At 6ft 6ins tall and weighing more than 26 stone, Geoff Capes was “a powerful figure who commanded international respect as a shot putter”, said The guardian: he won gold at the Commonwealth Games in 1974 and 1978 and represented Great Britain at three Olympic Games; but in the 1980s he became much better known as Britain’s Strongest Man (a title he won in 1979) and the World’s Strongest Man (in 1983 and 1985). . Thereafter, he was regularly seen on British television screens throwing taxis, dragging trucks and tearing up telephone directories.

A frequent guest on “Record Breakers,” Capes earned a place in the Guinness Book of World Records for throwing a brick 146 feet, said The Daily Telegraph. He won the World Highland Games five times and was a seven-time Scottish Highland Games champion. When he wasn’t flexing his enormous muscles, he raised parakeets. He became interested in birds in the 1970s while working for Cambridgeshire Police. Sent to arrest a man for non-payment of a fine, he noticed his collection of parakeets and, over a cup of tea, they had a “pleasant chat” about them. “It seemed a shame when, after the conversation was over, I suddenly remembered what I should do,” he recalls.