Opening Wembley’s Olympic Games, 75 years ago today – 29th July 1948

 Guest post by local historian Philip Grant

 

 

1. Local club athletes escorting the Olympic Torch through Wembley Park. (Source: Brent Archives)

Today marks the 75^th anniversary of the opening ceremony of the 1948 Summer Olympic Games, which was held at Wembley Stadium, so I thought you might like to get a flavour of that day. The lighting of the Olympic flame was actually the climax of the ceremony, so I will start at the beginning.

 

2.     Opening Ceremony programme. (Source: Brent Archives)

 

The ceremony began at 2.30pm, and all the tickets had been sold, so people began arriving for the event well before it started. Most came along the recently opened Olympic Way.

 

3.     Crowds heading to the stadium for the Opening Ceremony, 29 July 1948. (Source: Brent Archives)

 

The ceremony got underway with the teams from the 59 nations taking part in the Games entering the stadium. Greece, as the originator of the ancient games, led the way, followed by the others in alphabetical order, with Great Britain, as the hosts, bringing up the rear.

 

4.     The Czechoslovakian team parading round the athletics track, followed by Denmark.
(Screenshot from a colour film of the 1948 Olympic Games)

 

Each team was led by a Boy Scout from a Wembley troop, carrying a banner with the nation’s name. Other local scouts were sitting on the grass beside the track, ready to play their part later in the afternoon. 

 

5.     The teams assembled in the centre of the stadium. (Screenshot from a colour film)

 

As the teams reached the back straight, they were guided into position, so that they formed columns behind their name and flag. All 59 national flags were also flying from flagpoles around the top of the stadium, as they would throughout the Games. It was a hot and sunny afternoon, and the temperature in the centre of the stadium was around 35ºc. The first casualty of the Games was the scout holding the banner for Bermuda, who feinted and had to be helped by local St John’s Ambulance Brigade first aiders. Another scout was brought in to take his place.

 

6.     King George VI declares the Games open. (Image from the internet)

 

At 4pm, King George VI, who had taken the salute from the Royal Box as the teams paraded past, declared the fourteenth Olympiad of the modern era open. The Boy Scouts around the track then released 7.000 pigeons from wicker baskets The pigeons, symbolising peace, circled the stadium several times to get their bearings, then flew away to their home roosts.

 

7.     Some of the pigeons flying above the stadium. (Screenshot from a colour film)

 

Anticipation was now rising, as the Olympic torch relay, which had begun at Mount Olympus in Greece 12 days earlier, was nearing the stadium. The torch had arrived at Dover the previous evening, and runners had carried it through the night, along a route designed for it to arrive at the stadium at 4.07pm!

 

 8.     Map of the torch relay route, from a 28 July newspaper. (Source: Brent Archives)

 

Large crowds of local people, and a 21-gun salute (which helped to scare the pigeons away from the stadium!), had greeted the Olympic torch as it was carried up Olympic Way. The relay torch (later given to the Mayor of Wembley, and now in Brent Museum) was used to light the ceremonial torch which took the flame into the stadium.

 

9.     The Olympic torch relay on its final leg up Olympic Way. (Image from the internet)

 

A Cambridge University athlete, John Mark, had the honour of carrying the torch into the stadium. After a steady run around the track, with the 80,000 crowd and several thousand competitors watching him, he ran up a short ramp and lit the Olympic flame.

 

10.  John Mark lighting the Olympic flame at Wembley. (Image from the internet)

 

A massed choir sang the Olympic hymn, and then the flag-bearers from the 59 competing nations gathered round a rostrum, from which Donald Finlay, the Great Britain team captain, took the Olympic oath. On behalf of all the competitors, he swore to take part in the Games ‘in the true spirit of sportsmanship, for the glory of sport and the honour of our teams.^’

 

11.    Donald Finlay taking the Olympic oath at the Opening Ceremony. (Image from the internet)

 

The Opening Ceremony concluded, and the stadium was made ready for the start of the athletics events the following day. 

