My Dad at the 1948 London Olympics - Day 17 - Final

It was quite a journey for Dad along with his Canadian Olympian team mates, leaving Canada for almost six weeks to take part in the 1948 London Olympics.  As mentioned previously, they departed from Halifax, Canada on Wednesday, July 14th, 1948 and arrived in Southampton, England on Thursday, July 22nd, 1948.

The Opening Ceremonies for the 1948 London Olympics were held on Thursday, July 29th, and the Closing Ceremonies were held on Saturday, August 14th.  This year's 2012 London Olympics are held over the same number of days, but they started on Friday, July 27th, 2012 and conclude today, Sunday, August 12th, 2012.

I find it remarkable that the entire Canadian Olympic Team were together for almost six weeks back in 1948 --- traveling together and staying together in London for the Olympics.  What an amazing journey!

The Canadian Olympic team embarked on the R.M.S. Aquitania on Tuesday, August 17th, 1948; homeward bound.  According to the Abstract of Log of the Cunard White Star R.M.S. Aquitania, they departed from Left Berth, Southampton at 7:16pm.

As you can see by the Ship's Abstract, the Canadian Team's journey home lasted 5 days, 21 hours and 11 minutes .... slightly less time than their trip to England.  I love the detail that is provided on the Abstract card!

This is Dad's ticket for his journey home.

This photo is captioned;  "Peter Mingie (Montreal), Bridie Cook (Winnipeg), Bill Hamilton (Oshawa) taken aboard "Aquitania" Aug/48"    This photo was Bridie Cook's .  She mailed Dad some photos after her arrival home.

 This is Dad's Immigration Identification Card that was stamped upon his arrival in Halifax on August 23rd, 1948.

There are four other photos that were sent to Dad from Bridie Cook from Winnipeg, Manitoba:

She captioned this one, "Winnipeg C.P.R Station Aug./48"

"Bridie Cook (Winnipeg), Pat Jones (New Westminster), Vivian King (Winnipeg) taken in

Winnipeg Aug/48"

"Dianne Foster and Bridie Cook taken in Winnipeg Aug/48"

NOTE:  Dianne was one of Canada's Bronze medalists in the 1948 Olympics for Athletics in the women's
4 x 100 metre relay.

I love this photo .... fashion and passion ..... it is captioned on the back of the photo as follows:

To Freddie,

From Bridie

Taken by the Winnipeg Flying Club, Winnipeg, Man

In summary, the 1948 London Olympic Games occurred from July 29th to August 14th, 1948.
59 Nations competed; there were 4,104 athletes in total (3,714 men and 390 women) with Canada having a total of 118 athletes (100 men, of which my Dad was one of them; and 18 women).  As mentioned yesterday (Day 16), Canada received a total of 3 medals in 1948; 1 silver and 2 bronze.  At the most recent count, Canada's medal count in the London 2012 Olympics has us at:  1 gold, 5 silver and 12 bronze.

This is a video montage I found online of many of the memories captured during the 1948 London Olympics.

Later that year, Canada won another 3 medals in the 1948 Winter Olympics in Switzerland.  Barbara Ann Scott was the first Canadian to win a gold medal  in Olympic figure skating (Women's Freestyle).  Canada's Hockey Team, the RCAF Flyers also won gold.  And our third and final medal in 1948 was won in pairs Figure Skating thanks to Suzanne Morrow and Wallace Diestelmeyer.

Dad went on with his Amateur Boxing Career in Canada and became the Golden Gloves Champion. He has a scrapbook filled with newspaper clippings covering a lot of his boxing career.

He unfortunately missed out on the following Olympics as he was literally in the trenches in Korea; representing Canada in the Korean War.  (We do have more photos!!)

Thank you for joining me on this journey - my first blog with a goal to share some amazing history from my Dad's photographs and memorabilia when he was an athlete for Canada in the 1948 London Olympic over the duration of the 2012 London Olympics.

