Britta, Bo And The Bombs

The World Figure Skating Championships have only ever been cancelled for three reasons: the 1961 Sabena crash, World War II and World War I. Anyone studying the sport's history cannot escape the devastating effects that all three of those events had on the sport and the lives of skaters that were so sadly lost as a result... and once again, World War II is a topic that's resurfacing on the blog. In contrast to the sorrowful tales of the Sabena crash in Belgium or the loss of figure skater Anne Frank, the story of Britta, Bo and The Bombs is one of the survival of two skaters... albeit in the scariest of circumstances.

Who were Britta and Bo? Although you may not have heard of them, they were BOTH Swedish Champions. Britta Råhlén won seven Swedish singles titles from 1939 to 1946 and Bo Mothander was a ten time men's champion of his country from 1937 to 1946. The top singles skaters in Sweden formed the ultimate power duo of that era, winning seven pairs titles together and finishing fifth at the 1947 World Championships in their home country after World War II finally ended. Sweden was a neutral country during the War and this would have allowed its skaters to travel freely to Europe to perform. Råhlén and Mothander found themselves in Berlin doing just that in a late afternoon ice skating festival at the Sports-Palast in the fall of 1943. The audience that day was in the thousands.

"Then the sirens screamed. Berliners looked up at the murky mist, in which it was difficult even to see the roofs of buildings, and thought perhaps it was a mistake. Then they heard the roar of planes, an uncertain rumble of barrage, and they scurried for shelters. In Berlin every shelter is a public shelter, so when Ice Skaters Britta and Bo dove into the low cellar of the Russischer Hof across from the Friedrichstrasse Bahnhof, they found themselves among some dozens of assorted people... Bombs began to fall. In a shelter, even on the street, large bombs falling anywhere within a mile or two are felt rather than heard. The walls shook and groaned, glass tinkled in the stairways. After something more than an hour there was quiet. All clear sounded and people ran from the shelters, climbed over the broken-glass rubble, started home or to work, or to help in putting out the fires which raged everywhere," explained John Scott in his December 1943 Life Magazine article "Bombing Of Berlin".

Scott explained that Britta and Bo walked down the Friedrichstrasse, passing eight fires as smoke and dust filled the air. They walked not even half a block before a time bomb exploded, the sirens wailed again and everyone headed back to their shelters. While in the bomb shelter, one woman apparently gave birth to a baby amidst the dust and shaking walls. After the second raid, Britta and Bo returned to the streets, climbing over the rubble of what were once buildings as the winds blew fiercely and the asphalt bubbled. Scott wrote that "during the rest of the night few people slept well in Berlin. Smoke and dust filtered through the bombed-out windows, rain drizzled down through cracked ceilings. Britta and Bo went out on the street at 7 in the morning to take a walk before going to catch the plane for Stockholm. They found the Friedrichstrasse already partly cleaned up from rubble and most of the fires out. There was little water, no gas, no electricity. Smoke hung over the city... Some of the streets had emergency field kitchens giving soup to bombed-out hungry people. Queues before stores were longer than usual but bread and other products were being sold. On Tuesday night mbombs fell again by the hundreds, incendiaries lit new fires still burning from the night before. Again on Friday bombers came in force."

 

Looking at the timeline described in Scott's article, Britta and Bo (who were quite young at the time) would have been in Germany performing smack dab in the middle of The Battle Of Berlin. The LIFE Magazine article cited Britta as being ten and judging by this 1938 picture I found of Bo skating with Gunnel Ericsson in 1938, he can't have been that much older himself. Estimates place between ninety two and one hundred thousand deaths (MANY of them civilians) and two hundred and twenty thousand people wounded in The Battle Of Berlin series of air raids ALONE... so Britta and Bo would have been just so lucky to have been able to escape from the rubble and make it back to Sweden with their skates and lives. The fact that they continued their competitive careers undaunted without missing a beat the next year at the Swedish Championships in Stockholm kind of blows my mind but it's all relative to what life was like during the Wars I think. Have a few bombs thrown at your house, put on a gas mask then go make supper. It's more than a little hard to wrap your head around but Britta and Bo did it, just as skaters around the world did... and carried on skating together for many years to come.

Skate Guard is a blog dedicated to preserving the rich, colourful and fascinating history of figure skating. Over ten years, the blog has featured over a thousand free articles covering all aspects of the sport's history, as well as four compelling in-depth features. To read the latest articles, follow the blog on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and YouTube. If you enjoy Skate Guard, please show your support for this archive by ordering a copy of the figure skating reference books "The Almanac of Canadian Figure Skating", "Technical Merit: A History of Figure Skating Jumps" and "A Bibliography of Figure Skating": https://skateguard1.blogspot.com/p/buy-book.html.

Flames And Foxtrots: The Strange Case Of The Skatin' Toons Record Company

Today, coaches, choreographers and skaters hum and haw as they narrow down choices of music for programs. During World War II, the concern wasn't in whittling down hundreds of selections. As ice dance rose to prominence as a discipline and live orchestras accompanying dance sessions were becoming an impracticality, clubs in North America faced a real struggle to find appropriate recorded music for compulsory dances. Books provided suggestions, as did "Skating" magazine, which housed a regular column called "Good Records For Ice Dancing". With the same need being present in roller skating, a handful of companies decided to cash in and produce records of compulsory dance music. The first and the most successful was the Skatin' Toons Record Company, based in Smithtown Branch, New York. Skatin' Toons opened for business in 1939 and produced ten new records and a one hour tape recording every month in the forties. Their first advertisement ran in the December 1942 issue of "Skating" magazine and soon the company's hokey pipe organ music was played at clubs from coast to coast. They were doing great business... until the business found themselves smack dab in the middle of some serious courtroom drama.

