"there has only ever been one perfect man, the Lord Jesus, and we killed him. I only missed a putt."
Mary Peters, My story
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Mary Peters, Blackstaff, 2023. ISBN978178073
In 1974 Mary Peters published an autobiography, Mary P autobiography. The 2023 book reprints the first 12 chapters of the 1974 version of her early life and athletics career, adding 8 additional chapters on her subsequent life.
The book describes the progress of a girl in Northern Ireland who received two tons of sand for her 15th birthday - in order to practise long jump and high jump in the back garden – and who later became Olympic champion in the pentathlon. Her father also built a shot circle in the back garden - partly an indication of how primitive athletics facilities were in Northern Ireland at the time. The later chapters document her struggles – ultimately successful – to provide opportunities for the next generation.
Her description of the Munich Olympics, where she won gold in 1972 and her feeling that the German officials were doing everything they could to give her German opponent Heidi Rosendahl an advantage in the competition is interesting. Her description of being in the Olympic Village during the terrorist attack is especially poignant. She comments on the two-day competition: “The trouble with the pentathlon isn't so much the running jumping and throwing as the night in between”.
She makes several references to her lack of religious faith such as how the death of her mother “caused me to question, not for the last time, the meaning of religious faith” and “As I grew older in a country where religion often concealed bigotry of the worst kind, I could only come to the conclusion that the loving God for whom they dressed up in their best clothes every Sunday did not exist”.
A good read which gives a real insight into the life of the amateur elite athlete in the 1960s and 1970s.