I did not know what to expect.  I thought perhaps some family members would enjoy this, as we are all so very proud of him.  I have been amazed with the following .... particularly since blogger.com provides statistics of where people are located who are reading this.  Here's the map of the world and the green shading shows the countries where this Blog has been read up until, but not including this one today.

Thanks for the encouragement and the very positive feedback.  Thank you for being here with me and sharing in Dad's Olympic story.

                                                               

Here's a recent photo of Dad in May of 2012.

My Dad at the 1948 London Olympics - Blog Day 16

It is hard to believe that it is the final weekend of the 2012 London Olympics and while the dates slightly differ, this second weekend of August was in fact the final weekend of London's 1948 Olympics.   Times have definitely changed since my Dad, along with the Canadian Olympic Team departed together from Halifax, Canada on Wednesday, July 14th, 1948 by ship on the R.M.S. Aquitania for a seven-day voyage across the Atlantic to the port in Southampton, England.  They were in London for a total of 27 days.

The closing ceremonies were held on Saturday (not Sunday) August 14th, 1948 in Wembley Stadium as seen in the following photo.

This is the Official Programme of the 1948 London Olympics

Canada received a total of three medals in 1948:

• a Silver in the Canoe/Kayak - Douglas Bennett C-1. 1,000 metres, male
• a Bronze medal in the Canoe/Kayak - Norman Lane C-1, 10,000 metres, male
• a Bronze medal in Athletics for the 4 x 100 metre relay - female - Patricia Dalziel, Dianne Foster, Nancy Mackay and Viola Myers

Congratulations Canada!!!

This is what the medals looked like in 1948 ....

This next item is one of my favourite 1948 London Olympic memorabilia in Dad's collection.  It is an autographed menu from the Canadian Olympic Team's Final Dinner onboard the R.M.S. Aquitania; the night before their arrival into England.   I love seeing all of the autographs of these young Olympians before they set foot on British soil .... about to embark on seeing their dreams come true being an Olympian and representing Canada.  It makes more sense now to see the names of these Canadian athletes now that we've had a chance to get to know them a little more over the past couple of weeks in the photographs.

This menu is dated, Wednesday, July 21st, 1948

This photograph of Joey Sandulo is autographed to my Dad on the front which says,

"Best Wishes, from your pal, Joey"

On the eve of the final day for the 2012 London Olympics, I will leave you until tomorrow, with something sweet to think about ..........

...... how about this cake?!!!!  

My Dad at the 1948 London Olympics - Blog Day 15

Dad explained that he did not expect to be finished so early in his boxing competition during the 1948 London Olympics.  The fact that there was a scramble to reschedule the first round earlier than planned due to the high number of boxing entries he feels, factored into it a bit.

Turning a potential negative into a positive, Dad asked for permission to leave the Olympics (as he was only seventeen years of age at the time), to take a trip to meet his maternal grandparents who lived in Scotland.  He was granted permission to take this trip, and made his way to Glasgow, Scotland, and to his grandparents' home.

He had never met them before, but his mother had written to her parents about her eldest son being in the Olympic Games representing Canada in boxing.  Dad's grandfather answered the door and found this seventeen year old young man wearing his Canadian Olympic suit.  Dad introduced himself and said "I am your grandson, Fred, from Montreal. Bridget's son!"   Dad said his grand-father was rather surprised and even momentarily confused and said, "I just saw you on the telly! You were looking pretty good in your match!"

Dad was surprised to hear that since having a television was extremely rare at that time.  His family back home in Montreal didn't have a television and had to listen to the Olympic coverage on radio.  I had read that only one in ten Americans had ever seen a television in 1948.  As mentioned in a previous blog, these were the first Olympic games to have ever been televised.

It was a pretty significant accomplishment to meet his grand-parents for the first time on top of being in Great Britain on the Canadian Olympic team.