The owner of Skatin' Toons Record Company was a New York City man by the name of Charles H. Stoll. He operated the business under the pseudonym Allen Strow. A curious decision at very least, but a hotly contended topic when he found himself in court on February 19, 1948 battling The Camden Fire Insurance Association, Globe and Rutgers Fire Insurance Company, The Home Insurance Company and the Commercial Union Assurance Company, with whom he had taken out four fire insurance policies. When a fire destroyed the main dwelling and partially destroyed other property of his premises - including the Skatin' Toons Record Company - on March 12, 1947, the loss was calculated at $43,564.14. He got his money. However, the insurance companies were livid. They claimed that as Stoll had used a pseudonym to take out the policies, he had pulled the wool over their eyes. They were not far off.

In 1940, he collected $1,800 when there was a fire in the residence of his Hempstead, Long Island residence. Three years later, he collected $350 when the barn on the same property burned down. The next year, it was $6,860 when the house, barn and outbuildings of his Vermont property burned to the ground. In 1945, while a mechanic was repairing his airplane at the Hickville Aviation Country Club, that too caught fire. He collected $4,585. That was not even all. He had also collected on windstorm damage on an airplane and theft of equipment, all within a five year period. The skating record maker was either the most unlucky man in America, or perhaps more likely, a flim flam man.

His defense was incredible: "In connection with the acquisition of the policies affecting this Smithtown property, no disclosure was made of the plaintiff's previous experiences in being visited by these fires, and the collection of insurance moneys thereunder. This is alleged to have constituted wilful concealment of material facts and circumstances. It should be added, if it has not been previously made clear, that he was not requested in any manner by or on behalf of the defendant companies to make any statement or representation, oral or written, concerning such or any other matters whatever." In other words, "no one asked!" Based on the fact that Stoll had never been previously convicted of arson and that "since 1939 has been, a maker and distributor of phonograph records, and does business under the trade-name of "Skatin Toons"... in that connection he adopted the name Allen Strow for reasons which cannot be said to be devoid of plausibility" the judge let him off the hook. 

Stoll - or should I say Strow - rebuilt but in March 1953, the company was purchased by Wally Kiefer, a former rink operator in the midwest and at the White Plains Skating Rink who was the office sales and office manager for Skatin' Toons in the five years after the fire. As skating associations and the ISU took the distribution of skating music into their own hands, the company soon became obsolete. 

Want to hear what the Skatin' Toons sounded like? Record collector Lon Eldridge shared this obscure gem from his collection on his Smack The Shellac blog on January 13, 2014:

Ice dance has come a long way, baby! You might even say that in 2015... it's on fire.

Skate Guard is a blog dedicated to preserving the rich, colourful and fascinating history of figure skating. Over ten years, the blog has featured over a thousand free articles covering all aspects of the sport's history, as well as four compelling in-depth features. To read the latest articles, follow the blog on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and YouTube. If you enjoy Skate Guard, please show your support for this archive by ordering a copy of the figure skating reference books "The Almanac of Canadian Figure Skating", "Technical Merit: A History of Figure Skating Jumps" and "A Bibliography of Figure Skating": https://skateguard1.blogspot.com/p/buy-book.html.

The 1986 NHK Trophy Competition

If the enthusiastic audiences at the 1977 World Championships in Tokyo were any indication, the Japan Broadcasting Corporation NHK made a wise move when it sponsored the country's first international trophy competition, The NHK Trophy, to mark the fiftieth birthday of the National Skating Union of Japan in October 1979. Daily broadcasts helped convert a whole new generation of figure skating fans in the country and by November 1986, enthralled audiences lined up in Tokyo to get the best seats to watch the competition unfold live.

What made the NHK Trophy particularly unique back in the mid-eighties was the fact that unlike most international competitions, ice dancers did not skate compulsory dances whatsoever and singles skaters did not perform school figures. This left the singles and pairs events to be decided upon a short and long program and the ice dancers skating only their OSP and free dance and obviously favoured a whole different crop of competitors than other prominent international events of the era such as Skate Canada, Skate America and the St. Ivel Trophy.

The pairs event at the 1986 NHK Trophy was easily won by Olympic Gold Medallists Elena Valova and Oleg Vasiliev with Americans Jill Watson and Peter Oppegard and Natalie and Wayne Seybold settling for silver and bronze. In fourth with then partner Lenka Knapová was future World Champion René Novotný of Czechoslovakia. In her wonderful book "Figure Skating History: The Evolution Of Dance On Ice", Lynn Copley-Graves explains that in the ice dance event "with the reigning World Champions present, the outcome of the NHK in Tokyo was never in question. Bestemianova/Bukin did not, however, slide by on past laurels. The 'Emperor Waltz' seemed composed solely for their new Viennese Waltz OSP. Their glitzy new free dance earned three 6.0's for artistic. The Japanese loved Semanick/Gregory's elegant OSP that appeared to have stepped out of a by-invitation ballroom of bygone years. Suzy and Scott's free dance also won acclaim from the host country. Kathrin and Christoff Beck were a breath of fresh air, dancing the OSP of their homeland and showing much improvement since Geneva." With the results remaining (predictably) exactly the same from first to eleventh over both dances, Natalia Bestemianova and Andrei Bukin claimed an easy win over Suzy Semanick and Scott Gregory, the Beck's and the West German twins, Antonia and Ferdinand Becherer. The lone Canadian entry, Jo-Anne Borlase and Scott Chalmers, were eighth.

