Maureen Gardner

Olympic medal record
Women's athletics
Competitor for  Great Britain
Silver	1948 London	80 metre hurdles

Maureen Angela Jane Gardner (12 November 1928(1928-11-12) – 2 September 1974(1974-09-02) (aged 45)) was a British champion hurdler who at age 19 was a silver medallist in the 80-metre hurdles at the 1948 Summer Olympics in London. She narrowly missed the gold medal to Dutch housewife Fanny Blankers-Koen, with an identical recorded time of 11.2 seconds. She also danced and taught ballet, and married Geoff Dyson, chief coach of the British Olympic team. In 1945 Maureen was a teaching assistant at St. Christopher's Infant School in Cowley, Oxford. I think she was there until at least 1947. |She lived in Maidcroft Road in Cowley, Oxford, and during the latter years of the War she travelled each day to London to study Ballet under her teacher Madam Espinosa. She was actually accepted to be a member of the National ballet company. Unfortunately when she was fifteen she became seriously ill with pleurisy, and the doctor forbade her to travel to London daily, and understandably her parents would not allow a girl of tender years to live in London by herself, and so her ballet career was curtailed. As a result of her travelling daily to London, she had lost contact with many of the friends that she had made when she attended the Temple Cowley Secondary School. Her father suggested that she should join O.L.A.C. (Oxford Ladies Athletic Club) which met at the University Athletics Track on the Iffley Road in Oxford. The Club Captain at that time was named Eileen Owen, and coincidentally she lived next door but one to Maureen's maternal Grandmother in Norreys Avenue, Grandpont Oxford. Eileen was an accomplished athlete, and at that time was the Southern Counties Women's Athletics Association 100 yards Champion. With her natural ability and speed, Maureen took over the role of Club Sprinter, and in 1946 she gained her first International against Holland. At that time the Oxford University Athletics Club had many students who were mature having been in the forces, and who had returned to resume their studies. Two of these were John Wilkinson and Robin Pinnington, both of whom trained with Maureen. They too went to Holland and kept a paternal eye on the young Maureen. It was a time of austerity, and there was no such thing as team uniforms, and so athletes were expected to provide their own clothing and equipment. There was in the Oxford City Athletic Club a man by the name of Aubrey Harris who before the was, I think in 1936, represented England in an International 880 yards. From that occasion he had a White Tracksuit with England across the back in red. Much to his credit he insisted that Maureen had this momento from his past for her to wear on her first International. In 1946, Geoffrey Dyson, who had recently been appointed as the Chief Coach to the Amateur Athletic Association, went to Oxford to run Training sessions for the Oxford University Athletics Club. The training obviously took place at the Iffley Road track and, whilst there he saw Maureen training. Learning that, by this time she was the National Sprint Champion, and that she had a background of Ballet dancing, he realised that she had talents and attributes that would make a good hurdler. He conferred with Maureen and her parents and offered that she should become one of his band of Athletes. His ambition and purpose was to show that, by good coaching and training methods the country could build a band of athletes who could compete effectively on the International scene. In his small team of personal athletes were, Maureen (hurdling), John Savidge ( Shot Putt ), Geoff Elliot ( Pole Vault ),Shirley Cawley ( Long Jump ), and John Disley ( Steeple Chase ).

Success soon came on the hurdling front, and it was not long before Maureen excelled, by not only becoming National Champion, but representing G.B. in many Internationals. On one occasion at the Iffley Road track she was competing and seemingly broke the World Record of 11.2 seconds. Unfortunately when the track was measured to verify the record, it was found to be just two inches short, and so the record could not stand. This was devastating news, not so much for Maureen, but for the groundsman by the name of Walter Morris. He was an enormous asset and friend to Maureen, and he assisted her in her training by often setting up the hurdles and track, and by doing anything else he could to help her. Walter had been mustard gassed during the first world war and from time to time had recurrences of the effects, and it was only on those occasions that he was not there to help out. When the track was found to be marginally short he thought the responsibility was all his.

