I'm sponsoring the 2012 Olympics (From Times Series)

I'm sponsoring the 2012 Olympics

9:46am Tuesday 26th August 2008

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Soon after I got my demob suit in 1948 and slid seamlessly back into my role as a fire engine-chasing young reporter, I was sitting in the Times offices in Church Road wondering where my next scoop was coming from.

Colleague Frank Barton said the world was passing us by and the Olympics were starting at Wembley that day - so, minutes later, we ran up Church Road and caught the next 83 bus to the doors of the stadium to be part of a wide-eyed post-war audience.

It was austerity time in England. Rationing, bomb sites and prefabs. Sydney Wooderson, our finest miler, was breaking the tape in 4 minutes and 20 seconds - you'd have been dragged away by men in white coats if you'd suggested that Roger Bannister would ever break the 4four minute barrier. I still look at the old pictures of him crossing the finishing line at Oxford in May 1954, and thinking that he could not have enjoyed the experience when it came.

When I was a boy I was regaled with stories of how our ancestors had a night out at the music hall, quaffed pints of beer and had fish and chip suppers - all for one shilling.

In 1948 I earned £4-a-week - and spent half that amount each Saturday evening taking one of the lovely girls of the parish of Hendon to the West End to see a show, have a meal and invest a bit in buying gin and orange. That was a favourite tipple for the young swingers of the time.

And, of course, I went to the Olympics for the cost of a bus ride and a ticket. The greatest show on earth ... I've been there, done that, got the T-shirt.

Hey, I'm not one to keep harping back to what we golden oldies nostalgically believe to be the good old days. As the Beijing Olympics end, I look forward to 2012 in London from my current VIP role as a Games sponsor.

Unwilling sponsor perhaps ... but let's get it on record that I'm putting my hard earned cash forward to back Lord Coe and those gold winning marvels of recent days.

Signy the sponsor? Yes sir, along with millions of other Londoners I am giving some £20 a month via a hefty council tax bill, subsidising the rest of the country and the millions from abroad who will come to London to witness the extravaganza.

I use the word 'giving' with tongue in cheek. It is, in fact, being arbitrarily extracted from me month after month for 12 years - yes, TWELVE years - by our masters in the corridors of power. I'll still be paying when the Games are just a memory.

I was thinking a few weeks ago about organising my fellow under-the-cosh council tax payers to rise in revolt and perhaps chain oursdelves to railings or lie in the road.

Can we, as a nation, afford this extravagance? Can we, as individuals, already hit by the credit crunch, keep paying more and more? That was my thinking.

Then the gold medals started pouring in. So, for now, I've changed my tack. I'm having new address cards printed - Dennis Signy, Patron and Sponsor of the 2012 Olympic Games. That will do until Tessa Jowell tells us the bill has doubled.

Perhaps, when they downgrade the new Olympic stadium to a modest 25,000-seater, they'll think of the good folk of Barnet who have been such a prop.

Who knows .. they could give the stadium to Barnet FC to cover my personal contribution.

Barnet Olympic? Do I not like that? PS I DID run up Church Road in case you thought you'd caught me out. In my youth I ran the 100 yards for Middlesex.

Oh yes, it was a No 83 bus. They reversed routes through Hendon with the 183s a few years back.