THE BERGMAN ÖSTERBERG UNION 2013 CONTENTS Letter from the Chairman 2 Agenda for the AGM 2013 4 Minutes of the AGM 2012 5 BÖU Executive Committee 2013 12 Memorial Stone Unveiling 14 Awards and Presentations 16 News from the BÖU Archive 17 Kent Netball Archive Group 17 Netball Comes Home 18 100 years ago at Madame Bergman Österberg’s Physical Training College 19 Dartford College of PE Year Songs 20 Dr Eileen Alexander OBE (1932) 23 The Body & the Archive – review of an exhibition 25 Memories of the Mexico Olympics 1968 26 Reliving the 2012 Olympics through the eyes of a Gamesmaker 27 Book Review: St Leonards:First in the field 29 Book Review: Robbie Brightwell and his Golden Girl 30 BBC4 Timeshift – The Rise of the Lady 31 News from Former Students 32 Calling all Leavers from the Class of 1973 34 Obituaries 35 BÖU Accounts 39 Benefit Fund Account 40 The Benefit Fund 40 Changes to the Register 2011-2012 41 Diploma Badges 41 Donation of Material to the Archive 42 BÖU Website & Facebook 42 Message from the Editorial Committee 42 Appendix - BÖU Visit to Japan, 8th to 16th April 2013 43 1 Letter from the Chairman Dear Friends, As ever, it has been a busy year for your committee as we strive to keep Madame’s name and work in the public eye. All the events of the year are fully reported here in the magazine, as well as many interesting articles which I hope you will enjoy reading. I must apologise once again this year for the late arrival of the magazine. There have been problems with the printing at the University of Greenwich, which are beyond our control. The archive has finally been moved to its new home in the large building next to the Österberg Sports Centre. Whilst it is a mobile, it is very substantial and has been refurbished and re-carpeted. We now have considerably more space in which to mount permanent displays, provide more accessible storage plus have facilities for researchers and for holding committee meetings. Our thanks go to Penny Morgan, the Vice Principal, Ian Goodwin and John Doran at Northwest Kent College, as well as the college staff who have actually refurbished the mobile and helped to move the collection. Major thanks must go to Rosemary Moon and her team, Alan Gamwell, Gwen Seabrook Smith and her husband Martin, and Christobel Elliott. They sorted everything out amazingly quickly and we have already hosted researchers and held our first committee meeting there. I do hope that you will all enjoy visiting if you are able to. Our regular donation towards the upkeep of the North West Kent College cricket pitch was gratefully received again, although there were not as many games played on it last year due to the lack of changing facilities. Following a suggestion made at last year's AGM, the committee have been investigating the possible certificate conversion of our courses to Honorary Degrees. Dr Jo Harris has been particularly helpful to Jilly and the matter is now in the hands of Martyn Stephenson of the University of Greenwich Alumni Department, who is confident that the conversion will eventually take place. In May, we were delighted to welcome Birgitta Wistrand and Maria Kristensson for a visit. As I said at the AGM, Maria is the Principal of the Apelryd School in Sweden and Birgitta is a renowned feminist and ex Swedish politician who was researching in the archive, as she is writing a book about Madame. They are both very interesting people and it was a pleasure to have them to visit. I should like to thank Rosemary, Alan and Margaret Medland for helping to make the visit so successful. We were delighted to see so many of you at the reunion on the 8th September, particularly as we held the unveiling of the new memorial stone to Madame. The stone is placed under her tree, between it and Kingsfield. The weather was kind to us and it was a lovely occasion. A full report of the ceremony appears later in the magazine. Our lunch after the AGM was held in the old ballroom in Kingsfield house, which turned out to be the perfect place for it on the day. The Bergman Österberg award was given this year to Adam Ward, a student at the University of Greenwich, who gained the highest overall grade in his individual study and started his PGCE last September. His study was on: Participation motives of cyclists: investigating the differences between gender, age, style and activity levels. It was a pleasure to welcome him and his wife Jennifer to the reunion and to present him with his award. It was also a sad pleasure to present Hazel Chapman with an engraved water jug. Hazel has been on the committee for 26 years and in that time has become quite invaluable, not least for her revisions and knowledge of the Constitution. Nothing has ever been too much trouble for her and I for one shall miss her greatly. We wish her a long and happy retirement from the BÖU. An article and photograph appear later in the magazine. Also at lunch, we were delighted that Sheila Cutler was given the Alumni Department of the University of Greenwich Altruism Award. We were particularly pleased that Chris Philpott, the Head of the School of Education, was able to come and present the award, and that Martyn Stephenson was also able to be present. 