TESTIMONIES

Suzanne Schindler
Retired Window Dresser

My name is Suzanne and this is my testimony.

I just remember that nearly everything was- took place actually in Wembley so it was all was very- all very concentrated in there and you used to get- I mean Wembley was full of people walking, and, you know, I mean extra people. You could certainly see it in our road, every day people- It was really very busy walking up and down, great entertainment! [laughs]

I think I probably wasn’t as keyed into sport at nine as I was subsequently in adult life, and I think my parents took me to these things so that I could then say that I had been to the Olympics because it was an opportunity not to missed.

But I do remember seeing Fanny Blankers-Koen run the race and win it of course, and so I suppose for me, that’s the main star of the event. Although these other names that keep coming up I- Once my memory is jogged I remember hearing about them and knowing about them at the time- I don’t actually, I started to pick up and remember Zatopek and Perrier, but I don’t actually remember many other of the personalities.

“You probably heard something about the odd winner on the radio…” Quite possibly, but you’d didn’t have commentaries and things like you do now, like a whole sports programme. You wouldn’t have had any of that. Oh, but we didn’t have television and in the newspaper you’d get the odd photograph. Possibly. But I mean, the coverage wasn’t anything not anything like the sort of thing you’d get now.

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