CHARLES Bennett – known as the Shapwick Express – made history when he burst past the finishing line to win gold and smash the world record in the 1900 Olympics Games in Paris.

He was the first Briton to win a gold for athletics.

With a catalogue of achievements already behind him, the East Dorset runner went on to gain another Gold at the Olympics as part of the British quintet who won the 5,000m and added a silver, for good measure, in the Steeplechase.

But when Charles, from Shapwick, got married he was told by his wife it was time to hang up his running shoes.

Details of Charles and Sara-Lena’s life were revealed in the Echo 24 years ago by their 82-year-old widowed daughter, Trixie, who was also called Bennett.

Mrs Trixie Bennett, who lived in Turlin Moor, Poole, recalled that her father, Charles, had been hauled by ecstatic crowds through Wimborne on a wagon after one of his running exploits.

“He trained on a diet of boiled rice and raw eggs and would sprint through ploughed fields to build himself up,” she told the Echo, adding that her father was a son of the farm at Holt Lodge in Wimborne.

He was a pupil, she said, at the village school until he was nine and was forbidden to marry by his dad until he was 30.

His great successes at the Olympics occurred in the year when he hit 30.

Trixie told the Echo in 1988 that his bride, Sarah-Lena Lewis, was a “court dress maker based in Wimborne Square” in the days when the Lords Allington, Shaftesbury and Cranborne regularly staged society balls and parties in the area.

She forbade him to continue running after their marriage because it took him “to every park in England” and sometimes abroad.

Charles Bennett’s athletic achievements were such that, even in the 1890s, the value of his cups and awards totalled more than £3,000.

Mrs Trixie Bennett said most of her mementoes were stolen in a burglary when she lived in Branksome Park.

  • On Sunday the village of Shapwick celebrated its local hero by hosting a series of ‘Olympic Mile’ charity races.

Around 200 people took part including lance Bombadier Ben Parkinson who lost both his legs in Afghanistan.

The main beneficiary of the day was The Pilgrim Bandits, a ‘no sympathy’ charity for returned amputee servicemen and women.