 

12.  The Starter, getting athletes “set” for a heat of the 100 metres on 30 July.
(Screenshot from a colour film)

 

“Wembley’s 1948 Olympic Games” had begun! I wrote a short piece earlier this month about an illustrated talk with that title I was giving. I will be presenting the talk again at a Brent Libraries “coffee morning” event, at Ealing Road Library on Tuesday 3 October, 11am to 12noon. If you are interested, and are free that day, you will be very welcome to come along. Check the Brent Culture Service Eventbrite site nearer the time, to reserve your place.

Philip Grant.

 

Jamaican Olympic success began in Wembley - in 1948

Guest blog by Philip Grant

GREAT JAMAICAN OLYMPIANS - No 1: Arthur Wint
 

The headlines from the Olympics are full of the achievement of Usain Bolt, in winning three sprint gold medals for the third successive Games. But Bolt was only following the giant strides of one of his predecessors. For a “small island”, Jamaica has produced some fantastic athletes, but where did this Olympic success begin? The answer is: Wembley.

The first time that a team from Jamaica took part in the Olympics was at the London Games in 1948. The people of the island had raised the money by public subscription to send them, and most of their athletes reached England after a 24 day voyage on a banana boat. There was no specially-built athletes village for the competitors at these post-war “austerity Games”, and while the men were housed, along with some other Commonwealth teams, at Wembley County School in Stanley Avenue (now part of Alperton Community School), the women stayed as guests of local families. You can read more about this on the Brent Archives website  LINK

The Jamaican Olympic Team at Wembley County School, July 1949 [Courtesy of the 'Old Alpertonians']

The Jamaican team captain, Arthur Wint, was already in England, having just finished his first year as a medical student at St Bartholomew’s Hospital. Born into a middle-class family at Plowden, Manchester County, in 1920, his life had already been interesting. At 17 he was named Jamaica’s “Boy Athlete of the Year”, and in 1938 he won the 800m gold medal at the Pan American Games in Panama. The Second World War put an end to international competitions, and when the RAF started to recruit from the British colonies, he joined up with his brothers, Lloyd and Douglas, in 1942. Along with many other Jamaicans, they were trained in Canada. He gained his “wings” in 1944, and saw active service as a Spitfire pilot until 1947, when he left the RAF having won a scholarship to train as a doctor.

At Wembley Stadium, the Jamaicans showed the world what their athletes were capable of. Wint won silver in the 800m, then went head-to-head with his team-mate Herb McKenley (who had finished 4^th in the 200m) and several top Americans in the 400m final. McKenley was the favourite, having recently broken the world record, but the long-striding, 6’5”, Wint overtook him in the home straight to win Jamaica’s first Olympic gold medal. McKenley took the silver medal, and they were both hoping for gold in 4x400m relay. However, disaster struck when Wint pulled a muscle while trying to chase down the leading USA runner on the final lap. 

Arthur Wint taking gold ahead of Herb McKenley in the 400 metres final [Source Brent Archives - 1948 official Report]

Arthur Wint promised his disappointed relay team-mates that they would have a gold medal at the next Olympic Games. At Helsinki, in 1952, that promise was delivered. In the individual events Wint again won silver in the 800m, while McKenley took silver medals in both the 100m and 400m. As part of the Jamaican 4x400m relay team they then won gold, in a world record time of 3:03.9.

 

The 1952 Olympic 4x400m relay champions, Jamaica. L-R: Arthur Wint, George Rhodon, Herb McKenley and Les Laing

 

After qualifying as a doctor at Bart’s in 1953 (and running his final race, in an athletics meeting at Wembley Stadium in the same year), Wint went back to Jamaica in 1955. He worked as the only doctor and surgeon in Hanover Parish for many years, and in 1973 was awarded the Jamaican Order of Distinction for his service to charities, schools and business. He returned to England in 1974 for four years, as his country’s High Commissioner in London, before working as Senior Medical Officer at Linstead Hospital in Jamaica from 1978 to 1985. He died at Linstead in 1992.

Usain Bolt is a modern giant of athletics, but Arthur Wint, who was known as “the Gentle Giant”, set a high standard for Jamaica’s Olympians to follow. If Bolt can follow his glittering career on the track with a life of service to his country and people like that of his predecessor, he will rightly be remembered as a true Great.

Philip Grant.