The big event was, of course, the Olympic Games at Wembley in 1948. In considerable contrast to the training and facilities now afforded to athletes, the only time that the British team met together to train and bond, was at a weekend camp at Clacton courtesy of the owner Billy Butlin. The 1948 Olympics have become known as the 'austerity games', and the reasons are obvious considering how soon it was after the war. Credit must be given to those who supported and later executed the games. Rationing was still in force; accommodation was very difficult to find; there was virtually no T.V. coverage; many athletes from abroad were housed in Military camps; the team from the U.S.A. came by sea, and brought their own food with them, and so the picture is slowly built. The G.B. Ladies Athletics team were given accommodation in London, and Maureen and her particular friend Sylvia Cheeseman, found the noise of the London traffic difficult to cope with. Fortunately for Maureen, her father in Oxford was the Local Representative for the Porkellis Property and General Investment Trust, and the Managing Director, Mr Becker, lived in Ecclestone Square in London. He offered that she should stay at his home for the duration of the Games, and with the agreement of the G.B. Team management, that is what she decided to do. In the Games she came second in the 80 metre hurdles to Fanny Blankers Koen, both of them recording the same time of 11.2 seconds. For this she received a silver medal, and as a member of the 4 x 100 relay team which came third, she also received a bronze medal. After the race, the celebration was for Maureen, Geoff Dyson, Her Mother, and her Brother to go to Soho to have a meal in a French Restaurant. Regrettably her Father, who had been so instrumental in her achieving success, was unable to attend the Olympics as he was suffering from a gastric ulcer, and was in such discomfort that he was too unwell to go. Later that year Maureen and Geoff Dyson were married at the Saint Mary Magdalene Church in the centre of Oxford. The streets were packed with well wishers on that day, and the reception was held in the Carfax Assembly rooms in Cornmarket Street. The Citizens of Oxford gave them a present of a Queen Anne bureau and display cabinet, A firm called Humphries gave them a present by providing the Rolls Royce cars for the occasion, and the Oxford Cooperative bakery department gave them a five tier wedding cake with the five Olympic rings as decoration. ( It is interesting to note that Fanny Blankers - Koen was given a BICYCLE in appreciation of her outstanding performances by the citizens of her home town in Holland ). In those continuing days of austerity it was a relatively lavish occasion. The National Press were well represented, and Pathe News, Gaumont, and ITN all gave it coverage. There was still an acute housing problem in the country in 1948, and particularly in the London Area which had suffered from the blitz. Once again Porkellis Property were of assistance as they owned some flats in Snaresbrook E11. One of the flats in Forest Gate was where Maureen and Geoff set up their first home. Furniture was also hard to come by and it was still on coupons, and bore the utility marks. A friend of Mr Gardner, by name Alice Ward, who had a furniture store in Park End Street Oxford. was of great help to them as she acquired some items of furnishing at Country House auction sales in the County. When pleurisy brought an end to Maureen's ballet career, she started a very successful ballet and dance school in Oxford. On moving to London she started a New school in Wanstead, and both of them thrived for a number of years until, in 1962 the Dyson family moved to live in Ottawa. Once again she founded another very successful school in that City. It was whilst living in Canada that Maureen again saw Fanny Blankers-Koen for the only time. Each year her Mother went across in the Summer to visit them in Ottawa. The Dysons used to meet her, and take her back to the Montreal International Airport to catch her flights. On one occasion Fanny was in the Airport with a group of Dutch girls who she was escorting. She and Maureen had a brief chat and reminisced for the one and only time. Maureen's involvement with Ballet when she returned to England from 1978 onwards was mainly as an examiner for the Royal School of Ballet, and two years before she died she was made the Chief Examiner of that organisation. The only foreign tour she was able to go on was to Bermuda.

Maureen had two children the first of whom was born in 1949. After the birth of her son, she started training again with the 1952 Olympics as her goal. Things progressed well until she found that she was expecting again, and the imminent birth of her daughter saw her retire from competitive athletics, and quite an illustrious career.

References

• Track and Field News
• Sky Sports/Reuters

Persondata
Name	Gardner, Maureen
Alternative names
Short description
Date of birth	12 November 1928
Place of birth
Date of death	2 September 1974
Place of death