“Jumping” Jim Halliday was one of only four Britons to have won Olympic medals in weightlifting since the Second World War. He got his nickname from his habit of leaping high over the bar after every successful lift, something that he did to the delight of the crowd at the 1948 Olympics in London, when he got the lightweight bronze medal. It was a praiseworthy performance because, in 1945, he had weighed little more than 6st (38kg) after three years as a PoW, including working on the Burma Railway. Halliday subsequently won two British Empire titles.

Halliday began lifting at the age of 15 in Farnsworth, Lancashire, in a gym where he also practised boxing, wrestling and gymnastics. But he preferred weightlifting, winning the Lancashire lightweight title in 1936. He was called up into the Army at the start of the Second World War and was part of the rearguard action defending the evacuation at Dunkirk before himself being evacuated later at Boulogne. His regiment was later sent to Singapore. Their transport ship, the Empress of Asia, was bombed and he escaped by jumping on to the Australian vessel, the Yarra, when it berthed alongside.

However, Halliday was one of those captured by the Japanese when Singapore was taken and he spent the rest of the war in captivity.

Despite the conditions in Burma, he retained some of his natural strength. He subsequently recalled that when one camp made a primitive barbell using tree trunks, none of the inmates nor the Japanese guards could lift it overhead. However, when Halliday was fetched from a neighbouring camp, he succeeded. As a result, the Japanese commandant further cut the rations because he believed the Britons were getting too strong.

However, Halliday said later: “It is strange how one only remembers most clearly the good parts of any experience. Maybe it is nature’s way of recompense for things endured.”

After the war, Halliday started weightlifting again simply to recover his former bodyweight of 10st 12lb. One curiosity of his diet was to eat the shells of eggs, as well as their contents, because he believed the outside contained a much higher level of calcium. However, competition again attracted him and he took part in the 1946 World Championships and in the 1948 Olympics, where he was third behind the winner, the outstanding Egyptian lifter Ibrahim Shams. Halliday took England’s first gold medal in any sport at the 1950 British Empire Games and in 1954, now at middleweight, secured a second gold medal.

His training had been helped by his arduous work on the coal gang at Kearsley Power Station and he later became the Electricity Board’s chief safety officer, travelling around the country lecturing men on how to lift heavy bags or dig holes.

He is survived by his second wife, and a son and two daughters from his first marriage. His first wife predeceased him.

Jim Halliday, weightlifter, was born on January 19, 1918. He died on June 6, 2007, aged 89