Obituary: Godfrey Rampling

Jun 30 2009 by William Leece, Liverpool Daily Post

GodfreyRampling

IN HIS later years, Godfrey Rampling may have been better known by the reflected glory of being the father of film star Charlotte Rampling.

But he was a star in his own right, one of that group of athletes who tweaked Hitler’s nose at the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin, and most recently enjoying the honour of being Britain’s oldest Olympic athlete.

He had first come to prominence as a young runner in the late 1920s, and by the 1932 Olympic Games, in Los Angeles, he was running for Britain in the 4x400 metres relay, winning a Silver Medal.

He won Gold at the British Empire Games in London in 1934, in the 440 yards and 4x440 yards relay, and two years later was in Berlin for the Olympics.

The American team was favourite for the event, and when Rampling took the baton for the second leg he was 12 metres off the lead. Just 400 metres later, he was four metres ahead, having run the race of his life.

The lead stayed with Britain and it was Rampling and his three team-mates who collected the gold.

It was the year when the Nazi ideals of a master race were expected to yield a bumper crop of medals, only to be frustrated by the likes of the British team, and especially the runner Jesse Owens – a black American as far removed from the Aryan ideal as it would be possible to get.

In an interview shortly before his 100th birthday last month, Godfrey Rampling recalled being unimpressed with Hitler.

“We wouldn't salute him, you know. We all laughed at him in the march past. Not a nice chap at all. Never saw much future for him, actually.”

Godfrey Rampling was a serving Army officer at the height of his athletic career, having joined the Royal Artillery in 1929.

He spent 29 years in the Army before retiring as a Lieutenant Colonel in 1958 and making a second career as a school bursar and golf club secretary.

Godfrey Lionel Rampling, athlete; born, May 14, 1909, died, June 20, 2009