Sometimes I tell people I've raced at Crystal Palace. And sometimes I casually offer up that I've witnessed a majestic wet-weather performance from Stirling Moss at the wheel of a contemporary racing car. Anyone who cares to listen to my boasts usually retorts that I'm far too young for either.
But I have competed at Crystal Palace, in a four-lap race as a matter of fact. Plus an extra nine metres. That made it a nice round mile when you consider that those laps were around the National Sport Centre's 400-metre running track, not the parkland racing circuit that closed in the early 1970s.
I have to come clean and tell you that I was barely in my teens at the time and had a pair of Reebok trainers under me rather than something with an internal combustion engine. So I'm trying to mislead when I say I've raced at the Palace.