The women's event, Olympic Gold Medallist Katarina Witt claimed the NHK title for the second time in five years with a near-perfect free skate and 1.2 total points. However, the absence of school figures allowed a young Midori Ito to nip at Witt's heels in front of a home audience. She finished an extremely close second ahead of former Japanese Champion Juri Osada. After falling on a triple toe/double toe combination in the short program and finding herself down in sixth, American Holly Cook moved up to fourth overall with the third best free skate. Canada's sole entry in the women's event, Patricia Schmidt, finished tenth in the field of eleven.

Of all of the events at the NHK Trophy in 1986, the men's competition was perhaps the most interesting. Why? Not because of who finished first, but who finished last. Only one year ago, Alexandr Fadeev had won the World Championships in the very same rink with one of the best performances of his career. In the short program, he missed two elements and finished a disastrous ninth (and last) with a score of 3.6 points, behind even Tatsuya Fuiji, an unheralded skater from Japan. No one knew quite what to think until the World Champion announced his withdrawal, complaining of tooth problems. A December 1, 1986 article from The Ottawa Citizen explained how the rest of the event unfolded in Fadeev's absence: "A beaming Angelo D'Agostino, ranked fourth in the United States, won his first NHK international freeskating competition Sunday with an overall score of 2.4 placement points to beat Makoto Kano, Japan's No. 2, with 2.6 points. D'Agostino, 23, was second in the freeskating program Sunday for 2.0 points, while Kano placed first for one point during the final day of the three-day competition. But D'Agostino managed to win with a higher overall total, after winning the short program for 0.4 points to Kano's fourth-place finish for 1.6 points at Tokyo's Yoyogi National Stadium. In skating, the competitor with the lowest score is the leader. The scoring system is based on the placements of the seven judges. D'Agostino skated to the rhythmic big band music of [Glenn] Miller. Philippe Roncoli of France was third with 5.0 points, after rallying from fifth place to move past Japan's Masaru Ogawa and American Scott Williams." In seventh place was a young Kurt Browning who was making his first trip to Japan. In his (must read) 1991 book "Kurt: Forcing The Edge", Kurt shares some wonderful lessons learned from this competition, but perhaps most humorously he notes the tradition of skaters making off with cotton robes from the hotels in Japan, saying that "the world is full of skaters who've never set foot in Japan but nonetheless luxuriate in these gowns."

As the excitement unfolds at this week's NHK Trophy in Japan, remember that since the late seventies, audiences have been watching this competition unfold with the same intense interest. Perhaps thirty years from now someone will be reflecting on the very competition you're glued to with the same curiosity. That's how history works.

Skate Guard is a blog dedicated to preserving the rich, colourful and fascinating history of figure skating. Over ten years, the blog has featured over a thousand free articles covering all aspects of the sport's history, as well as four compelling in-depth features. To read the latest articles, follow the blog on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and YouTube. If you enjoy Skate Guard, please show your support for this archive by ordering a copy of the figure skating reference books "The Almanac of Canadian Figure Skating", "Technical Merit: A History of Figure Skating Jumps" and "A Bibliography of Figure Skating": https://skateguard1.blogspot.com/p/buy-book.html.

Disgrace, Dogs And Dancing: The Diversions Of Dorothy Klewer

Considering the era, I don't think that it's a stretch at all to say that Dorothy Klewer would have been an extremely controversial young woman in her day.

The youngest daughter of Clara (Weichmann) and William Leonard Klewer, Dorothy Klewer was born June 27, 1896 in Chicago, Illinois. Her father was a respected German born architect; her mother a socialite. Dorothy found herself in society pages from coast to coast when as a teenager, she eloped by climbing out of her bedroom window on a ladder. Her husband was a twenty four year old named R. Mayne Luther, who had opened a dance studio in Denver that flopped miserably. His next venture, a foray into the candy business, was just as unsuccessful. Strapped for cash with a mysterious family 'out west', he wasn't exactly an ideal suitor in the eyes of Dorothy's discerning parents.

Photo courtesy National Archives

On June 19, 1915, "The Ogden Standard" reported, "When Dorothy Henri Klewer was 16 years old, she naively announced her engagement to R. Mayne Luther. Fashionable society of Chicago's North Side gasped in amazement. Surely pretty Dorothy was not in earnest. Why, she was only a child! But Dorothy was very much in earnest. 'I love Mayne dearly, and we are going to marry in the fall', she told acquaintances." Her Papa forbade it, saying that she was not yet eighteen and hadn't had her 'coming out party yet'. When her mother went out visiting, she "dragged six suitcases from beneath the bed. Into each she packed clothing and some personal belongings. The maid assisted her, not knowing what else to do in the face of a generous tip... She lifted her bedroom window. 'Ooh, hoo!' she called softly. The figure of a young man soon loomed in the semi-darkness beneath the window. 'Bring your auto 'round in back,' said the girl. 'Dad hasn't gone out. And listen. It's the only way I can get out without him seeing me,'" Mayne got a ladder and down Dorothy went. The couple married in Crown Point, Indiana, opened yet another dancing school in Denver (which also flopped) and became dancers at the Baltimore Hotel in Kansas City and The College Inn in Chicago. The marriage lasted less than a year, with her suing him for divorce. The "Daily Missourian" reported, "It has been stipulated by her parents that she could return only by climbing back up the ladder and begging forgiveness from the window sill. Weary of dancing school and cabaret life In Denver and her honeymoon long since waned, she gave up and began the climb." Running home to Mommy and Daddy didn't suit her champagne taste and soon Dorothy (now divorced) was off to The Big Apple.

