This week: a former British Olympic high jumper, the composer of the test card music and a great of Bollywood

THE high jumper Germaine Mason, who has died aged 34 in a motorcycle crash in Jamaica, won a silver medal with Team GB at the Beijing Olympics in 2008. He is also still the holder of the Jamaican national record in the high-jump.

He was born in Jamaica to a British father and a Jamaican mother and at junior level was a Jamaican team-mate of his friend, the 100 metre and 200 metre world record holder Usain Bolt. However, in 2006 he switched allegiance to represent Great Britain, which was allowed under international rules because his father was born in London.

His peak came two years later when he claimed silver at the Beijing Olympics, jumping 2.34 metres to finish behind Russian Andrey Silnov. However, later that year he seriously injured his knee and missed two months of his training after surgery.

Jamaican police reported that Mason died after being involved in an accident in Kingston. Reports said Mason was riding in a convoy with a number of athletes.

Senior high jump coach at British Athletics, Fuzz Caan, who worked closely with Mason at the time of his Olympic success, described him as an outstanding athlete and a lovely man. "He had a wry sense of humour and was a pleasure to be around," said Caan. "He was a great ambassador of British high jumping. It is an honour for us to have him as part of our sporting history.”

THE musician Gordon Langford, who has died aged 86, was a composer, arranger, pianist and trombonist who was known for his work with The King's Singers, his music for brass bands and for arranging the scores for films such as Superman II and Raiders of the Lost Ark.

However, Langford probably attracted his biggest cult following for his work for the test card, the image that was broadcast on television when programmes shut down. The most famous was a girl playing noughts and crosses with a toy clown and it was Langford who wrote some of the familiar music that was played with it. The pieces had colourful names such as Hebridean Hoedown and Royal Daffodil.

Born in Edgware, Middlesex, Langford learned to play the piano from a very young age and was composing his own pieces by the age of nine. After national service, he played in a jazz band and worked for the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company. Later in his career, he also worked with the percussionist Evelyn Glennie and won an Ivor Novello award for his March from the Colour Suite.