I learned about Dad's grandparents (my great-grandparents) when I was in Grade 3 and had to complete a Family Tree as a class assignment in school.  Nanny (Dad's mother) informed me that she was one of twenty-one children (no twins!!).  What was even more remarkable was that Nanny could rhyme off the names of each of her twenty siblings.  My Family Tree was certainly disproportionate; heavily weighted with Dad's massive family ...... and my mother's basically took up the margin side of the page!

Needless to say, this amazing couple would likely not have been able to keep track of their grandchildren!  No wonder it was a shock when Dad showed up on their door step.

Dad (left) with his maternal grand-parents, Peter and Ellen (nee McGuire) Gormley along with Dad's Uncle

Dad's Grandparents, Peter and Ellen Gormley

Dad's grandmother, Ellen Gormley and two of Dad's uncles, Daniel (youngest) and Michael.




Just as an additional comment regarding the aspect that the 1948 London Olympics were the first ones ever televised, I would like to close off today's writing by sharing a reference to it along with a short story about two of the Canadian Olympic athletes as reported recently in The Globe and Mail, July 27th, 2012.

"And for the first time, those moments were captured extensively through television broadcasts.  Viewers were transfixed, including the athletes.  Lorne (Ace) Atkinson, a cyclist from Vancouver who died in 2010, loved to tell the story of a fellow athlete who was enthralled by his first television experience --- until he noticed an empty track lane appear on the screen.  "That's my race!" he said."  (From "Olympic Flashback:  Rubble in the Streets, Pride in their Hearts" written by Hayley Mick for The Globe and Mail, July 27, 2012)

My Dad at the 1948 London Olympics - Day 14

If you have been reading "My Dad at the 1948 Olympics" consecutively, you will recall, a couple of days ago I mentioned how there was something in common with the Boxing Team and the Swimming Team  in the 1948 London Olympics .... other than being photographed a lot together in the case with my Dad's photos of the Canadian Olympic Team!  

As we know, these were known as the Austerity Games.  No new venues were built in London in 1948 to house any of the Olympic games or the Olympic athletes as money was extremely tight following World War II.  The economy was not in good shape and food was still being rationed for these first Olympic games to be held after a twelve year hiatus due to the war.

Today, on this day, in 1948, the Boxing event took place, in the Wembley Empire Pool and I mean "IN" the pool!   I find this absolutely remarkable!!!   Had there not been so many boxers participating, all of the boxing events were to take place in the Empire Pool during this second week of the London 1948 Olympics after all of the swimming pool events had concluded during the first week.  So the swimmers and the boxers shared the same sports venue.  A floating Boxing Ring was constructed and it sat in the swimming pool.  They did not even have a chance to drain the pool prior to running the Boxing events such as the ones held sixty-four years ago today.

The floating boxing ring in the pool.

Canada's Boxer Armand Savoie is shown competing against Iran's Jamshid Fani.  As the newspaper article notes (below), Savoie won his match.   The article also mentions his other team mates, including my Dad, lost to judge's decisions on the previous Saturday (Blog Day 12).

Dad has an extensive scrapbook filled with newspaper clippings from his own entire boxing career.  However, he was missing news paper coverage while away in London for the Olympic games.  I was able to retrieve this one, along with a few others from the Quebec Archive Library.  They were very helpful.

This is Dad's Official Programme from this day's Boxing event, although he is no longer a competitor at this point.  I did notice that the only notes Dad made on the Bantamweight page, which was his weight class, was keeping track of J.W. Carruther's match against Hungary's T. Csik.  Carruthers was the boxer Dad fought two days ago (in the 1948 games as discussed in Blog 12) and Carruthers was the one who moved onto this round held on this day in 1948.  According to Dad's notes, Hungary won over Australia.  A photograph of the medal presentation in the pool/boxing area follows.

This is the Bantamweight Medal Presentation at the Pool.  Hungary took Gold; Italy took Silver; and Puerto Rico won Bronze.

Dad did, however, take notes of the Lightweight Division on this day as you can see in the following photo.

