because you have to learn to do the skills that you've been training at under pressure. And the only way to learn that is by getting into competitions and doing it. You're doing loose-cream. Yeah, so every weekend you'll do three or four things and try and get some more competition on a Wednesday as well. - You went to England, Montreal. How did you do? - Okay, May 18th. It's Great Britain actually, it's all the countries. You were still a teenager, very young for the event. Yeah, well, I was about the youngest by about four or five years. And the Catholics sort of usually get to their best about 27, 28. Well, you're still young for the event now.

What you're pushing 22 yeah push but not very hard no since Montreal you you won the event at the 78 Commonwealth Games you hold the United Kingdom and since May of this year the world record. That was a nice breakthrough. Yeah, it was very fortunate. I mean, you know, things went very well for me, you know, because usually you find that in a decathlon you sort of have five or six good ones, two or three fair ones and a couple of bad ones, but I was fortunate in that all my events went fairly good for me. Where was this? It was in Austria, a place called Gottsis. Right, you're at the top. Let's have record number one.

Record number four is Together by O.C. Smith. Any reason? Not really, it's just a nice record and it's quiet and danceable. Romantic? Oh, romantic. Together, O.C. Smith. Now training for ten events at world class, obviously a full-time occupation. Six days a week? Seven days a week. Seven days a week. What's a typical day? Well, you get up when everybody's at work, about 10.30, and run for 20 minutes. By then you've found your way down to my local sports centre. And we'll throw shot, disc and javelin for an hour and a half. Then we'll have some lunch, run again for another 20 minutes, throw again for another hour and a half, run again. Then we'll go up to Crystal Palace and spend maybe three hours and do things like hurdles, pole vault, javelin.

It's a long day. Well, it's fairly long but it has some breaks in between that last for two hours maybe, so it's not too bad. And no late nights? Oh no, because obviously if you're up sort of, not early, but up to work your body hard, you can't obviously be staying up too late, otherwise you won't be rested for the time of the next day. And what about diet? You must eat two or three days? As much as the next man apart from the fact that you're a big chap anyway. Well actually diet doesn't really matter because the fact that you're working fairly hard all the time you don't put on any weight or anything and you can basically eat what you like. Now what are the economics of this daily? I mean you can't do a day's work as well obviously. Well the economics are that most athletes are sort of sponsored by different people or they're helped by their associations. In my case I'm helped by both. What do you mean by sponsorship? Well they give you money so that you can pay...

Your bills and your rent and buy yourself some clothes and some food. But this does a pretty fine dividing line there. You mustn't enter into any kind of commercial. - No, it has to be done basically through your association. So obviously there can't be any sort of commercial spin-offs. Looking at your book one is my lucky number a splendid picture book a lot of And in some of them you're wearing an advertising t-shirt. Now who's kidding whom? How does that figure? When you say an advertising t-shirt, I mean like the sort of shirts you can buy anyway. So, uh... Advertising a firm of German sports manufacturers? Yeah, but I don't think you could, you can basically stop people, because I mean, they're just the ones you're given. Or the ones that you buy in the streets. I mean, if I bought it then I don't think anybody could say that I was really advertising. You can stop anybody in the street from wearing them.

Country? Yeah, we we trundle off to either France or California for three or four months and get some sunshine. Now this again As happy sponsors. - Yeah, you know, it's all paid for because, well, I obviously couldn't afford it and this comes through some people called the Sports Aid Foundation who help sportsmen around the country. - Now what's being done about the... Provision of sports facilities. One of the reasons why you have to go abroad during the winter is that you can't work undercover here. Well, facilities in this country are probably the worst I've seen anywhere in the world because sport here is still taken as if people do it for a hobby as opposed to trying to be the best at it. At what they are. So you know at Crystal Palace during the winter if it's not raining or anything then the lights are fused because a few weeks ago it was raining and so you know it's very

conditions. And that is the only general big sports centre under cover in south of England? See the indoor area in Crystal Palace, it was just basically an afterthought, it's just a road over the top that's just been covered in the sides, so it's not really purpose built or anything, that's why it has a lot of space. Problems and it is the only place between here and Wolverhampton and there is only one in the country which is at Wolverhampton for indoors, Crossford. So it's just as well you can get to... Yeah, really, I mean otherwise it would be that much more difficult. In fact, maybe impossible to be any good are there plenty of

Or do you train at university or what? Well, see, in California where the weather is nice, you don't need any indoor facilities or anything and I work out at a place called San Diego State University and they just allow me to use the university as I please all the sort of training facilities with the medical facilities as well Great. Record number five? Here's Al Green singing 'For the Good Times' - All right. Al Green for the good times. Now you've been working for four years, four long years towards the 1980 Olympics, which have now gone sour. Nevertheless, you're off to Moscow. Now, what about your conscience daily? I mean, you know that your performance is going to provide glamorous propaganda for an aggressor nation. Does that worry you? Thank you. I don't consider it to be propaganda for anybody else.

