by 
Earlier this year, 96-year-old Tony Leadley received a call out of the blue from Robert Treharne Jones, the archivist of the famous Leander rowing club in Henley. Just before Christmas, Jones had received a message from Philip, a man from New South Wales, Australia, who was cleaning out a property when he found a couple of old oars, decorated with faded writing, in a shed.
“Hello, I got some oars,” said the message. “They are painted with Leander Club, European Championship, and Goblet and Nickalls Cup, both from 1957 by DAT LEADLEY and CGV DAVIDGE – any idea what they are?”
Jones knew exactly what they were and who they might belong to. Tony Leadley and Christopher Davidge are legends of post-war British rowing. For sports fans, the names are instantly recognisable. As luck would have it, Leadley lived just down the road, in Sydney.
“Dr. Jones was wondering if I wanted them or not,” says Leadley. “I said it would be nice to have them back; I haven’t seen them in 50 years.”
It was an understatement. They were really lost even longer than that. In late 1963 Leadley moved to a new house and there was no room for the oars, which are 15 feet long. However, shortly after he moved, the thieves broke into the storage unit and took the oars, which he says “were of no use to anyone but me”. These are the oars, or blades, used by rowers in winning races, which are then painted with the details of the victory as a souvenir. Philip brought the oars up to Sydney and Leadley reunited in January this year. “They were a bit dusty and some of the lighting was missing, so I’ve cleaned them up a bit,” he says. The story went viral on social media and attracted press attention from around the world.
“People want to know about my history, which was great at the time,” admits Leadley. The oars mark Leadley’s biggest year in the sport, when he won the Goblet & Nickalls Cup, known as the Goblets, and the European championship. He and Davidge had known each other for several years but did not play together as a pair until 1956. “We came together and won everything,” recalls Leadley. “We beat the pesky Russians [in the 1957 European Rowing Championships]and we didn’t just beat them, we defeated them, much to the satisfaction of the rowing community.”
Leadley’s story represents a time when sport was not yet a global corporate machine. He was born in August 1928 and grew up in Bedford, where he went to Bedford Modern School. The first time he tried rowing he failed. “I hated it,” he remembers. “It was wet and cold. I swore I would take other things. I tried swimming and almost drowned. I came last in cross country. I started throwing discus and javelin and I wasn’t good at that.” Then one day a coach tried again. “He took me out on a beautiful spring morning while he was still on the water, when it was just us, the boat and the swans. It was truly magical. I was hooked there.”
After being deemed unfit for national service because he had peritonitis (inflammation of the abdominal tissue) when he was 11, he went up to read architecture at Emmanuel College, Cambridge and went straight into junior boats. He rowed in the Boat Race in 1953, a famous victory for Cambridge. “We beat them by eight and a half lengths,” he says. “We were the underdogs. Everyone thought we were too nice and we weren’t very strong. But our technique was very good and we were very fit. We absolutely smashed them, which is great.” He is now the oldest living Norman from either university to row in a Boat Race.
In the 1950s, rowing had to fit around a career. After university, Leadley joined Shell, where he designed petrol stations for corner bomb sites in London, before a surprising career turn. “We ran out of corners so I got up and went in Vogue,” he says. He worked in the magazine’s PR department, and helped scout backdrops for fashion shoots. In 1962 he moved to Australia, where his wife Pamela’s sister was. “She was married to a man -rich who said he would make it easy for me to get a job, but he never did,” he lamented. Instead he stuck with Public Relations, and eventually started his own business.
He stopped competing when he moved to Australia, although he continued to row socially. In recent years, rowing, like most sports, has become much more professional. Millions of pounds are poured into Britain’s Olympic team, while corporate branding falls in the Boat Race. It is currently sponsored by Gemini, a cryptocurrency exchange.
“We were completely amateurish,” he says. “When I joined the Leander Club, you had to win a big event, like an Olympic medal, a Boat Race or something at Henley. That was your entry. Now if you have £3,000, anyone can get in there and wear the colors and rule over people at the regatta, even if they’ve never touched an oar in their life. Rowing has become professional like every other sport and I think she ruined it.”
He finally retired at 90. Pamela died 50 years ago, of brain cancer, the disease that also claimed his eldest son, Simon, who had a successful music business, at 53. They have a daughter , son, five grandchildren and two great grandchildren. – grandchildren, all in Australia. Leadley will be 97 in October. “I’m going for the first big,” he says.
With the Boat Race coming up, and a recent film with George Clooney about rowing, The Boys in the Boat, rowing is in the news. Leadley says he has enjoyed the interest in his story, as well as being reunited with his 15-foot wooden memorial of a happy time, 70 years ago.
“I’m glad to be reunited,” he says. “It tickled the imagination of a lot of old rowers.” Non-rowers, too, of all ages.
