Denis McNamara

One of 12 children, Denis McNamara was brought up in East London and had a difficult childhood at the hands of a violent father. He worked in a munitions factory during World War Two and narrowly avoided death during a bombing raid at the height of the Blitz when he was blown through a shop window as a result of a blast which killed his girlfriend. After a spell in the Royal Air Force he joined the Metropolitan Police in 1948 and remained a policeman for a quarter of a century usually working in some of the toughest areas of London’s East End.

McNamara found wrestling success late in life and won his first national title at the age of thirty-five in 1962. That same year he won the first of his three consecutive Commonwealth Games bronze medals in the heavyweight division but his finest moment came at the Tokyo Olympics where he finished in equal fifth place despite fracturing his thumb during the competition.

He won six national titles with the last coming in 1972 when he already 41 years old. After failing to be chosen for the Munich Olympics he elected to retire from the sport. McNamara also appeared as an extra in several movies including a brief appearance as a gladiator in the 1963 epic “Cleopatra” alongside Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton. He converted to Buddhism late in life and spent time at a Buddhist retreat in Scotland. After surviving one battle with Cancer he succumbed to the disease in 2009.