‘Our Olympian grandma from Leeds refused to face for Hitler’

“There were stormtroopers all the way around the arena, Swastika flags everywhere, and apparently, when all the athletes were in the stadium and Hitler entered, they were made to stand – and my grandma refused to stand.”

Damian Quarmby proudly recounts the story of his grandmother, Doris Storey, attending the 1936 Olympics in Berlin as a teenage competitor and bravely making her emotions concerning the Nazi regime clear.

Doris, a 17-year-old machinist from East Leeds, was making her first worldwide look and was tipped for gold medals within the 200m breaststroke and freestyle relay.

The Berlin Olympics have been a far cry from her dwelling in Leeds, the place she had balanced her swimming profession, coaching 3 times a day on the York Road Baths, with working within the well-known Montague Burton menswear manufacturing facility.

Swimming was Doris’s dream and he or she had gained a number of trophies for Leeds, Yorkshire and even the corporate she labored for.

“Burtons had their own sports team and they were very supportive of her, gave her time off,” Damian explains.

“As time progressed, she was then spotted at the York Road Baths and, in a short space of time, from about 15-16 years old, she excelled and was put forward for the Olympics.”

“Broad of shoulder” and “tapered”, Doris may glide by the water “like a duck”, says Damian.

“They couldn’t actually understand how she was winning these races,” he recounts.

“Pathé decided they would conduct a filming experiment and they built a glass tank for her and put the camera on some stilts that ran alongside the glass tank to see how she was doing it.”

Eventually, Doris was chosen to swim for Great Britain, and so she made her journey to Berlin for the Olympics and got here face-to-face with Germany’s Nazi regime.

“It was quite an overwhelming experience for her,” Damian says.

“She was only young when she travelled there, and the Olympics was Hitler’s biggest sort of propaganda machine.”

However, that didn’t cease Doris from making her emotions concerning the regime clear – resulting in her refusing to face for Hitler.

“She had a coach sat next to her and he was saying, ‘stand, stand’, and she wouldn’t,” Damian says.

“She had real principles and values, and at the last minute the coach had to grab her, put his hand underneath her arm and lift her up so she wasn’t spotted.”

After what should have been a terrifying introduction to the Olympics, Doris – who was a favorite for a gold medal – had a catastrophe.

“She was fastest and she was set to win gold, but on the day when she was walking down to the pool she slipped and fell over and badly sprained her wrist,” Damian says.

“The doctor for Team GB said, ‘you can’t swim’ and grandma said, ‘well, if I don’t swim, nobody’s going to represent England. I want to swim’.

“So, towards the physician’s orders she went forward and competed.

“She set off fantastically. She was up on the first three competitors, but as the pain kicked in, she ended up falling back, but she still didn’t come last. She came second to last with the injury.”

Two years later, Doris was provided the possibility to attempt once more, this time on the 1938 British Empire Games in Sydney, the forerunner to the Commonwealth Games.

She travelled to Australia alongside different members of the Great Britain staff, and, with their boat, the SS Ormonde, attributable to take greater than 4 weeks to get there, it gave Doris and her colleagues loads of time to maintain up with their coaching – generally utilizing uncommon strategies.

“They were made to train at the back of the boat in open sea with a shark-proof cage they’d lower down,” Damian explains.

“They’d swim in it as the boat was going along, and the Olympic diving team would dive off the side of the ship.”

As Doris’s grandson goes on to say, this method did have its dangers.

“There’s one particular tale she told us: one of the high divers was diving off the side of the boat and grandma was transitioning, coming out of the shark cage across to the boat.

“She circled and thought she noticed a fin, and he or she did see a fin, however she thought it was a shark and he or she’s like, ‘shark, shark!’.

“The diver had just surfaced and she swam over to him and she was petrified. Apparently, she grabbed hold of him but she nearly drowned.

“It turned out it was a porpoise that had been swimming shut by.”

Once in Sydney, Doris went on to victory: winning two swimming golds in the 220 yard breaststroke and 3×110 yard medley.

By this time, World War Two was looming, meaning Doris would not get another chance to show off her swimming talents for the duration.

Then, in 1948, as she was ready to compete in the post-war “austerity” Olympics in London, her career came to a sudden end.

Damian explains: “She was nonetheless tipped to be a contender, however one of many Olympic committee – which was made up of males – noticed my grandma handing over her child, our father Ron, to her sister Thelma.

“He made a note of this and then between the committee they decided it wasn’t appropriate for a mother to be away from her child for such a long time, so she was scratched off even though she probably would have been very competitive.”

Despite this, Doris by no means misplaced her love for swimming, instilling in her son Ron and grandsons Darren and Damian a love of the game.

Darren says sadly none of them may match her expertise.

“In my late 20s, I was swimming at the gym six times a week and I bought one of these watches that could measure how many lengths of the pool you’d done,” he says.

“As much as I tried, I could not get anywhere near my grandma’s time – I mean nowhere near that time, and I was trying hard.

“She was naturally proficient, in addition to sturdy.”

Doris could swim a 25m length in eight strokes and she even set a world record for the 100 yard breaststroke, something she held on to despite her “humble” retirement working with her husband in a fish and chip shop in East End Park, Leeds, he adds.

Darren says: “She all the time wore this medal round her neck and it was solely as we received older we might ask her about this medal and it was a world file.

“She held the record for a lot of years before it got broken – it was decades.”

The Quarmby brothers say they’ve all the time saved Doris’s trophies, medals and different memorabilia collected on her travels within the blue suitcase she took all the way in which to Hitler’s Germany in 1936 and to Australia in 1938.

Meanwhile, they are saying they’re proud their grandmother is now remembered in different methods in her dwelling metropolis.

First, a blue plaque bearing her title is to be positioned on the constructing the place Doris as soon as educated in Richmond Hill.

Second, only a quick distance from the property the place she grew up in Seacroft, a brand new house constructing contains a mural by artist Alexandra Elstone depicting the gold medal-winning swimmer.

Not solely that, however the constructing is known as Doris Storey House, the title chosen by youngsters from Seacroft’s Beechwood Primary School after being impressed by nice sporting stars from the town.

“Of all the people from Leeds who were famous, they wanted pick somebody out and they chose my grandma,” says Darren with a smile.

“It was really humbling.”