‘Absolutely amazing thing’: Terry Fox confiding pens book about 1980 run

It’s an image forever burned into Bill Vigars’s memory.

The date was July 17, 1980, and Terry Fox’s Marathon of Hope detoured from its original route into London on the advice of his public relations team.

“For me, partly because I came from there, it’s one of the most vivid memories I have of the entire run,” said Vigars, who was Fox’s publicist and the cancer society’s director of public relations and fundraising. He accompanied Fox from the East Coast to Thunder Bay, where the runner’s journey was cut short.

Vigars’s book, Terry and Me: The Inside Story of Terry Fox’s Marathon of Hope, was written with Ian Harvey and it features photos and anecdotes from Fox’s run.

Vigars, who now lives in White Rock, BC, will be in his hometown St. Thomas on Friday to sign copies of the book at Lockwood Books from 1 pm to 3 pm

The sun wasn’t up yet when Fox began his run into London from just outside Thamesford at about at 5 am, Vigars said.

By 10 am, he’d entered the city’s limits.

It was 30 C by the time Fox ran through the downtown core.

“I have a vivid recollection of the guys on top of the Kellogg’s plant on Dundas Street throwing the money down to the guys collecting money,” Vigars said.

In Victoria Park, the London reception was organized by Vigars’s brother Bob, a longtime Western University coach and founder of the London – Western Track and Field Club.

“I was so emotional and moved by it and so proud of London and the reception they gave Terry,” he said. “To this day I will never forget it.”

Vigars first met Fox in 1980 after his boss at the Canadian Cancer Society said, “There is a kid with one leg going to run across Canada. See what you can do for him.”

He said he flew to New Brunswick to meet Fox, find out if “he was the real deal” and to lecture him about showing up for his medical appointments.

Fox, whose right leg was amputated after he was diagnosed with osteosarcoma, began his cross-country run to awareness and money for cancer research on April 12, 1980, in Newfoundland.

He was forced to abandon his run about five months later on Sept. 1 near Thunder Bay when cancer spread to his lungs. He died the following year in British Columbia.

Vigars helped Fox raise awareness of the marathon that raised $24 million over the 143 days.

Vigars was 33 at the time, new at the job, and a self-described rule-breaker.

Fox was not particularly well known in the early days of his run, Vigars said.

“I talked to him in Nova Scotia and he was kind of bummed out because nothing was happening,” he said.

Vigar’s said he immediately liked Fox and his two-member team.

Up at 4 am Fox would be running by five and have almost 20 kilometers in by 8 am, he said.

“I saw how he affected people standing at the side of the road in Nova Scotia,” he said. “They stood transfixed — some with tears running down their faces.”

In the small towns, Fox would talk to local residents about why he was running.

When Fox was first diagnosed, hospital staff put him in the children’s ward.

“He watched many of them not make it and he said it completely changed who he was,” Vigars said. “Before that, he was only interested in sports, in himself — that’s what motivated him to run.”

Vigars said he hopes his book keeps Terry’s legacy alive.

“I try to make him a regular guy,” Vigars said. “I’m trying to follow what he said in the sense that he’s just a regular 22-year-old who that summer did an absolutely amazing thing that galvanized the country.”

London’s Terry Fox Run will be held on Sunday, Sept. 17 at Springbank Gardens.

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MARATHON OF HOPE: BY THE NUMBERS

5,000+km: How far Fox ran on his journey cut short by cancer

26km: How far he ran the day he visited London

$24 million: Amount raised by the run for cancer research

$850 million: Amount raised in annual Terry Fox runs since then

25: Countries that take part in the annual Terry Fox run