Dorothy found work as a model in newspaper print ads and - you guessed it - took up figure skating at the St. Nicholas Rink. Although she was a fine 'fancy skater' by all accounts, it was her skating partner who earned fifteen minutes of fame in newspapers from coast to coast. Dorothy gussied up her Airedale terrier, Lizzie, and brought her on the ice with her, much to the amusement of the high society figure skaters that frequented the rink in those days. She even proclaimed (in jest) that Lizzie was 'the world champion dog skater'. The December 23, 1917 issue of "The Sunday Star" noted, "Lizzie has won considerable fame on the ice in the way of speed, but cannot yet perform geometric stunts or figure eights." The January 4, 1918 of the "Chattanooga News" (giving you an idea of how far this story travelled) reported, "Lizzie uses skaters with double runners like little sleds... She is still rather awkward at figure skating." The dancer turned model turned skater was even photographed driving a crude predecessor to the Zamboni... in her figure skates.

Photo courtesy Library of Congress

Dorothy's skating days were short lived. Through the connections made at the St. Nicholas Rink, she got a job as a showgirl in the Ziegfield 9 O'clock Revue and Ziegfield Midnight Frolic on the New Amsterdam Roof and went on to act bit parts in Broadway plays. Remarrying to Oscar M. Hunt Jr. on August 6, 1930 in Manhattan, her humble film credits included minor roles in "The File On Thelma Jordan" and "The Hanging Tree". She passed away on March 13, 1960 in Los Angeles, California.

Although the story of Dorothy Klewer and Lizzie remains an obscure footnote in skating history, her story (in hindsight) is definitely 'Best In Show' calibre.

Skate Guard is a blog dedicated to preserving the rich, colourful and fascinating history of figure skating. Over ten years, the blog has featured over a thousand free articles covering all aspects of the sport's history, as well as four compelling in-depth features. To read the latest articles, follow the blog on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and YouTube. If you enjoy Skate Guard, please show your support for this archive by ordering a copy of the figure skating reference books "The Almanac of Canadian Figure Skating", "Technical Merit: A History of Figure Skating Jumps" and "A Bibliography of Figure Skating": https://skateguard1.blogspot.com/p/buy-book.html.

From Carnations To Kale: The Curious History Of Figure Skating's Flower Throwing Tradition

The tradition of throwing flowers on the ice at figure skating competitions was actually predated by the tradition of throwing shade. 

Back in the day, when things were being thrown, they were usually directed at the judges. At the 1952 World Championships in Paris, an unruly audience threw bottles at a judge who gave Jacqueline du Bief, who fell twice, a perfect 6.0. Four years later in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, when Sissy Schwarz and Kurt Oppelt controversially defeated Canadians Frances Dafoe and Norris Bowden, oranges were their weapon of choice.

But where did the tradition of throwing flowers to the skaters start? Perhaps inspired by the centuries old Japanese tradition of throwing clothing in tribute to Dengaku performers, for centuries it has been a long standing custom in the theater and dance worlds to throw flowers to artists that moved audiences. A wonderful 2012 article by Judith Mackrell from The Guardian explains that it was "a tradition apparently started by a man who bought boxes of old or spoiled blooms at markets, carried them to the top of the theatre, and then, with the help of other fans, threw them down on to the stage. Other fans threw flowers from the stalls, often weighted with lead or Plasticine to give a better aim. These cascades of carnations, daffodils and roses (depending on the season) would form a carpet at the dancers' feet." Theater directors hated it. The practice of throwing flowers to performers was actually banned in Viennese theaters in the nineteenth century as 'an intolerable nuisance.' The December 11, 1886 issue of The Garden asserted that English theatres were considering doing the same and that "thirty years ago, it is said, the directors of the Imperial theatres at St. Petersburg had a serious conference with Count Orloff as to the expediency of abolishing the offering of bouquets over the footlights." In addition to being a fire hazard with the gas lit lamps, these flower bouquets often contained jewels offered to female performers with the expectation of 'something more' in return. Scandalous!

As skating became more recognized for its artfulness and more competitions were held indoors in large stadiums, European audiences in the fifties and sixties started throwing flowers to skaters. It caught on in North America and blossomed as a part of the skating zeitgeist. Florists made a killing and soon the bundles of roses became too much for the skaters to gather on their own as they awaited their marks. Competitions got delayed; people tripped on rose petals more than their toe picks. Something had to be done. Enter the flower children.

These unheralded youngsters were more often than not young skaters from the cities in which competitions were held and hand picked by local organizing committees of events. Many top skaters got their first taste of the big leagues by picking up flowers. Among the list of former flower children? Olympic Silver Medallist Liz Manley was a flower girl at 1978 World Championships in Ottawa. Flower retrievers have increased in numbers over the years. At the Innsbruck Olympics, four young girls helped Dorothy Hamill gather flowers thrown by a crowd of nine thousand people. By the 1988 Olympics in Calgary, there were dozens.

