12/12/2011 Inside Out North East and Cumbria

Facing the cameras for the first time, the marathon man accused of

taking the bus. I did not cheat at any given point, and I most

certainly, certainly, did not get on a bus. To be honest, I'm a bit

sick and tired of him denying it now.

Writing home - a Cumbrian artists captures the true feelings of

soldiers on the front line. There are two wars being fought - one

which is publicised, and one which goes on in a soldier's head when

everything goes quiet. And in the spotlight - charting the

year in which Newcastle's Theatre Royal rediscovered its sparkle.

is incredible, the great grandeur of the Victorian theatre, and

Newcastle's probably got the best in the world.

Stories from the heart of the North East and Cumbria. This is Inside

We're proud of our athletics heritage here. There's Brendan

Foster, Charlie Spedding, Steve Cram - all famous names. Now

there's a new name to add to the list, but for very different

reasons. Rob Sloan is no world champion or Olympic medallist. He

hit the headlines after standing accused of jumping on the bus to

claim third prize in the Kielder COMMENTATOR: That looks like a look

of relief on Rob Sloan, the Sunderland Harrier's face...

Was it relief or an attempt to hide his face? This is the moment Rob

Sloan crossed the line at the Kielder Marathon and walked into a

media storm that's made him Britain's most notorious runner.

Everything revolves around running. I try and do between 100 and 120

miles over a seven-day period. does your wife think about that?

We've had a conversation. "It's me or the running," and I chose the

running, but thankfully she stayed with me. And she's been very

supportive throughout these whole... Shenanigans. Those shenanigans led

to former soldier Rob being thrown out of his running club and banned

from competition until next March. He's accused of jumping on a bus to

complete the Kielder marathon. Two months on he's still denying it.

argument is, who in their right mind runs 24 miles of a 26 mile

race, diversifies off the race, manages to find the bus and then

lies in wait until not only first but second has gone past, and then

rejoins the race? And finished third. In my opinion, I should have

joined the SAS, if I can pull off something like that. We'll examine

the case against Rob shortly. Before then, he was keen to show me

he can run a marathon, even on a treadmill. I will start my

stopwatch. Cameras are on. No stopping. See you soon. Rob's story

begins the day before the marathon when he ran the Kielder 10K. This

time the result was undisputed. was something I did basically just

to make the whole Kielder weekend and experience. I won by 2.5

minutes. Ten kilometres and then a marathon on top, is that not too

much? If you ask a sane person, probably. He was looking forward to

the race. I asked if he was not taking a bit too much on.

flushed with success, Rob headed for the front row at the start of

the marathon, shoulder-to-shoulder with the cream of the Northern

running scene. The race order became set just seconds from the

start. The leaders quickly pull away. A gap opens up with Rob now

falling back. There was a girl who went off quite quickly as well. She

was ahead of me and I slotted into third place quickly. Three men

occupy the lead positions at the front. Steve Cairns, a veteran long

distance runner, is third here at a mile, and still third at 15 miles.

I knew the whole where I was third and I was confident I was third.

was going around the cause and saw the leaders at various points

between Miles 50 and 16. The leader had already gone through when I got

there but I watched the second person and the third person, who

was Steve Cairns. He's quite a distinctive runner. I saw the

fourth Renault coming through and it was not Broxtowe. As I saw him,

I said, hello, Steve. It was a massive gap. Precise timings are

recorded at halfway. Steve Cairns is third, at one hour 23 minutes.

Rob Sloan is eighth, at one hour 27. The gap between the two is now more

than four minutes. At 17 miles, the course photographer snaps Rob in a

group crossing the Kielder dam. He's now fallen back to tenth place.

A couple of miles further down the course, the race route runs close

to road. A bus is laid on for spectators. We were on the bus

taking us up to the finish line and we saw a man running and flood --

fled the bus down. He got on the bus and he had a running shirt on

with his number on so we knew he had been a participant in the

marathon. He had a Sunderland Harriers vest on. He had a big

tattoo on his right leg as well. He was standing in front of us facing

forward. You could see the tattoo quite distinctively. It looked like

lines of verse. We joked that it was a good way to finish a marathon,

get the bus. The driver also recalls stopping for a runner who

looked like Rob Sloan and who told him he was injured having run the

10K the day before. But despite the uncanny resemblance - the earrings,

haircut, running vest and a tattoo on his right leg - Rob Sloan says

it wasn't him. I did not cheat at any given point and I most

certainly did not get on a bus. I think it is more a case of mistaken

identity. The bus stopped and he got off and we joked, he's going to

join back in, not thinking he would. We made our way down to the finish.

