Bernard Braden(1916-1993)

He had an impressive sporting background: in high school in Canada he was boxing champion and qualified as a runner for the Junior Olympics. The sport he really shone at was basketball. He qualified for the Olympic Games but never made it, because at the time he was working for a radio station in Vancouver which was struggling with three announcers on a 24-hour schedule. He was told that if he went it would be the end of his career. He said, that it was one of the hardest decisions of his life but he stayed. He once played against the Harlem Globetrotters. He has also played a vicious seven-a-side Canadian game called Box Lacrosse. He was an above-average tennis player and a member of London's two most famous tennis clubs - Queens and Hurlingham. He said he often regretted not taking the sport up professionally.