It’s ten years since London last hosted the Olympic Games but 74 summers ago, John Parlett and Dorothy Manley were two of the golden generation.
Both starred on the athletics track for Team GB at the 1948 Olympics, both won European titles and have now sadly passed away within six months of each other.
Parlett was born in Bromley in 1925 and was an art student in Woking at the time of the post-war Olympics, where athletics took place at Wembley Stadium.
He won 800m gold at the 1950 European Championships, beating Olympic bronze medallist Marcel Hansenne and legendary British miler Roger Bannister with a Championship record.
Parlett reached the final at his one and only Olympics on home soil, finishing second in his heat and third in his semi-final. He came eighth in the final.
Like Parlett, sprinter Manley had to wait until after World War II to represent her country and produced the performance of her life at the Games.
She delivered on expectations to take a silver medal behind Fanny Blankers-Koen in the 100 metres, Britain’s first medal in the short sprint for women and still standing as the nation’s joint best-ever result.
The pair had their own families and didn’t know each other well at the time of the 1948 Olympics.
They met at the 1950 Empire Games and Parlett returned to live in New Zealand from 1960 to 1964.
They married later in life, after they had both lost their first partners, and they lived together for more than 30 years in Woodford Green.
Parlett kept in touch with athletics friends like Ron Pickering, Dorothy Tyler and Roger Bannister.
He presented "The Parlett Pot" several times to winners of the 800m at the University of London and encouraged them to enjoy the sport.
John died peacefully in his sleep at the age of 96 on Sunday 6 March. 126 days earlier, Dorothy departed aged 94.
Sportsbeat 2022