You seem to have done rather well in the propaganda exercise with the 1936 Olympics. Well, I would have said that Lake Placid was just as much a propaganda exercise for the Americans. Yes, but they behaved rather better, a little better through the years recently. Well, I think that would be a matter of opinion. It depends on how you look at the... If you do get your gold medal, it's going to be a bit tarnished. I mean, you know that your main rival, the West German, Guido Krajtsma, isn't going to compete. No, right, but fortunately he was there the other week when I set my world record. And obviously I beat him. He won't be there, but I think the chances are that I might have been able to beat him again. But my next three or four rivals will all be there, because they're Russians and East Germans. I don't think it will quite be as tarnished as some would say. Now, you've talked in the press. You've got Moscow, then in four years time you've got the Los Angeles.

You've talked about what can be done of the money that's available for the big Olympic stars. You see yourself as a sort of Johnny Valero. Smaller of the mid 1980s. Can't swim. No, but that's what you want to do. You want to No, I'm not sure what I want to do. At the moment all I really want to do is just do athletics really. As to what I want to do afterwards, obviously there would be a lot of commercial things that are possible, but at the moment I'm trying to do the best I can at this. Then see what happens. Yes, well, 1984 is a long way away. Well, not really. Lot of sweat. Well, I mean, that's what's so much fun about it. Very few people of my age who can actually do as they please, not have to worry about work or not have to worry about money and can just get up any day they like and if they want to go to say California then get up and go to California and I like the freedom, you know, and I have good fun.

You've already been to a lot of places, in the next four years there are a whole lot more. Yeah right, you know, so I mean like all the next four years obviously got to be hard work because there's no improvement without any hard work but I think it's worth it because my own self-satisfaction. Record number six. Is Rod Sturt singing The Best Days of My Life and I like it because it's a favourite. Record of me and my friend. Any particular friend? Oh yeah yeah I ain't gonna tell you what her name is. Rod Stewart, The Best Days of My Life. Let's go straight on to record seven. This is George Benson, An Unchained Melody. I like this one basically because I saw George Benson in concert while I was in America and this just reminds me of being there in the sunshine. George Benson, Unchained Melody. A nice feeling of sunshine about it and there's plenty of that on the island and physically there's no one...

Better equipped to be a Robinson Crusoe than you, daily? Have you got some ideas? Are you kidding? I might be physically equipped to be a Friday, but no Robinson Crusoe. You could build a hut. Yeah, I think, you know, I'd have a bit of fun for a little bit, but I might get a bit bored. You can fish? Yeah, I like fishing, I love fishing, because I use it as relaxation and go fishing during the summer. Where? Well, anyway, there's some lakes up in Crawley, where I live, and I go fishing there occasionally. Would you try to escape? Not for the first few months, I wouldn't think, because I'd enjoy a bit of peace and quiet. Life's a bit hectic sometimes. Do you know anything about small boats? No. You said modestly a little while ago that you weren't a swimmer. In fact, you do swim. You swam in superstars. Yeah, but only learnt to swim for the superstars. Really? Yeah. I spent, I think, ten weeks, every single day for ten weeks swimming. An hour a day. And it was ever so boring. It was ever so difficult.

Well it's impossible to forget how to swim, you know how to swim. Oh yeah, I know now, but I don't think I'd take it too seriously, because service is difficult. So you'd think it out before you did anything wrong. Oh yeah. Record number 8, your last record. Another romantic one? Oh my record's romantic, because I'm basically a romantic person. And this is Three Times a Lady. The Commodores.

What was he singing I forget unchained melody of course and if you would take one luxury to the island one thing of no practical use a guitar a guitar because I'm tone deaf and So be nice to learn that already for your film career of the future. Yeah, right I could be doing these of anything can I right and we'll give you some instruction books in the case and One book apart from the Bible and Shakespeare and not a big encyclopedia Um, I think I take maybe if I was allowed a collection of John Wyndham because they're only sort of short science fiction books Yes Well, we'll bind some of your favorites together into one big substantial volume some science fiction by John Wyndham And thank you daily Thompson for letting us hear your desert island disc and the very best of luck with the decathlon Thanks very much. Goodbye everyone