The Cruise of the Branwen

CHAPTER II PREPARATIONS Cras ingens iterabimus aequor DURING the summer of 1905 I was asked to join the British Olympic Association, which had been formed under the presidency of W. H. Grenfell (as Lord Desborough then was), with the Rev. R. S. de Courcy Laffan as secretary. Both were members of the International Olympic Council, composed of representatives of every nation interested in sport, and created by Baron Pierre de Coubertin, its first president, to whom the idea of reviving in modern Europe the Olympic Games of ancient Hellas is primarily due. The difficulties of carrying out such ideas are both obvious and numberless, and had not England been represented by these two men it is safe to say that we should have heard little of the movement. But the name of Willy Grenfell of Harrow and Balliol was a sufficient guarantee to rouse the support of every one who wished to see this country worthily represented in competition with other nations; and the devoted industry of Mr. Laffan, a personal friend and I may 19