Tribute paid to former Lancaster teacher who competed in 1948 Olympics

Joe Birrell taught PE and mathematics at LRGS from 1970 to 1990.

He was a popular teacher, and modest about his own sporting achievements, the school said as they paid tribute.

Joe was an outstanding athlete who ran for Great Britain over 110m hurdles in the 1948 Olympic Games.

His Olympic selection followed victory in the AAA national championships at the age of 18.

Joe Birrell recalled the 1948 Olympics for a Sunday Times interview, saying: “My Olympic invitation arrived, in the post, only a fortnight before the Games.

"Once selected, I travelled to London by train; it was an eight-hour journey. I was wearing the lucky pair of shorts my mum had made and a pair of spikes the school had bought.

"Not surprisingly, I wasn’t considered to have any chance of winning.

"At the Olympics we had to use starting blocks, which I had never seen before. And I had never run on a proper cinder track. I came fourth in my first round heat at Wembley, my fourth race at international senior level.

"The opening ceremony sticks out. It was an incredibly hot day. At Wembley, the British team, as the host country does, marched out last. Thousands of pigeons were released in celebration — we later learnt they had been pinched from Trafalgar Square!

"The best thing was the really great food parcels we received. This was the time of rationing, remember, and to a certain extent some of us probably ate too much.”

After the Games and National Service he studied at Loughborough College and became a PE teacher at his former school in Barrow, where his brother Bob was among his pupils.

The brothers often competed against each other in the 1950s but a persistent injury doomed Joe’s hopes of qualifying for the 1952 Olympics.

He taught PE and mathematics at Lancaster Royal Grammar School from 1970 to 1990 after a decade-long spell as a teacher in Uganda and Kenya that began soon after his wedding.

In Uganda he ran the national basketball team, which brought him to the attention of the future military dictator Idi Amin, who asked him for lessons.

“For 40 minutes, with his entourage watching, he shot at the basket,” Joe told The Sunday Times. “He would miss and I’d have to rebound the ball into the net. ‘This is marvellous,’ he said. ‘I want you to coach my army to do this’.

"Now, I’d known of an American peace corps soldier who had refereed one game with that army and was beaten up when he tried to reason with them about the rules.

"Thankfully, three weeks after I met Amin, I went to the UK on two months’ leave. By the time I returned to Uganda, he had forgotten.”

Joe was born in Cockermouth to Robert, a submarine engine fitter, and Mary (née Crone), and attended Barrow Grammar School. He had three younger siblings, June, Bob and Jack.

Bob, who also died this year, competed in the 110m hurdles at the 1960 Olympics and became an athletics coach, while June played hockey for England.

In 1959 Joe married Marjory Jacobs, who survives him along with their daughters Debbie, Christine and Sue, and three grandchildren Harriet, Joanna and Joe.

Joe died in Norwich after a short illness on November 19, aged 94.

The funeral service will take place at Lancaster & Morecambe Crematorium on Monday December 23 at 11.30am.

Family flowers only, and donations in lieu of flowers for Calibre Audio can be made at the service or via https://www.dignityfunerals.co.uk/funeral-notices/19-11-2024-joseph-robert-birrell/