But these kids weren't just picking up roses and carnations. Skaters have been showered with flowers, enormous plush toys, love letters, books and candy over the years. Katarina Witt received a Rolex watch; Jeffrey Buttle a Louis Vuitton bag. In a January 21, 2010 interview with ESPN, two time Olympic Silver Medallist Elvis Stojko claimed, "I've had lingerie thrown on the ice before. I remember at one competition the panties came out on the ice after my short program and the top came out the next night after the long program, with a phone number and name attached." After performing prior to a minor league hockey game in Reno, Nevada in 1997, Tonya Harding was thrown flowers... and collapsible batons.

Debi Thomas quipped that she wished people would throw pizza pie instead of flowers. She got her wish at the 1987 World Championships in Cincinnati. American Open Champion Doug Mattis told me, "I told her to look for me so I could get on TV. She came over and I handed her a full-on Domino's pizza, in box." No anchovies, extra cheese and to the kiss and cry in thirty minutes or less. Mattis recalled, "One year ('83, I think), they tied fishing wire to a bouquet of flowers and when (maybe it was?) Jill Watson went to go pick them up, they yanked them away from her. Another time someone built a three foot tall Energizer Bunny, put it on skates, and slid the thing past Holly Cook while she took a bow after her free skate."

It was all fun and games until skating officials stepped in. In 1988, the USFSA started discouraging the throwing of flowers onto the ice and cited the image the sport projected as part of the reason. Hugh Graham promised that "the TV interview area in competitions that we control will project a sporting image rather than a frilly flower garden." The delays of flower cleanup and hazards of foreign objects on the ice led organizers of the 1989 U.S. Championships to ban the selling of flowers at the Baltimore Arena. Fans responded by simply visiting their friendly neighbourhood florist on their way to the rink.

The boom of skating's popularity in the nineties meant more flower showers than ever before. At the 1994 Winter Olympics in Lillehammer, the flower children were instructed to "take lemon-flavoured cod-liver oil every day. And don't forget to smile", scan the ice for errant bobby pins, jewelry and sequins and return the skaters skate guards with "a grand bow." The skaters, aged seven to eleven, were hand-picked for their jobs by a German skater living in Norway named Heidi Vermond.

In 1996, the USFSA tried to bill organizers of the Riders Ladies Figure Skating Championships for a "sanction fee" of one thousand dollars per flower child for any skater who was a member of a USFSA club skating on to the ice to retrieve flowers at a professional competition. The organizers of the professional competition balked at the amateur organization's outrageous fee, countered one hundred dollars and then replaced the flower retrievers with skaters who weren't USFSA members. In the March 9, 1997 issue of the Eugene Register, Morry Stillwell said of the drama: "While somebody may feel that a little kid, five little kids, are not worth the difference between $100 and $1000, that's the way it is. I feel there is a moral responsibility to help develop the sport."

By the late nineties, the shift of federations and event organizers to 'encourage' fans to throw plush toys was in full swing. If flowers were to be thrown, they had to be fully wrapped in cellophane and taped up right some good. Safety first, right? Not so much. In 2008, legendary coach Frank Carroll got bopped in the head with a large stuffed penguin after Evan Lysacek's short program at the U.S. Championships in St. Paul Minnesota. In his interview with Allison Manley on The Manleywoman Skatecast, he said, "Actually, the one at Nationals was really dangerous because it had a recorder in it. It spoke or sang or did something and you know, the boy standing next to me was the Razzano boy from Phoenix and he had to skate right after Evan, so when Evan came off this thing flew down and luckily it hit me instead of him but you know, it really dazed me and I had to go to the medical afterwards." Not even an injury to the coach of Michelle Kwan could stop skating fans from chucking everything that wasn't nailed down.

Kale me crazy but I think the reigning World Champions might win the 'crazy things thrown on the ice' contest in recent years. Meagan Duhamel told me she "got a bundle of kale thrown on the ice last year at Canadians. I also got a jar of peanut butter many years ago." Not to be outdone, Eric Radford recalled being thrown "a six-foot long homemade stuffed snake!"

For a sneak peek into the world of flying projectiles, I headed over to the Scotiabank Centre today for the 2016 Canadian Tire National Skating Championships Flower Retriever Auditions. At the event, thirty skaters from the ages of nine to thirteen from local skating clubs auditioned for a minimum of twenty spots for 'flower retrievers' at the 2016 Canadian Tire National Skating Championships which will take place from January 18 to 24 here in Halifax. Skaters had applied online through a call for volunteers on Skate Canada's website. If they met the criteria, they were invited to today's tryouts.

An hour long process evaluated the skills of the skaters and their suitability through circuit exercises. Three judges made the difficult decision of who to select. I spoke to Jill Knowles, who has been the Executive Director of Skate Canada Nova Scotia since 2003 about the process. "They are looking for skating skills," she explained. "When we are live on TV, the skaters have to be very, very proficient. They have to be able to skate well, gather the flowers, stuffed animals and all those things in really quick succession. They also have to sit quietly when they're not in use because there is a lot of dead time where it will be interesting for them to watch the skaters, but they will have to sit quietly and behave themselves." We talked about how this really was a once in a lifetime experience for many of these young skaters. Jill explained that the "age window to be a flower retriever is quite small. The last time Canadians were hosted here was 2007. In 2007, many of these children wouldn't have even been in school yet, let alone skating. By the time we have Canadians here again or another international event they will probably be too old to be doing it at that point in time." As for crazy things thrown on the ice in Halifax, Knowles remembered Craig Buntin being thrown Tim Hortons coffee.

