He was an inspiration to many thousands of lifters in the South East of England. I became acquainted with Brian in 2004 when I started up masters lifting and then later becoming a technical official. He ran the weightlifting club at the Woking Leisure Centre and here was held about 8 or 9 competitions per year. He did this tirelessly setting up the platform, the warm-up area, scoreboard and MC equipment AND tidying up when all the lifters had gone home. A lot of the equipment he bought himself and would lend equipment to Schools and Colleges.
For over 50 years he coached, ran BAWLA courses and seminars and helped set up courses for lifters and coaches. He wrote many academic papers on strength conditioning and advised many centres and universities about starting and equipping weightlifting gyms.
He developed many athletes and I remember meeting Henry Redwood and Oswald Sigmund in the late 1970’s who had been trained by Brian.
There is a video of Brian on YouTube showing him doing a clean and jerk of 50 kg at the age of 75 in 2012 – a very impressive feat and would be the equivalent of 107 kg for a senior lifter.
All his time and effort went into promoting the sport of weightlifting for men and women and to help youngsters get into the sport.
He will be very sadly missed. He was a gentleman.