We saw the winner and the guy who finished second. And then the guy

who finished third, we were thinking, that is the guy he was on

the bus half an hour ago. Then Steve Cairns crossed the finishing

line, believing he was third. turned to the Marshall and said,

was I fourth? Who was there? He pointed at this man who was now

doing a television interview. I wanted to grab hold of him and so,

how were you Third? How did I prove what just happened? At that time I

had no idea what he had done. young ladies came to the village

and asked to speak and they said the guy who had crossed the line in

third place had been on a Spectator's Bosman bus with them.

We had another lady within a few minutes who said they had seen him

join the cause coming from a direction which was not the

marathon route. We put out a Tannoy announcement for Rob Sloan,

ostensibly at that point to ask him to come for the prize giving, but

we did want to talk to him, but he disappeared. So we took the

decision that we already had enough evidence to disqualify him. I first

heard he got off the bus and was heading towards the British and

then the commentators saw him and sort of build him up, so he decided

to run in. He did admit to me what he had done and I felt sorry for

him. I think if he came clean at that particular time, the club

would have taken a lenient point of view towards him. Yes, I am in the

record books now as third but there are no pictures of May on the

podium at the finish. Every -- he took me -- he took that from me.

am a bit of -- I am a bit sick and tired of him denying it now. He

admitted it the day after on the phone and we prepared a statement

saying he had made a mistake and apologised and we were happy with

that. It happens in all marathons but usually people do not come in

the top three. Back at the gym, our cameras confirm Rob has completed

this marathon fair and square in three hours, seven minutes. That's

it. How are you feeling? All right. Slightly Atta prev. Well, we know

you can do the marathon. The bad news is there is no medal for this

one. Rob bases his defence on the read-out from his Garmin sat nav

system, worn on his wrist. He says it shows him travelling at a

constant pace, until the last couple of miles of the race when it

went haywire. It sounds incredible, unbelievable, that it was not you.

Something stinks. I totally agree. All I know he's I came third in

that race, I was timed, I have my Garmin. Someone might say, you have

done a fantastic job the day before, he has won the ten kilometres. The

next day you are running, whatever reason, just before the end it is

too much, you get on the bus and say, I want to be let off just

before the end, because in your head you are thinking, I mean to

fish is raised, but by accident you come in third and that is where it

all falls apart. You tell a small fee of which then gets difficult to

get out of ten gets bigger and bigger and bigger and basses the

situation you are in. A live that has just gone bonkers. That is very

conceivable but my Garmin cannot live. It's clearly shows you it

does funny where the words of. From that point to the road is certainly

over a mile and a half. But it also says you went at around 30mph,

about the speed of a bus. It does, but a Garmin would not work on a

bus. You say that, but it could be next to the window, these

satellites... I know you are saying this adamantly but there are plenty

of people who could pick holes in this. Yes, I know but I am just

here to give my side of the story. So if on paper, at least, you are

guilty, because you are not appealing, how do you rehabilitate

yourself when the sporting world? want to come back next year and run

the marathon of the North and do it for charity, for Help For Heroes,

something close to my heart, being an ex-soldier. He would like to run

in his home town. Can he? Before we consider having him in any of our

events we would hope that he would come and apologise and admit that

his story does not bear any trees at all. If you want to share your

thoughts on any of the stories you see on Inside Out, then head for my

blog at bbc.co.uk/chrisjackson. This Christmas, many families

across the North East and Cumbria won't be able to celebrate together.

Soldiers serving in Afghanistan will no doubt be sending home cards

and letters, but it's often difficult for those at war to spell

out how they're feeling. Well, as Jacey Norman reports, this year one

Cumbria artist came up with a novel way to capture the thoughts of men

There are two wars being fought, one which is publicised and one

which goes on in a soldier's head when everything goes quiet. This

could be a beautiful walk in some forgotten world that time has

merely neglected, but then a burst of reality strafes across my

platoon. Dream as if you'll live forever, live as if you'll die

Derek Eland from Penrith walks in the footsteps of war artists who've

risked their lives on the front line - capturing photographs,

poetry and paintings. In the history of war art, predominantly

it's dominated by painters and people who draw. And I wasn't sure

I could bring something unique to people's perceptions of that

conflict. But what Derek could bring was experience. He's a former

paratrooper - serving five years in the 16th Air Assault Brigade as a

captain. Inevitably, he turned his attention to the art of war. He

didn't want to simply represent the conflict in drawings or paintings.

