Lord Bates visits BSB on his walk from Greece to London

 

Lord Bates visited The British School of Brussels (BSB) on Friday 27 January, 2012 talking with students in both Primary and Secondary School. With an often humble demeanour, Lord Michael Bates first shared his inspirational story of his walk from Greece to London to promote the Olympic truce to an audience of 12 year olds in their weekly assembly. He explained that he had started his journey on 22 April, 2012 having covered 4,300km in nine months visiting dignitaries along the way including the Pope. Whilst in Brussels he had just completed day 278 with over six million steps.

Lord Bates explained that he walks approximately 30km a day. “It largely depends on where I can stay for the night,” when answering one 10 year old. “I’ve slept in a church in Greece and various bus shelters and a smile is a universal language.” Lord Bates gave an historical perspective to his talk with the youngsters about why the Olympics were created and how he became motivated and inspired to carry out his often lonely and sometimes accident-prone expedition to promote peace during the Olympic and Paralympic games. “From the idea to starting it was only six weeks. The Olympic torch relay for the first time is not happening for the London Olympics. I have my own torch but it has batteries in it.”

“Did you ever get lost?” asked one 10 year old. “Yes, plenty of times, I’ve covered many more miles than I needed to”. Asked how Lord Bates would cross the Channel by another intrigued youngster, Lord Bates replied; “I wanted to walk through the service tunnel but the expense and nuisance to travellers made it impossible, so I shall take the ferry by the shortest possible route”.

Carole Denny, Vice Principal and Head of Primary School commented that peace and conflict in the world reviewed from a past and present perspective was a recent ‘integrated learning theme’ within the Year 6 curriculum. “This has been very relevant to our academic focus. Some of our youngsters seem to be inspired to go further and write a letter to the British Ambassador and other European Union dignitaries here in Belgium.”

In his Christmas 2011 newsletter a quick history of the truce says: In 1993 in preparation for the Winter Games in Norway the Olympic truce was made a Resolution of the United Nations General Assembly. The truce is proposed every two years jointly by the host nation of the Summer or Winter Olympics and the IOC and calls upon member states to ‘Pursue initiatives for peace and reconciliation’ during the Games. Since 1994 the Olympic truce has been signed by virtually all member states at the UN but implemented by none’.

Lord Bates also met BSB History & Politics’ students aged 16 and 17 covering a Q&A session about UK Parliamentary and Constitutional issues. Later in the day Lord Bates met with A Level students studying Physical Education (PE) including a particularly relevant module on Politics and Sport.

BSB student Carl Silvester observed that South African had been banned from the Olympic Games due to their apartheid system and he asked whether Lord Bates thought that countries should be banned from the Games in order to put political pressure on a particular country. Lord Bates acknowledged that South Africa had been excluded from the Games but were now competing again. He told the BSB students that he wanted more people to be taking part in the Games and he thought that the president of the IOC, who he had meet as part of his walk, believed this too. Lord Bates talked about the idea of athletes competing as individuals rather than athletes from a particular country. He said that in the ancient Olympic games it wasn't important where an athlete came from but the way that he tried his best and valued sportsmanship, following the rules.

Later the same morning at BSB in another Assembly with 10 year old children, when asked if he had ever regretted his decision to walk or had wanted to stop, Lord Bates said no, although he missed his family and friends, particularly at Christmas time. One student asked what he carried with him, to which Lord Bates replied: “an umbrella, laptop, iPod and a suit for my various meetings with Prime Ministers and politicians.”

Asked to share some highlights Lord Bates said that meeting so many nationalities and staying in houses with people from different nationalities, creeds and religions was very special. Having travelled through 12 countries to reach Belgium including Italy, Albania, Croatia, Slovenia and Switzerland with two more to go, Lord Bates said one of the hardest challenges of his walk was during the summer months of heat and whilst walking in the Alps when he fell down a ravine and broke his arm.

It was a very busy day for Lord Bates at BSB. “The opportunity was perfect,” said Sue Woodroofe, Principal at BSB. “The relevance to our Primary School children as part of their learning objectives as well as our PE and History & Politics’ students hearing about the historical perspective and physical endurance of his walk was an inspiration to us all.”

Lord Bates is scheduled to finish in Westminister on 15 February 2012.