This next photo shows the same pool being used for the Olympic swimming events the previous week.  This was why a new venue had to be found quickly when they realized they needed to schedule an additional boxing event prior to August 9th.  See Blog 12 which describes what happened.  It had always been planned that Swimming would use Wembley's Empire Pool in Week 1 and then Boxing would use the pool in Week 2.

Here is a photograph of the U.S. Divers.   3 of the 4 ladies below achieved medals.

U.S. Divers Vicki Draves (2 Gold Medals); Zoe Olsen-Jensen (Silver Medalist); Juno Stover-Irwin; and, Patricia Elsener (Bronze).

U.S. Springboard dive winners:  Zoe Ann Olson (left); Vicki Manolo Draves (centre); and Patty Elsener (right) with their Olympic medals.

Dad has an autographed photograph of the double gold medalist, Vicki Graves (above), where she has signed the front of the photograph to him,  "Best Wishes from Mrs. Vicki Draves.  U.S.A."

My Dad at the 1948 London Olympics - Blog Day 13

The Canadian Olympic Team spent almost four weeks in London during the Summer of 1948 for the London Olympics.  Their ship, the R.M.S. Aquitania, arrived in Southampton on July 22nd and they were in London until August 17th.

Here is a selection of my Dad's photos taken while out and about in London and the surrounding areas over the course of the team's stay in the Summer of 1948.

Dad looking handsome in his formal
Canadian Olympic Team suit.

A group photo of Dad with some of his team mates.

Dad's caption written on the back of this photo reads, "LONDON TRANSPORT CO. London, Eng."

This photo is captioned, "South African girls at Lancaster Gate of Buckingham Palace, London, Eng."   I see a few of the Canadian boys around the girls .... sensing a bit of a theme here.  I wonder if they're swimmers?!

Dad wrote on the back of this photo, "Coventry Bridge, Coventry, Eng."

This photo says, "Parliament Bridge, London, Eng."

Dad has written, "Picaddilly Circus, London, Eng."

Dad

"Joey Sandulo, Boxer"

....and last, but certainly not least, here's my Dad!   

My Dad at the 1948 London Olympics - Blog Day 12

The 1948 London Olympics were known as the Austerity Games.  It was the first time in twelve years that there were any Olympic games as 1940 and 1944 were cancelled because of World War II.   London had little time to prepare as host, and very little money.  Food was still being rationed.  No new buildings were constructed for these Games, and as noted previously, athletes were billeted in three different areas around London as opposed to having an Olympic Village built for them.

There was a larger than expected number of entries in Boxing which forced a re-scheduling of the first rounds for the Olympic Boxing competitions; now held in the first week and not the second.  An extra day of boxing had to be scheduled to accommodate all of the 205 Boxing entries from 39 nations; more entries and participating nations than any other previous Olympic Games.  This extra date and first round of competition was held on Saturday, August 7th, 1948 (and yes, I have intentionally planned this writing to coincide with today's date, August 7th, 2012).  The venue to be used for the second week of the Olympic Games was not available for Boxing as of yet, so the Empress Hall Earl's Court was used on a last minute basis.  

This is Dad's copy of the Official Programme ......

While I have not included every page, the Bantamweight page that shows my Dad's event, also shows how he personally kept track with notes made in his own handwriting.   He was matched against the Australian, J.W. Carruthers who went on to the next event on Monday, August 9th.

Dad doesn't have any photos of himself at all in competition during the Olympics, so I thought I would include some action photos of him boxing to get a sense of how the action looks with Dad in the ring.

Dad is on the right in each of these photos.

While Dad did not bring home an Olympic medal, this is a medal he received earlier that same year as the Canadian Champion.

The back of the medal reads, "118 LBS.  WINNER Boxing 1948 FRED DAIGLE

  (Imprinted with Birks emblem)

As an Olympic competitor, Dad also received the pin and ribbon below.