Norman Dobson

Other than selection for the 1,000 and 10,000 metre singles kayak events at the 1948 London Olympics, the canoeing career of Norman Dobson appears to have been of little significance. After World War II, however, he played an important part in the development of outdoor pursuits for youngsters. He was a volunteer instructor at the newly opened White Hall, in Derbyshire, in 1951, which was Britain’s first Local Education Authority Outdoor Centre, and it became one of the country’s leading centres of its kind.

A BSc and MEd, Dobson extended his quest to take outdoor activity centres beyond the shores of Britain when he wrote a thesis for a Doctor of Philosophy at the University of Leicester, which he entitled: “Influences on the development of outdoor pursuit in French children’s education.”