When the ice at the Dartmouth Sportsplex was littered with red roses after the last figures in international competition were skated here at the 1990 World Championships, it was probably one of the few times that school figures were ever rewarded with a flower toss. You honestly just never know what will happen in Halifax, home to some of the most lively skating audiences in Canada. Why don't you come find out for yourself? Tickets are on sale to the 2016 Canadian Tire National Skating Championships.

Skate Guard is a blog dedicated to preserving the rich, colourful and fascinating history of figure skating. Over ten years, the blog has featured over a thousand free articles covering all aspects of the sport's history, as well as four compelling in-depth features. To read the latest articles, follow the blog on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and YouTube. If you enjoy Skate Guard, please show your support for this archive by ordering a copy of the figure skating reference books "The Almanac of Canadian Figure Skating", "Technical Merit: A History of Figure Skating Jumps" and "A Bibliography of Figure Skating": https://skateguard1.blogspot.com/p/buy-book.html.

Move Over Mary Poppins: Ellen Dallerup, The Skating Zeppelin

Practically perfect in every way, Julie Andrews delighted as the nanny who flew around via umbrella in the 1964 film "Mary Poppins". She wasn't the first one to fly in the air and delight audiences though. Skaters had been doing it for decades... and the one we're going to focus on today is Denmark's Ellen Dallerup, a contemporary and cast mate of Charlotte Oelschlägel who in her own way made a quite an impression on audiences in her day.

Photo courtesy Bibliothèque nationale de France

Ellen performed alongside Charlotte in the ice ballets that were part of the massive "Hip, Hip Hooray" and "The Big Show" productions at New York City's Hippodrome Theatre. Like Charlotte, Ellen was discovered by New York City theatrical producer Charles Dillingham as a performer in the early twentieth century Eisballets at Admiralspalast in Germany, which were essentially combinations of pantomime and musical comedy acted out on ice skates. Although Charlotte became the big star, Ellen too earned her own following in these shows. The February 13, 1916 edition of "The Oregonian" praised her highly: "Hilda [Rückert] and Ellen Dallerup share with Charlotte the titles of 'Queen of the Ice.' While Miss Dallerup goes further and is 'Queen of the Film Ice Skaters', acting for the Paramount Pictures as mannequin for their swell skating costumes, and giving a few sample glides and curves. If the skill as well as the costume showed upon the screen, dressmakers could ask fabulous prices for the wonderful creations designed for ice skating." Furthermore, the September 9, 1916 "Brooklyn Life" review of "The Big Show" compares Charlotte with Ellen: "There probably never was a woman skater of so much feminine charm combined with so much masculine agility and muscular strength, but in grace of execution she is surpassed by Ellen Dallerup."

Ellen continued to gain attention in her next gig, a production called "Jack o'Lantern". This too was a show produced by Dillingham and it played both in Philadelphia at the Forrest Theatre and on Broadway at The Globe. The show was again a mixed music/acting/skating hodge podge and was well received by critics. Circus performer Fred Stone even learned to skate specifically for this production. The book "That Moaning Saxophone : The Six Brown Brothers and the Dawning of a Musical" by Bruce Vermazen describes the show's grand finale and Ellen's big moment in detail: "A snowstorm is falling on an ice rink that covers most of the stage. Costumed in 'blue silk set off with white fur', a beautiful young woman (Ellen Dallerup during the 1918-19 season, Katie [Schmidt] the following year) enters, a marvelously graceful and brilliant skater who pirouettes and whirls all over the ice, who dances and leaps and glides as though skating was the easiest and most natural game in the world."

After stints in a couple of other American shows, Ellen returned to Europe and skated with Phil Taylor, a notable speed skater and Ice Capades stilt skating performer in St. Moritz, Switzerland. At one point during her early career, she even skated with a prop zeppelin attached to her, as pictured above. As I said before, move over Mary Poppins! 

Later, Ellen turned to coaching in Great Britain and was actually the second coach of four time World Champion Jean Westwood! I was able to find little more about her later life beyond a coaching stint in Manchester in the late forties, but if she flew through life with the grace with which she appears to have skated, I'm sure she passed life's tests with flying colours.

Skate Guard is a blog dedicated to preserving the rich, colourful and fascinating history of figure skating. Over ten years, the blog has featured over a thousand free articles covering all aspects of the sport's history, as well as four compelling in-depth features. To read the latest articles, follow the blog on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and YouTube. If you enjoy Skate Guard, please show your support for this archive by ordering a copy of the figure skating reference books "The Almanac of Canadian Figure Skating", "Technical Merit: A History of Figure Skating Jumps" and "A Bibliography of Figure Skating": https://skateguard1.blogspot.com/p/buy-book.html.

