Olympic dreams

Aviva Group Archive
4 min readJul 19, 2020

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So, what is the link between Aviva and the team from Chile in the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens? The answer is two gold medals and one bronze: the tally of medals taken home by Chile at the end of the 2004 games and the tally of Olympic medals known to have been collected by staff from Aviva’s constituent companies.

The most recent of ‘our’ medals was that of Jayne Torvill, half of ice dance champions Torvill and Dean. Together with Christopher Dean she won gold in the Sarajevo Winter Olympics of 1984. Their score included 12 sixes and the maximum possible 9 sixes for artistic impression. From the age of 16 Jayne worked for Norwich Union Fire Insurance Society’s Nottingham branch in their accounts department, later moving to the motor department where she wrote motor endorsements. In an interview with the staff magazine in 1980 she talked about working a full day in the office and then skating until 2 in the morning. In December 1980 she left the company to concentrate fully on her skating.

Jayne Torvill from Norwich Union staff magazine, 1980

Another gold medal winner was Don Thompson who worked for Commercial Union in their West End branch. Don won the Olympic gold medal for the 50km walk in Rome in 1960. Nicknamed El topolino “Mighty mouse” because of his 5ft 5" frame, he first competed in the Melbourne Olympics of 1956 but collapsed three miles short of the finish having been in 5th place. For the attempt in 1960 his preparations included recreating the heat and humidity of Rome in his bathroom so that he could practise excercising under those conditions. Thompson was Britain’s only athletics winner at the 1960 games and only the second man to win an Olympic medal for althletics for Britain since the war. His managers at Commercial Union would have no doubt been pleased to know that his regular training sessions sometimes took place at 4am so that he could still get to work on time.

Don Thompson taking part in Commercial Union sports day, 1960s

Our bronze medal winner was Gwendoline Alice Porter of the Head Office of North British and Mercantile. Gwen, as she was known, was a member of the 4 x 100m women’s relay team who came third in the 1932 games in Los Angeles.

However, in true Olympic tradition it is not the winning but the taking part that counts, so here are a few former members of staff chosen to represent their countries at the Olympics but whose names are not found in the medal tables. Way back in 1912 in Stockholm Stanley L Jones, who was on the staff of the White Cross Insurance Association, represented England as a long-distance cyclist. He came 29th in the first ever men’s individual time trial held at the games.

At the London games in 1948 John Shaw Jones, later agent for General Accident in Cheltenham, represented Great Britain in the water-polo. He returned in Helsinki in 1952 and as captain of the team in Melbourne in 1956. Also at the Helsinki games in 1952 was Ann Johnson of Commercial Union’s foreign fire department who represented Great Britain on the track in the 200m.

The Olympic village in Melbourne in 1956 seems to have been filled with insurance men and women. Not only Don Thompson and John Shaw Jones referred to above but also Miss Fearne Ewart of Commercial Union’s head office life department. She was representing Great Britain in the pool in the 100m freestyle and 4 x 100m freestyle relay. Another insurance official in Melbourne was J Somers Payne of the British General Insurance Company’s Cork office who represented Ireland in the Finn class yachting.

According to the Commercial Union staff magazine, Harold Alexander (Harry) Cahill of the Belfast office was selected to play hockey for Great Britain at the 1960 Olympics in Rome. He also took part in the Olympics in Tokyo in 1964 and Mexico in 1968. Finally, Rod Milne of Commercial Union was a member of the 4 x 400m relay team in the 1980 Moscow Olympics.

Norwich Union press ad, 1976

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Aviva Group Archive
Aviva Group Archive

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