In his early years Blake went to the Latymer School in London and on leaving there held a variety of jobs before joining the army in 1939.
[3] Whilst at the Loxford School, Blake developed a trampoline squad of sufficient skill that they were invited to do a demonstration at the Festival of Britain in 1951.
Blake subsequently became managing director for the Nissen UK business based at their factory in Hutton Industrial Estate, Brentwood, Essex.
That same year, following these first World Championships, he attended an inaugural meeting of prominent trampolinists in Frankfurt to discuss the formation of an International Trampoline Federation.
[6] Blake appeared, however, to not always be comfortable with authority and in 1972 was scathing about the FIT he had originally developed, questioning why it was so bureaucratic and gymnastics oriented in an international publication of that time.