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.