Stan Bissell, known to his friends as Sonnie and in wrestling circles as Sonny, was a remarkable man. He was a former Olympic wrestler, had been hailed as London's toughest policeman and, at the time of his death, was the oldest living Commando.
Born in London on 26th October 1906, his widowed mother worked as a cleaner to support her family after her husband died when Stan was two years old and his sister, Leah, was five. Young Stan was an avid reader who enjoyed adventure and military stories, and he harboured ambitions of becoming a professional wrestler like his hero, George Hackenschmidt.
Through a Scout class run by the 1908 world champion wrestler Stan Bacon, who mentored him, Stan became adept in all areas of gymnastics. At the age of 14, he became an assistant gym instructor, visiting Scout groups at camps.
Before joining the Metropolitan Police in 1926, he spent six years working as a mortuary attendant in two London hospital pathology departments.
In 1931, Stan was selected to become the Metropolitan Police Self-Defence Instructor. Around this time, he met his future wife, Helen Sirett, and they married that same year. The couple had two sons: Geoff, born in 1934, and Denis, born in 1948.
During the 1930s, Sergeant Bissell was a Metropolitan Police Judo Champion, representing light, middle and heavyweight divisions at various times. He qualified as a Judo First Dan Black Belt and was runner-up at the British Empire Games. He also represented England in international competition.
Early in 1942, Brigadier Haydon, who was in charge of the Commandos, met with Sir Philip Game, the Police Commissioner, and asked whether police officers should be allowed to volunteer for this new Army force. Among the 68 volunteers was 35-year-old Stan, who trained as an Army Physical Training Instructor at Aldershot and joined HM Forces on 9th June 1942. Throughout the war, he trained Commandos in close-combat fighting at Achnacarry in Scotland. He rejoined the Metropolitan Police in August 1945.
Stan took part in almost every sport and excelled in all of them. He was a seven-time National Freestyle Wrestling Champion of Great Britain. He always felt he was at his fitness peak in 1936. Having beaten both eventual winners before the Munich Olympics, he believed he could have achieved great success, but he contracted influenza and was unable to qualify. He was later chosen to compete in the middleweight Greco-Roman wrestling event at the London Olympics in 1948.
On retirement, he was described as London's toughest policeman. He was also an athlete, cyclist, cricketer, boxer, angler, footballer and climber. He continued cross-country walking and undertaking 20-mile hikes well into his sixties.
After retiring to Dorset for a time, the lure of wide-open spaces and adventure beckoned when he was offered a post with the Young Men's and Young Women's Hebrew Association as Assistant Director of Physical Training in Montreal. Helen never settled in Canada, so Stan returned to England in 1960 and became the first Director of the newly established Police Cadets at Hendon College.
His expertise was even sought by Hollywood stars. He coached Stewart Granger for the 1946 film Caravan and taught Katharine Hepburn the correct way to throw opponents while filming The Millionairess.
The decision to buy a home in Codford was influenced by local and family connections. The Cole family had moved from London to Codford in 1919, and the Bissells bought a cottage beside the Chitterne Brook in Cheapside from Mrs Lock in 1964. They moved there permanently when Stan retired for the second time from the Metropolitan Police in 1975.
Stan remained in the cottage after Helen died in 1988. He threw himself into village life, teaching local youngsters to play tennis and joining a beginner's French class, where he became the teacher's pet in order to converse with his beloved trilingual granddaughter, Karen. He even learned to cook using a microwave oven.
Inspired by a visit to the County Record Office, Stan and an intrepid group of pensioners, including Ron Sutton, Rev. John Tipping and Jim Hunter, began organising excursions to military museums, abbeys, the Cotswolds and even the Isle of Wight, usually followed by fish and chips for lunch.
Until suffering a stroke in his mid-eighties, Stan exercised every day of his life, completing 100 push-ups each morning. As his health deteriorated, he bought rowing and walking machines and performed chair exercises to maintain his upper-body strength.
Stan Bissell died aged ninety-two at Salisbury General Hospital on Saturday, 2nd January 1999.
His legacy is proof that youth is not a time of life; it is a state of mind.