CAMPING
teacher at St Paul’s College, Cheltenham. A marathon runner, swimmer and
gymnast, he was passionate about sport, and when the Olympic Games came to London, he had to be there: “there was very little sport on TV in those days,” he told me, “if you wanted to know what world class sport looked like, going to watch it was the only way. Newspaper reports showed the occasional grainy photo and sometimes the results of races, but I was interested in bio-mechanics and race strategies
LONDON 1948 I
n the summer of 1948, my dad, John Terry had just turned 23 and after being demobbed from the RAF, was studying to be a PE
SPORTS MANAGEMENT EDITOR LIZ TERRY RECALLS HER DAD’S TALE OF HIS CAMPING ADVENTURE DURING THE 1948 LONDON OLYMPICS
and there was no other way to gain that knowledge but to see it live.” The 1948 Olympics were known as
the austerity games – rationing was still in force, so he got on his bike and rode from Cheltenham to London. There was no money for hotels, so he
pitched his tent in St James’s Park and set up camp with a stove and billy can. Each morning he zipped up the tent, rode his bike out to Wembley and bought a ticket on the gate to watch the Olympics. That was only sixty five years ago,
yet the contrast to the 2012 Olympics is breathtaking. Imagine pitching your tent in St James’s Park today, let alone your belongings being there when you
The London 1948 Olympics took place in a time of great austerity.
returned. Imagine being able to buy a ticket on the gate to watch the Olympics? Just impossible. Everything about his story made me smile. He went on to spend his life in sport,
studying at Loughborough and Carnegie and then teaching, lecturing and coach- ing. He loved it with a passion – especially swimming – and passed that joy on to thousands of others, including me. He supported the launch of a whole
raft of swimming initiatives, from the Age Group National Championships to the British Swimming Coaches’ Association. When I heard London had got the
Games I hoped I might be able to go with him so we could share the experience – he would have loved to see the standard of excellence achieved and to feel the energy – and as an amputee, to have seen the Paralympics – but he died just before his 87th birthday in June 2012, missing it by a month. He told me his enthusiasm stemmed
John Terry – a lifelong love of camping and sport. (Centre right), the St Paul's waterpolo team, 1948 68 SPORTS MANAGEMENT HANDBOOK 2013
from a free swimming pass he was given as a boy in Coventry – more proof, if it were needed, that giving kids access to sport at a young age can lead to a lifelong commitment which brings health, vitality, fun, companionship and wellbeing not only to them as individuals, but to many others. I think of that as his legacy. ●
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