Instead, he wanted the soldiers to tell their own stories in

handwritten notes. Here I'm in Camp Bastion with six or seven hours'

sleep. Men have been to war before I have a few things to sort out

this morning, like get better body armour, get masking tape for the

more story nodes, and this afternoon get the helicopter to

Lashkar Gah. Men have been to war before us. It's easy to think they

were warriors, afraid of nothing, but they were just men like us.

beginning to appreciate all the things I've taken for granted all

these years. Six months to push and I'm back to normality, whatever

The soliders mostly thought I was still a painter and they asked me

where are my paints, where is my easel, and I said, well, actually,

all I've got are hundreds of coloured postcards.

Well, certainly lying in bed last night, worrying about it. Just

running it through my head - just how it's going to work on the

ground. How easy it is, or difficult it's going to be to

persuade the soldiers to write down Right-handers going to take a

little look inside. It is pretty good, actually. I reckon we've got

about 115 different stories and we've got about 150-odd individual

I think they very quickly got it. That was the key thing. And then

they just wrote away. As the end of the tour approaches, fear of being

injured really starts to play on your mind. A guardsman has set off

an IED. You run over to him. You see his legs gone, his arm hanging

by sinew, his rifle smashed. He's dying. When my mate got blown up,

it really brought it home. I was sent up to clear the blast site and

collect any bits and pieces, including his foot, if I could find

it. It's not a thing they would talk about between themselves. In

their letters home to their families they play down the dangers.

These are raw, honest accounts that clearly these soldiers are carrying

around in their heads. He's been shot. How bad is he? Is he still

alive? He is still alive. Saying goodbye hurts. But saying goodbye,

not knowing if you're coming home, is one million times worse.

Everyday a bang happens. Some small, some large, some so big it shakes

you in your bed. I didn't know which bang was the one which blew

my mate's legs off. SHOUTING. in an ops meeting one night and

someone came in and shouted, "Contact!" Whilst everyone else

went and grabbed their weapons and got on with things I switched on my

camcorder and filmed for about 15 or 20 minutes this contact going on.

I filmed these soldiers who had written these stories doing their

job. And the shouts and commands in the darkness was very impressive,

I've been fired at loads of times, but only ever seen one Taliban with

a weapon. They are like ghosts. Responsibility. The sniper with a

Tragedy is seeded throughout this project, throughout the cards.

Soliders who wrote cards, and put their names to those cards, went on

to be injured, shot or blown up, and in some cases killed. There was

a soldier from a regiment who wrote about life in Afghanistan,

particularly being on sentry duty in the middle of the night and all

of that. He was shot about ten days after writing that. In a way, I

felt fortunate to have captured his story before he was killed. And the

family have given permission for that story to be shown.

Derek's exhibition will run for nine months as part of the War

Correspondent season at the Imperial War Museum North in

Manchester. When people read these they'll be surprised, they'll be

shocked, they'll be moved. I see this now as a huge self-portrait.

I've facilitated this artwork, but the artwork itself, when it's seen

by the public, I think should be seen as an extraordinary self-

The only ones to understand will have stood where we now stand. It's

the honesty of these stories that As the curtain goes up on the

Christmas pantomime, the visitors to Newcastle's theatre Royal will

be watching from an auditorium sparkling and glittering after a

remarkable facelift. Throughout the year we have had exclusive behind-

the-scenes access to watch as the theatre re-emerged to become the

It is the people and the cast in the theatre, and people have been

coming up to me and saying, what have you been doing to our theatre?

That makes you realise how important it is to the people of

the city. The Theatre Royal, pet -- built in 1837, the grand old lady

of Grey Street. Each year, 300,000 people converged here for their

dose of romance, passion and laughter. Like any lady of

advancing years, she is in need of a bit of maintenance now and again,

but when you modernise somewhere as historic and as much loved as this,

you better do it with care. It is an exciting time. We have been

talking about this for the best part of five years and it is all

about to happen. We always knew it was going to be tight and everyone

would have to work together. It is March. The theatre is raising

almost �5 million to spend on a refit. Most of it is being paid for

by the theatregoers themselves, with a small levy on each ticket

sold. The building with be shut for six months. It is a huge task.

has to be on time. We have sold tickets for the Madness of King

George. We are at a point et of no return. It is going to happen.

we start with a run of 18 seats here, single seats. First job, to

flog off the unwanted fixtures and fittings to raise extra cash

towards the project. �100, thank you. There are 1,200 seats to sell,

including some sponsored by celebrities who have performed here.

