As I write this week's column, the media are working themselves to fever pitch over the forthcoming Olympic Games in Beijing.

We are reminded that in the 1908 Games held in White City, west London, the British came top in the gold medal table.

The other historic fact of those games was, that the length of the marathon was set at 26 miles 385 yards, because the runners were starting off from Windsor Castle and racing to the newly-built White City Stadium. The extra yards were added because the officials wanted the finishing line to be opposite the Royal Box.

Later in history, I am still amazed that the government of the day agreed to stage the 1948 Olympics in London. We were still recovering from the Second World War and the country was bankrupt. Yet the money was found, and the existing sports facilities were utilised for the various events.

The great Wembley Stadium had chunks of the football pitch cut back to make way for a running track, and thousands of sports-hungry fans filled the stands. The competitors marched round the huge arena for the opening and closing ceremonies.

My own sport of cycling had to use the Herne Hill open air track in south London, which was fitted with temporary stands to accommodate the crowds that flocked to see the international stars of cycling.

On the first Saturday of events, my brother Ernest and I went off, on our bikes of course, to the venue to join the hundreds of cycling fans to see the early track events. As the finals took place in the middle of a working week, employers did not take kindly to their workers asking to take time off to see a sporting event, Olympics or otherwise.

For the first, and only, time in my working life I took a day off pretending to be sick, and went to Herne Hill to see the finals. They went on so long that it was dark before we left to come home. I had no front light on my bike, and so followed a No.37 bus most of the way home, and was constantly being shooed off the back of the bus by the conductor.

I apologised to my manager the following day, saying I had picked up a tummy bug, at which he smiled broadly, no doubt guessing where I had been.

However, I would not have missed it for anything, and it has been a treasured memory for six decades. I had been a part of the 1948 Olympic Games. Did you attend the 1948 Olympic Games? Send us your memories or comment in the box below.