A funny thing happened to me on my way to....The 1948 Summer Olympics:

I`m sure that everyone will be able to recall their own particular personal "funny thing that happened" episode?. An early one of mine was the day as a 16 year old lad I got really excited to find I had been lucky enough to have been given the gift of a couple of tickets for one of the Olympic events. My younger pal from next door had to ask his Mum and Dad for permission to go with me, and on the allotted day we went down to catch the bus over to nearby Wembley. The tickets were for the Olympic Fencing competition being held at "The Palace of Engineering" a building being the venue for this particular event and situated adjacent to the old Wembley Stadium.

The thing I do recall about this fencing event was that it turned out to be a really boring sport. We certainly were not impressed with it and agreed we were glad that at least it had been a free outing except for the expense of our local bus fares back home again.

Reaching back home we were definitely more impressed for sure when strolling the few yards up our road from the bus stop. The same houses are still there today, one of which belonged to my Aunts landlady who happened to be was standing chatting to a neighbour over her front gate. Just as my pal and I were level with her gate, a car drew up, stopped and a girl in her 30s? called out something from the passenger window. Thinking that they were seeking directions I asked her if she was lost, but all she said was a mumbling and repeating about wanting to get out to dance in front of the car. Some models of cars in those days used to have what got to be called "suicide doors" because their rear-hinge door construction caused so many accidents when being opened. My mumbling passenger had one of these doors which she opened out revealing everything. I`ve long forgotten anything about her facial features but the rest of her I can still picture, she only had a thin summer dress pulled up around her waist and nothing else, not a stitch!. Embarrassed by now I must have stammered to ask her and her driver again "where did they want to go?". With her left leg out nearly managing to step onto the pavement, her other knee sort of up in the air she was still mumbling about dancing. Her driver suddenly piped up to say "he wont come", she pulled her bare leg back to sit on the seat and told him to give some money. Unbelievably he took a 10 shilling note from his wallet and passed it to her, I have no idea now what happened then except the landlady and her friend who were standing just a couple of yards from us were heard loudly exclaiming that it was disgusting spectacle. The car must have just driven off leaving us to wonder what was going on....... We never found out!.

Over the years my pal and I both moved away although during the 1950s we did occasionally bump into each other. The fact that the star of those games "Fanny" Blankers-Koen showed up on TV with her 4 gold medals certainly didn`t dim our appreciation to the fact that it was us who had our real "live" Olympic close up!

GJ