2 After lunch, we were delighted to be able to welcome Mary Green, née Tagg, 1965, who had agreed to speak about her experiences at the Mexico Olympics in 1968, where she reached the semi finals of the 400 Metres. Mary gave us a very entertaining and fascinating talk, bringing to life the excitement of competing in the Olympics and also showing us the great contrast between the athletes of that time and the current day. She had also brought with her some of the clothing she wore and even a Mexican Hat! Everyone thoroughly enjoyed listening to her and I would like to take this opportunity to thank her once again for giving up her time. We also enjoyed meeting her husband, Andrew. Photographs of the presentations and Mary's talk appear later in the magazine. As some of you will know, we received an invitation last year from the Japan Women’s College of Physical Education for two of us to attend their 90th birthday celebrations. These will be held on their Founder’s Day, Monday April 15th 2013, and Dr Jackie Farr and I will be going to represent the BÖU. We have been overwhelmed by their generosity, as they are paying for our air fairs and hotel accommodation, as well as arranging an itinerary for us, as we are going for a week. Unfortunately the two North West Kent staff who were invited felt that they were unable to attend, as it was the first week of term. I am very grateful to my Head teacher for giving me two days unpaid leave so that I can go, and so is Jackie to the University. [There is a report of our visit as an Appendix to this magazine.] I do hope that many of you will be able to come to this year’s reunion on Saturday 7th September, as our after lunch speaker will be Anne Packer! Anne has very kindly agreed to come and talk about her Olympic experiences, when she won Gold in the 800m, and we are all looking forward to it immensely. Peter Boreham, one of our Vice Presidents followed up the work of Patsy Thurlow, Dartford Borough councillor, on the possible listing of the Kingsfield building. We now know how to go about this and Peter’s investigations leave us ready to make an application when the conditions are at their most advantageous for success. Finally, I should like to make my usual thank you’s to your hard working committee. Firstly, to Jill Ellis Williams, for her excellent work as secretary. She keeps us all properly organised and it is thanks to her communication skills that so much of what we do actually happens. To Ken Challinor, who has been an excellent sounding board in his first year as president. To Christobel Elliott and Margaret Medland, for their continued efforts as treasurers and to Pat Chatters for her work as registrar. Jan Grimsey ran the well-organised reunion again and Hazel Chapman proofread the 2012 magazine. Brenda Barton edited another excellent newsletter and the magazine subcommittee (Rosemary Moon, Pat Chatters, Christobel Elliott, Jilly Ellis Williams and myself) produced the magazine, ably led by Rosemary. Dr Jackie Farr continues to give presentations about Madame's work, which keeps it in the public eye, and she keeps up our strong links with the University of Greenwich. Peter Boreham has been extremely innovative and it is thanks to him that we have our lovely new collecting boxes. He also did a thorough investigation regarding the possible listing of the Kingsfield building, as I said earlier. Dr Jo Harris brings current expertise to our work and Sheila Norman and Ann Richmond bring a wealth of experience and suggestions. Last but not least our enduring thanks go to Rosemary Moon for her commitment to the archive. This has not been an easy year for her as the worry about its new home has been ongoing for several months. I hope that now that the move is completed she and her team, Alan Gamwell and Gwen Seabrook Smith, will be able to channel their energies into the work they really want to do.