Hear Steve Partington is his first interview more than a quarter of a century ago:

The interview was from a collection of films from 1983 and 1984 when we first used a video camera to record some of the main Manx events (it was hired from the Sports Council) and my master tape has been lost for several years. It was thanks to Steve himself, who found a copy in his attic, that this and many more from that era can now be published on YouTube.  The films have been copied many times from VHS to betamax, back to VHS now into MP2 for storage and MP4 for YouTube so there are bound to be limitations on the quality.

To set the scene for the second of the clips from the 1984 archives, imagine a bitterly cold February day (barely above freezing), a driving wind, 80 odd laps of what is now the National Sports Centre roadway, passing the marathon distance in 2.28, averaging 58 minutes for each of four 10 mile splits and being disappointed when you "only" set a British record of 3.53.14 which still stands nearly 26 years later.

I’ve not been very successful with converting the file and the audio go out of line with the video as the film progresses (funny or annoying; take your pick) but it gives you a flavour – and ignore my mistaken reference to 20 miles instead of 40!