The Roots Of Trophée Éric Bompard

As the Grand Prix action continues to heat up with the fourth stop on the six part competition tour in Bordeaux, France, one might be a tad curious about the origins and history of this competition. Although France had certainly been home to many major figure skating competitions - Olympics, World, European and World Junior Championships aplenty over the years in fact - earlier in the country's skating history other invitational competitions such as the Grand Prix St. Gervais and the Morzine Trophy were the most prominent annual international competitions France boasted.

In response to the other more prominent invitationals being offered at the time like Skate Canada, Skate America, NHK Trophy, Novarat Trophy in Hungary, Ennia Challenge Cup in Holland and St. Ivel in England, France decided to get in on the game in 1987 by introducing the Lalique Trophy. Although good ol' Wikipedia refers to this event in its early years as the 'Grand Prix International de Paris' all primary sources indicate it was indeed called the Lalique Trophy (or Trophée Lalique) until 1994, when the Trophée Lalique name was briefly lended to a professional competition in France that was judged by a live audience, similar to The Great Skate Debate and Rowenta Masters On Ice professional competitions later in the nineties professional skating boom. During this time period, the amateur event was known for two years as Trophée de France, resuming its use Trophée Lalique name from 1996 to 2003. In 2004, when cashmere company Éric Bompard took over from the Lalique glassware company as the title sponsor, the name officially changed. The event, of course, has been a mainstay of the Grand Prix from its early days as The Champions Series until now.

The winner of the first Lalique Trophy women's title in November 1987 was none other than Jill Trenary. "The Palm Beach Post" noted that after winning figures, "The U.S. Champion had marks of 5.2 to 5.8 for her two-minute program with seven basic free skating moves. Skating to 'Irma La Douce', she had a difficult triple flip-double toe combination in her exercise that counted for 20 percent of the total score. with today's final free program left, she had 1.0 ordinals." Maintaining a strong lead after winning the short program and surviving a fall in her free skate to easily topple France's Agnès Gosselin and West Germany's Patricia Neske. Canada's Diane Takeuchi was fourth with 5.2 points and another Canadian, Lyndsay Fedosoff of Mississauga, Ontario, was sixth. In the pairs event in 1987, the brother/sister team of Natalie and Wayne Seybold of the U.S. held onto their short program lead over the Soviet pair of Julya Bystrova and Alexander Tarasov to take the title. Lauren Collin of Burlington, Ontario and John Penticost of Chateuaguay, Quebec finished third in both the short and long programs to take the bronze medal. In the men's event, Petr Barna outskated Angelo D'Agostino of the U.S. and Great Britain's Paul Robinson for the gold, with St. Bruno's Jaimee Eggleton in fifth and Port Moody, B.C. native Brad McLean in seventh. The ice dance winners were Italians Lia Trovati and Roberto Pelizzola with Susie Wynne and Joseph Druar in second and France's Corinne Paliard and Didier Courtois in third. A young Evgeni Platov finished fourth with then partner Larisa Fedorinova and Canada's only entry, Kim Weeks of Calgary and Curtis Moore of Wingham, Ontario, finished in a disappointing seventh and last place.

Over the years, so many wonderful moments have taken place at this competition. For instance, in November 1989, Susanna Rahkamo and Petri Kokko made history when they won the bronze medal at Trophée Lalique. In doing so, they won Finland's first ever ice dance medal in any international competition. The winner of the women's event that year was Surya Bonaly.

The event has also been the source of many major upsets. In 1995, Josée Chouinard beat the reigning World Champion Lu Chen. Two years later, it was Laetitia Hubert's turn to unseat another reigning World Champion, Tara Lipinski. Past winners read like a who's who of figure skating: Kurt Browning, Michelle Kwan, Yuna Kim, Elena Berezhnaya and Anton Sikharulidze, Ilia Kulik, Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir, Paul Wylie, Joannie Rochette, Todd Eldredge, Artur Dmitriev with both of his partners, Alexei Yagudin, Marina Anissina and Gwendal Peizerat, Evgeni Plushenko, Jeffrey Buttle, Patrick Chan, Mao Asada... that's just the tip of the iceberg. With a formidable who's who crew (see what I did there?) in Bordeaux this week, perhaps it's high time some new names got added to that prestigious list. Don't think for a second skating history isn't in the making. It is every day.

Skate Guard is a blog dedicated to preserving the rich, colourful and fascinating history of figure skating. Over ten years, the blog has featured over a thousand free articles covering all aspects of the sport's history, as well as four compelling in-depth features. To read the latest articles, follow the blog on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and YouTube. If you enjoy Skate Guard, please show your support for this archive by ordering a copy of the figure skating reference books "The Almanac of Canadian Figure Skating", "Technical Merit: A History of Figure Skating Jumps" and "A Bibliography of Figure Skating": https://skateguard1.blogspot.com/p/buy-book.html.

Soldiering On: Inspiring Skaters From World War I and II

In the 2013 Skate Guard blog "Finding Peace On The Ice: Figure Skating And World War II", we first explored some of the figure skating connections to the second World War. From the stories of Hanni Sondheim Vogelweit to Freddie Tomlins to Anne Frank, the horrors that were World War I and II continue to pop up time and time again. They have swooped in almost like some inescapable tornado without notice whenever I go to research new topics to write about.... and there's no doubt in my mind they will continue to. As we remember this Remembrance Day, let us look back on yet more stories of inspiring wartime skaters. Lest we forget.