What shall we say, �50, �60? ridden at �270? Thank you. -- Are

we don't. But not every celebrity is in such high demand. 50 pounds

anywhere? �30? Then at �80, sold to you, madam. �80 for bridges got's

seat. I am quite excited because he's my favourite director. -- so

You are very late, you know. before everything is ripped out and

taken away, there is one last performance, a charity variety show.

Newcastle is famous for two things. Football and beautiful women. What

position do you play? And the curtain goes down for the very last

time before the work begins. It is The task really is to clear the

entire auditorium of all the Giddings that get in the way of the

builders so when the builders arrive on Wednesday it is an empty

shell. Everybody from across the building is playing their part. The

marketing staff are carrying all the poster frames around. I spent

almost every Christmas in here because I do all the pantomimes.

You spend a lot of time in here, more than at home. You have

pictures of your family on the walls. It feels like packing up

your life, really. Four weeks later. The staff told his basically to get

us all the way up in the centre of the auditorium to the main ceiling

level, which nobody can see. It is four floors up. There is a lot of

restoration to be done on there. The most challenging and think as

far as the fabric of the building is concern is the historical

features in the auditorium. Really ornate ceilings. The last thing we

wanted to his damaged them. -- the last thing we want to do.

builders' brief is to restore the interior to the way it was in 1901,

the classic Edwardian design by one of the world's greatest theatre

architects, at Frank Matcham. That meant hours of painstaking research

using old photographs and original research. Here we have a 1900

drawing and a 90 No one drawing, both for the stalls level.

Sometimes he asked the question, why has that been done like that?

There seems to be no logic. The rule now is quite obvious. Do not

question it and rejected, so had to back the way it was -- putting back

the way it was. Nine weeks to go and Simon and his team are working

flat out. There is a lot of dust and mess and deconstruction. It is

starting to make it feel a little bit more intimate. The carpet is

going down, all ready. I'd do wake up in a cold sweat. I just hope it

all happens. Equally, I have complete confidence in the builders.

My biggest concern is that the seeding went quite match

everybody's expectations. -- the seating. It is the day before the

Tyne and Wear derby and Simon, a Newcastle United fan, has big

concerns about the colours in for the walls. Red-and-white stripes?

We have a few lads from Sunderland who thought it would be pfennig to

put those in. We will be covering them with maroon wallpaper so you

will never see them. The big day is here. 1,200 people are expected for

the opening night but there is still masses to do. Five Arrows

before curtain so it is quite an exciting time. -- five hours. Work

is going on in the front of house and outside. The paint will be dry

by 7:30pm, rest assured! While the work goes on, potential disaster is

waiting in the wings. Many of the cast, on the way from London, asked

it because of higher wind. There are some power lines down which

means some of the trains have had to go back to Darlington. They got

stuck halfway, so we have had actors going up and down the line

the last few hammers. We are trying to get a taxi bore them and they

should all be here in time. The new look gets the thumbs-up from a

familiar face. It is incredible, and the place is quite beautiful.

It is a great grandeur of the Victorian theatre, and Newcastle

has probably got the best in the world. I am still getting my breath,

really, and I played here three or four times. I did Richard III here.

And King Lear. I was really moving in that! So it is wonderful to play

in a theatre like this but now I have to just try to get a job! Try

to get it right! And this is the moment they have been waiting six

months for. Sir, that is why you are back! Fight it!

I told you they would be here on time and the show would go on.

Nobody believed me. As sure as eggs is eggs, we are here and everybody

is enjoying it. The way they have refurbished it back to the original,

it is absolutely gorgeous. You can feel as if you were there that time.

It has been so sensitively restored. They have managed to recreate the

theatre of 100 years ago without losing any of the 21st century

comforts. They are not enough of these buildings left in this

country. There were 1,200 in 1914. There are less than 120 now.

Newcastle, you have got a beautiful theatre here. I am sure it will be

enjoyed by many generations to come. Shall I throw this bucket over the

side? This year's pantomime is threatening to make a mess of the

new seats but the theatre bosses can take a joke. After all, the

show is expected to attract 80,000 this Christmas, a big audience for

a grand old theatre back in his prime. You can see more on the

theatre's restoration in a special programme coming to your screens in