Melanie Daigle's Blog: My Dad at the 1948 London Olympics

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.