NORMAN BROWNBRIDGE had the sporting world at his feet: a champion boxer, he played in goal at football but still managed to score, and in July 1943, he broke the All England high jump record.
“This ex-Grammar School youth is a splendid athlete,” said a columnist in the Echo’s sister evening paper, the Northern Despatch. “Hurdles, long and high jumps, pole jumps, vaulting, sprints and foot races (all distances) come alike to him.”
But then, aged 19, he accidentally blew his hand off when a boyish experiment in Auckland Park, Bishop Auckland, went terribly wrong.
“My dad, his cousin, used to tell quite a tale of him walking back up to the doctor’s in the Market Place, holding his hand in place,” says Weardale cheesemaker Simon Raine.
With amazing fortitude, though, Norman rebuilt his life…
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He grew up in Cradock Street, off Newgate Street. His father, Walter, was a miner who walked 10 miles to work each day, so they lived in the terraced half of the street rather than in the fancy Victorian villas at the bottom end.
Clever lad, he went to Bishop grammar and joined the Air Training Corps, with a view in those war-torn days of joining the RAF.
With the school and the ATC he excelled at sport. In 1943, he putt a shot 42ft 10ins, he threw a cricket ball 99 yards 2ft, he long jumped 18ft 6ins and set a year’s best in the country for high jumping 5ft 4ins.
But, 6ft 4ins tall, boxing really was his thing, and he fought through bouts in Darlington and Seaham to reach the ATC’s national heavyweight final at the Royal Albert Hall in London.
And there, the referee decided he was beaten by Cadet R Round, of Brighton.
The Northern Despatch hinted at something a little under hand: “The Southerner was, if anything, the more ‘classy’ in style, but he took heavy punishment from the hard-hitting Northerner, and was in a distressed state at the finish of the contest, whereas Brownbridge did not show any signs of having been in a hectic and important bout.
“Many good judges predict for Cadet Brownbridge a big career if he takes up boxing seriously as he has height, build, stamina and strength.”
Behind the scenes, there was great mystification over how the referee got the decision so wrong.
On May 10, 1944, Flt Lt TI Alcock, the physical training officer for the North East Command of the ATC in Bradford, wrote to Norman saying: “I don’t think it is possible to say in words just how I feel regarding the decision given against you in your fight at the Albert Hall. The only person out of all the thousands, including your opponent himself, who did not think you had won, and won easily, was the referee.
“Although you did not get the verdict, there will never be any doubt that you won.
“Don’t let this bad decision embitter you from a boxing point of view. I think you told me that your opponent himself said that you had beaten him – keep that in mind and remember that you did win even if only morally proved the victor.”
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Flt-Lt Alcock’s final line in the letter is perhaps most telling: “To say more would perhaps not be wise and would do no good.” In an organisation like the ATC, the referee’s decision was final and questioning it might do more harm than good.
Two days later, the committee of Norman’s 1407 Squadron, which was based at Bishop Auckland Grammar School, also wrote to him. “The committee deplore the fact that you were deprived of your national honour in boxing when all the evidence appears to point to the fact that that honour had been fairly earned by yourself,” said the committee.
Just what shenanigans had deprived Norman of the national title?
Norman’s path in life now seemed assured – a career in the RAF – until one fateful day in Auckland Park.
“The story that my dad told was that Norman had an interest in making explosives, and he placed this device on the ground in the park to test it,” says Simon, whose father Ken Raine was taken in by the Brownbridges in Cradock Street where he was only a year younger than Norman.
“He saw two children walking towards it so he ran back to it and picked up to throw it out of their way and that’s when it went off, with Norman holding it.
“His hand was hanging on by sinews, so he walked to the doctor’s surgery in the Market Place holding it, and he kicked at the door. The doctor’s secretary came out, affronted that someone was banging on the door, so Norman took his hand away to show her and she went back inside and fainted.”
The Northern Despatch said: “Much sympathy is felt by a wide circle of friends and cadets of the ATC with Mr Norman Brownbridge, 19, Cradock Street, Bishop Auckland, in the misfortune which befell him. Stated to have been experimenting at home with explosives, Brownbridge was on Sunday admitted to Darlington Memorial Hospital with his right hand so damaged that it had to be amputated.
“Brownbridge was a popular and enthusiastic member of 1407 Squadron ATC and took an active part in its sporting activities.”
The RAF didn’t have much call for one handed fliers and so as Norman recovered, he had to find another path. Driven on by his mother Elsie, a strong willed woman, he worked in a cinema in the town and then went up to Newcastle for nightschool, studying botany – the explosion had probably been sparked by his interest in chemistry.
He was awarded a first class honours degree by Durham University and then was allowed to study for a PhD at Bedford College in London – a female college attached to London university which also accepted a few male postgraduates.
In the 1940s, the journey from a mining terrace like Cradock Street in Bishop Auckland to a doctorate in botany from the University of London was remarkable – even without the bump in the road of blowing your own hand off.
At college, he met Margaret Shipton, from Burton-on-Trent, and they got married.
Norman worked initially for the Ministry of Defence developing iodine in Scotland, but as their three children came along they returned to Margaret’s nick of the woods.
Burton is famed for its brewing industry, and Norman worked in the testing laboratories of Ind Coope until it merged in 1961 with Ansells of Birmingham and Tetley Walker of Leeds to form Allied Breweries.
Then he moved into teaching, chemistry, at Erdlington Girls Grammar School for Girls in Birmingham, where his charges won BBC1’s Young Scientists of the Year television competition.
School messageboards reveal how his former pupils respected his warm personality and remembered the grey glove that he kept over his false hand.
“My father could do more with one hand than most people can do with two,” says his daughter Alison. “He completely rewired the house and he installed an entire heating system. He made the most amazing oak bookcases – all with one hand.
“He would always find a way. He was a real problem solver.”
Norman died, aged 94, in 2019 having lost his Margaret – herself a high achiever as she became a headteacher – in 2013.
Of course, although it is hard to hide a missing hand so his family knew of his accident, it was only after he had passed that, going through his papers, certificates and photographs, that they realised just what might have been in the sporting field.
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