MAY, 1967; you would expect a conversion about events around that time to maybe touch on speed, drugs, naked women, black power, hippies, murder suspects and the Vietnam War.

What I hadn’t bargained on, until our wee blether the other day, was Sir Menzies Campbell being the one talking about them. Yes, that Sir Menzies Campbell, QC, Baron Campbell of Pittenweem. But worry not. All will be explained within.

But May ’67 was probably the high-water mark for Scotland, in football terms at least. A month earlier, we’d inflicted a first defeat upon world champions England, while in European club competitions, Celtic and Rangers were both in finals.

Not surprising then, that other sporting achievements involving Scots were overlooked. Even becoming the fastest man in Britain, merited no more than a footnote on the sports pages – even in The Herald.

Still, Sir Menzies Campbell has a far more impressive certificate on the wall of his snug and characteristically busy study, to record the fact that on this day, 50 years ago exactly, no British athlete had ever run quicker over 100 metres.

The understated acknowledgement of Campbell’s achievement was due, entirely, to the fact it took place halfway around the world – which was also the reason he was able to perform to such a high standard in the first place.

“I found myself in America in 1966 For a youthful Menzies Campbell, breaking British records was always going to be easier in sunny California studying law at Stanford University. I’d been to the Commonwealth Games, then the European Championships, and two days later, I flew to the USA to begin studying at Stanford,” he recalls, as he does most things, with unerring clarity.

“I’d got a scholarship, was turned down by Yale, accepted by Cornell, another of the Ivy League universities, but I’d also applied to Stanford, and they said yes. That was a winner on two counts for me; law and athletics. California was like a different world. I couldn’t believe it.”

And, it would be easy to see why, with what he was now presented with, compared to what faced him annually in Scotland.

“Back here, we stopped sprinting around September before everything froze, the last event being the Shotts Highland Games, inevitably, accompanied by a huge downpour. I was once offered a great big zinc bucket of cold water after one race. No question of showers. At the Falkirk Sports at Brockville, I asked if I might have a shower. ‘No … players only.’ Nothing like feeling welcomed.

“But in California, we trained and ran all year, alongside good training companions and wonderful competition, and, I learned about nutrition and conditioning. Previously, conditioning meant doing weights in a tiny room at Uni with Mighty Mouse’, Ian McLauchlan, and the Jordanhill boys.

“Nutrition? If I had a big race my mother gave me steak the night before, then in the morning, switched up three or four eggs, hot milk, some nutmeg and a tiny,” the measurement calibrated by Sir Ming placing his thumb against his pinkie nail, “that much of brandy.” About as close as he would ever come, personally, to performance enhancing ingredients, although his legal mind was already drawing conclusions on that front.

“I had been a good Scottish athlete up until 1964, when I was invited to run at the Women’s AAA’s at the White City. I know, but the women weren’t considered strong enough televisually – nothing to do with me might I add - so men’s races were added.

“But I received a letter, late, asking would I run at the White City. The BEA offices in St Vincent Street laboriously wrote out a ticket for me and I flew next morning. 

“I ran my best ever 100, then in the 200m beat the Olympic standard. I astonished, everyone was bloody astonished. The next week, with the Scottish AAA’s party again in London, I won my heat over 200 metres, beating Henry Carr, eventually the Olympic gold medallist in Tokyo.

“Next day, Carr suffered a twinge and withdrew, some people rather flatteringly suggesting he didn’t want to be beaten again, and I won the final. “I’d achieved the Olympic standard three times in seven days, legally of course, and was headed for Japan.

“However,” he continued, rubbing his cheek as if pained, “the East Germans were recording some extraordinary times, but turned up for a major meet and run fifth. Very suspicious.

“There was an early steroid, Dianabol, or ‘Dianabolical’ as it was jokingly referred to. We couldn’t prove a thing, but we knew who they were, based on three things; sudden improvement in performance; bulking up; mood swings.

