Meet the 72-year-old judo expert

AT 72, most pensioners might be taking it easy, happy to while the days away in their favourite armchair.

Joining a club for them might involve their local bowling green, maybe a book group, certainly something gentle that doesn't involve chucking another person around a mat.

But, it has to be said, most pensioners aren't like George Kerr.

And as clubs go, the one Scotland's "Mr Judo" has just joined couldn't be any more exclusive.

George is now back home in Leith after a whirlwind week which saw him elevated to 10th dan black belt by the International Judo Federation – the highest possible honour in recognition of a lifetime's contribution as competitor, coach, referee and administrator. He follows in the footsteps of only 19 other judo experts, all but five of them Japanese and only seven of them still alive.

To make his achievement all the more astonishing, while others were honoured in their eighties or even posthumously, George has entered judo royalty at the tender age of "just" 72.

No wonder he's spent the past few days in high demand from the world's media – everyone, from CNN to Sky, the BBC to international press – have wanted to know how a lad goes from learning judo in Edinburgh in the 1950s to teaching Rolling Stone Mick Jagger martial arts moves and becoming one of his sport's biggest living legends.

"My daughter phoned from her home in Australia to say I was all over the papers there," remarks George rather matter-of-factly.

"I just got back from the presentation in Paris and the British Judo Association were on the phone saying they had to fly me back to London to do BBC Breakfast. At first I thought 'come on, I've not even been home yet'," he sighs. "But judo in this country has never had publicity like this, so you've got to grab it when you can."

Over six decades in the sport the president of the British Judo Association has triumphed at European level, trained some of the world's greatest judo Olympians – bad luck and injury sadly kept him out of competing in that grand arena – and mingled with some of the biggest names in entertainment from the old "Strolling Bone" himself to Sir Sean Connery and Sir Laurence Olivier.

Not bad considering it all happened almost by accident.

"My father did some amateur boxing and he wanted to get me into it too," recalls George. "I was eight and I went to Leith Victoria which was at the Cowgate and got hammered. I didn't take to boxing because I didn't really like people punching me in the face.

"I thought my dad would give me a leathering for not wanting to do it, instead he said 'okay, no problem, what about judo?'."

Seven years later, still just 15, and George was a black belt. He'd rubbed shoulders with the amateur bodybuilders at the Dunedin Club, but while one changed his name to Sean Connery and headed off to Hollywood, George's future lay in the Far East.

It was 1956 and he'd been offered a four-year scholarship to further his studies in Japan.

"I was 18, flying to Japan wasn't an option so I had to go by boat," he recalls. "Dad wanted me to wear my kilt, Black Watch tartan. We sailed to the Suez Canal, remember this was at the time of the crisis and the canal was being blocked. There were posters up saying how the Black Watch had been kicked out by the Egyptian president, Nasser. So the kilt was very quickly packed away."

He was travelling fourth-class steerage – the lowest passenger class – with just a strip of canvas hammock for a bed.

Things improved, however, when the Scot befriended some French soldiers who disembarked in Bombay. Grateful for his help carrying their luggage, they offered him their slightly more comfortable third-class accommodation for the rest of the journey.

"I didn't think about it at the time," he nods, "but looking back it was a pretty dangerous thing to do. It was certainly an adventure."

His young eyes had seen some of the world's greatest sights by the time his ship docked in Yokohama, south of Tokyo.

Unfortunately, he didn't have a clue how to speak Japanese.

"I could hardly speak English," he laughs. "My accent was broad Scots. My dad, George, came from Glasgow and was a bus driver and Caroline, my mother, was from Leith and cleaned railway carriages. So I struggled to make myself understood with even the English people in Japan."

So he did his talking instead on the judo mat. Later he became chief instructor at Europe's oldest martial arts club, the Budokwai in London, where he earned more in a week than his bus driver dad did in a month.

It was there he encountered a slightly odd looking judo student going by the name of Mick Jagger. "It was the early sixties," recalls George, "and a lot of the showbiz types trained at the Budokwai.

"I remember Charles Palmer (the first British 10th dan black belt and eventually president of the British Olympics Association) saying to me he had this young musician guy who he wanted me to train. "I didn't know who this Mick Jagger was.

He was a green or blue belt at the time and he was all right – not Olympic standard but very supple. There was a lot of the Indian meditation and mystic stuff around at the time and I remember him calling me George Sensai or Kerr Sensai and me thinking 'for goodness sake, what a lot of s***."

These days George's pupils at his Junior Judo Club in West Bowling Green Street are less famous but with the potential to be stars of the future. There he has around 200 children learning their moves from one of the world's undisputed masters.

Most are there to enjoy what he calls "serious fun for youngsters". Three or four, he says, are "brilliant and they'll eventually go on to become members of the British team, no doubt about it".

If anyone can identify their potential, it has to be the man who's gained the sport's highest accolade possible.

"It's a huge honour," he nods. "I'm very pleased and a bit embarrassed really. The response it's got has been massive."

He tried to retire a few years back, but the sport that has held him in its grip since he was a youth wouldn't let him go.

So now, with a new red belt to signify his 10th dan status, is it time to hang up the judogi for the last time?

"No chance," says George with a grin. "Besides, if you retire, you die."

MEETING PLACE FOR THE STARS

IT WAS primarily a judo centre, but when George founded The Edinburgh Club in the sixties, he also launched an exclusive Festival haunt for celebrities.

Which is why Sir Laurence Olivier ended up having some impromptu physiotherapy during one visit to Edinburgh.

Inspired by the 'gentlemen's club' atmosphere of London's Budokwai, the Hanover Street venue became a meeting place for showbiz stars including Stanley Baxter and Porridge star Fulton Mackay.

"It was the mid-sixties and there was a reception going on at the club. Jeremy Brett – known for playing Sherlock Holmes – was there and it turned out Laurence Olivier had come up to see him.

"He said 'I know you, you're the judo champion'," recalls George.

"He was 6ft 4in tall, and he had a bad back apparently because of his service during the war when he was forced to crouch down in a tiny space.

"I told him my lady was a physiotherapist – so I suggested he needed a good back rub. He couldn't have been nicer."