Page 60 - She's One Crazy Lady!

marvellous and so very much appreciated. In essence they and their two girls, Alison and Cathy, became my extended family and we were to enjoy holidays and many other social activities together.
Dave encouraged me to take my Umpire’s Award so that I could assist at county matches and at tournaments. I remember there being written tests on the rules of the game, then there were practical sessions that tested your handling of matches and of players themselves. The match that I had to be assessed on was a Northants County match and I was asked to take a men’s doubles game. All was fine
until I saw the names of the players. Naturally, I knew the names of our players; it was the opposition’s that worried me. When there is a change of service, or you start the game you always call out the surnames of the players: e.g. ‘Hooper and Marsh to serve’. The surnames of the opposition were ‘Allcock’ and ‘Harse’. I felt sure this was a ‘set up’ to really test me and how I controlled the strong desire to laugh and remain professional, I don’t know, for everyone was looking at me – waiting. I had to block out everyone and was so glad it was a quick game. I passed my exam, but we did laugh afterwards – players included.
One of the highlights of my table tennis career was when I was asked to captain the England School Girls Senior ‘B’ team at international matches and tournaments (at Glasgow one year and Birmingham the next) – that was a real honour and led to me taking on one of the girls, who lived locally, and had reached national standard, for ‘off-season’ training and fitness. It was a huge physical commitment which lasted eight weeks with only one day off a week. I was to follow the same fitness training alongside Sally. In those eight weeks I lost over a stone and a half in weight and was the fittest I had ever been. It didn’t last!
One influential person I must mention here is ‘Heather’ (Miss Smith) and her husband, Tom. Heather and I met through tennis when I first started playing competitively and we became fierce opponents on the court, playing ladies doubles – never singles – none of us were fit enough for that! We were both hard hitters and had powerful serves – she said she always dreaded standing at the net when my forehand was going well! With her partner, Margaret and with me partnering either Dusty, or later, Liz, we really did have some wonderful, long, close hard-fought games, never knowing who would
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