“Find those three traits and you were on to something. And then in 1966, Russian sisters Irina and Tamara Press, one a sprinter, one built like a front-row forward, withdrew from the Europeans in Budapest, and were never seen again, the inference being they were nervous, because by then, there were tests, but only for women.”

Sir Ming chuckles, then laughs aloud. “I say tests, one of which was to walk across a stage, naked. When she was captain of the British team, the great Mary Peters had to undertake such a test – before a panel of judges!

“Mary, as she always is, was absolutely wonderful about it. She said it didn’t worry her at all, she just hadn’t been sure where to put her hands.”

What WM Campbell would soon have his hands on was a British record. If the Olympic Games was his pinnacle in a representative sense, performance wise, his best came after that. Why?

“Because of what I did within the American system, even if that was spending more time on the track than in the library – although unlike some, I was never going to graduate in long jumping.

“That was their system, which strangely also meant not being able to represent Stanford. “If you had a degree from anywhere, and I had two from Glasgow, you couldn’t compete for your American university. Instead, you joined a club.

“Santa Clara Valley was one, but before I’d got there, an Irish sprinter, PJ Morrison, who was on the Stanford team, wouldn’t cut his hair. So, Peyton Jordan the coach, and later coach to the USA team, just pulled him off a team bus. This was hippy time you see, and Santa Clara was where the rebels hung out.

“The other team was in Oakland, called the Athens Club, and who were sponsored by the Afro-American community, with 80% of what was a powerful track team being black. They were very keen to have me, and I was equally keen to be there.”

Which made 1967, in terms of achievement, Campbell’s finest year. While Glasgow was frozen, in the States his season began in January. He also wasn’t juggling, as he had been ahead of the Olympics, a part-time law degree, a solicitors apprenticeship, the Glasgow University Union presidency, a girlfriend, and captaining Team GB. Listed, I should add, in no particular order.

“I’d had a very good indoor season. I ran at the Cow Palace in San Francisco, at the Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto. “Mount San Antonio relay meet was my first outdoor run and I did 10.2 wind-assisted, beating a certain OJ Simpson, who hadn’t yet switched to American Football. I also beat him indoors in Sacramento, the legendary Tommie Smith first, me second, OJ third.” It wouldn’t be the last time Simpson would pursue someone of Sir Ming’s ilk.

“The benefits were apparent; world-class opposition, superb cinder tracks. You were running at eight, nine at night. The heat had gone but it was still wonderfully warm, perfect for sprinting. Like running in hot milk.

“In San Jose, I ran 9.5 for the 100 yards, 10.2 for 100m. I had the record. The following week I ran 10.2 again at Modesto, and came sixth. The first two, Jimmy Hines and Charlie Greene, ran ten-flat – a world record then. The next three ran 10.1 and then it was me, ahead of Ed Roberts of Trinidad, an Olympic medal winner from Tokyo.”

For the record, Hines and Greene would take gold and bronze, respectively, in Mexico.

“On three consecutive weeks, I ran 9.5. I was in the form of my life.” And then, it was all over.

“It was in the middle of the Vietnam War, and if you came off the non-immigrant visa I was on, you were eligible for the draft. Somehow, the paddy fields of south-east Asia just didn’t seem like my fight. I was 26, a British record holder, and had a father saying wouldn’t it be a good idea to earn a living. I wanted to go to the Bar, so I would have to start ‘devilling’ (legal trade jargon for training) over the next year, leading up to Mexico.

“At Scotstoun, I took Les Piggot’s Scottish 100 yards record. He wasn’t there, but complained there hadn’t been enough timekeepers, and then, that it was wind-assisted,” he grimaces. “I just thought ‘no thanks’ and went to the Bar instead, eventually called in November, 1968. But in athletics, I’d gone out at the top.”

I didn’t have the heart to tell him, but, it wasn’t quite the top. For his greatest achievement was, actually, just a sporting brief at the foot of the page…