ALBERT HORACE HAKE AND THE GREAT ESCAPE

In 1963, John Sturges' film "The Great Escape" was nominated for both Academy and Golden Globe Awards. It was based on Paul Brickhill's 1950 book of the same name, which was also adapted to television in a 1951 episode of The Philco Television Playhouse. "The Great Escape" told the story of the daring and dramatic escape of British and Commonwealth prisoners of war from a German POW Camp in what is now Poland during World War II. The real life "Great Escape" from Stalag Luft III took place overnight from March 24 to 25, 1944 and saw seventy seven men make their way through tunnels dug by the prisoners to initial freedom from the POW Camp. It was one of the most extensively and thoroughly planned escapes in history. Unfortunately, the final man to crawl through the tunnel was spotted by the Germans and surrendered and seventy three of the seventy six who escaped were later recapatured, fifty of which were executed. Sadly, one of those escapees who was caught and killed by the Nazis was a skater.

Albert Horace Hake was a twenty seven year old Warrant Officer from Sydney who served in the No. 72 Squadron of the Royal Australian Air Force. Jonathan F. Vance's book "A Gallant Company: The Men Of The Great Escape" explained that "early in 1940 Al's life received a boost thanks to an outing at a local ice-skating rink. A friend from work introduced him to a striking brunette named Noela Horsfall, and Al was instantly taken by her gay smile and cheery eyes. They started going out together and spent every weekend hiking, surfing or picnicking. More frequently, though, they returned to the skating rink where they had first met. On March 1, 1941, they were married." Having enlisted on January 4, 1941, Albert and Noela's wedding actually occurred on a four day leave from his training. On his enlistment papers, he actually listed skating as one of his sporting pursuits, according to David Edlington's article "The Great Crime" in the official newspaper of the Royal Australian Air Force.

Hake actually played an integral part in the masterminding of The Great Escape as he was the brains behind the compass-making operation. He manufactured two hundred compasses all bearing the false inscription "Made in Stalag Luft III. Patent pending." for the men to use once they had escaped from the tunnels, so they would not be shot as spies if recaptured. Unfortunately, after escaping, the ice he so loved to skate on actually came back to haunt him and he suffered severe frostbite after soldiering on through the snowy landscape before he was recaptured by The Gestapo not far from Sagan, where the POW Camp was located.

According to Edlington's article, Hake was seen "hobbling with a group of prisoners and a Gestapo escort to a black car outside the Gorlitz civilian prison on March 30. The man renowned for lively renditions of songs, including Waltzing Matilda, on guitar at Stalag Luft III, was never seen alive again." Hake was murdered on March 31, 1944 by Gestapo Chief Dr Wilhelm Scharpwinkel and his associate Lux, cremated at Gorlitz and is buried at Poznan Old Garrison Cemetery in Wielkopolskie, Poland. The courage and ingenuity this young man showed in thinking not only of his own self-preservation but of the dozens of other men plotting their escape was profoundly human and one can only hope that Hake and his wife Noela who passed away in 2004 are now Waltzing Matilda on the ice of The Other Side.

THE RED-HAIRED SKATER

Evelyn Monahan and Rosemary Neidel-Greenlee's book "And If I Perish: Frontline U.S. Army Nurses in World War II" retells the story of an unnamed skater who served in the second war whose misfortune seemed to continue while recovering from the injuries he sustained on the frontline: "About a week later, one of the ambulatory patients, a large, red-haired man who had been a professional ice skater in civilian life and had lost one of his legs in combat, decided to take Glant for a ride in his wheelchair. The two went visiting around the Quonset huts but got bogged down in the rocks and gravel between the metal buildings. They finally flagged down some help, were retrieved from the rocks, and returned safely to their own ward." The book explains that the man named Glant that the skater was taking out for a ride was Private Berchard Lamar Glant, a man whose arm was amputated after he suffered gangrene from his wounds. His wounds had apparently been so severe that he was counted among the DEAD when he was transported from the Mussolini Canal to the hospital by medics by jeep.

CECILIA, YOU'RE SAVING MY HEART

Winning her World title in 1937 may have been one of the biggest bright spots in the life of 1936 Olympic Silver Medallist Cecilia Colledge but what happened next had to have been one of the scariest. During World War II, she drove an ambulance in the Motor Transport Corps during The London Blitz (which killed forty to forty three thousand people) and saved many lives undoubtedly in the process... although there was one she couldn't. Her 2008 New York Times obituary explains "(she) drove a civilian ambulance in London during the blitz, and her brother, Maule, became a flight lieutenant in the Royal Air Force. He never returned from a September 1943 mission over Berlin. Colledge became a pro skater in the late 1940s, appearing in ice shows, then settled in the United States, coaching elite athletes at the Skating Club of Boston from 1952 to 1977. She never married and had no immediate survivors. Long after the war years, Colledge evidently remained tormented by the loss of her brother in combat. Asked once if she would return to Britain, she replied, according to The Independent newspaper, 'There was nothing left for me there except unhappy memories.' She sometimes wore a brooch designed from Royal Air Force wings willed to her by a colleague of her brother's who also died in World War II."

Despite the evidence of her own grief, Colledge never wavered in her dedication to leaving figure skating better than she found it. She coached in Massachusetts until 1995, among her many students U.S. Champions Ron Ludington and Lorraine Hanlon.

EDITH CAVELL

British nurse Edith Louisa Cavell was a pioneer of nursing in Belgium who once said, "I can't stop while there are lives to be saved". When World War I broke out, her nursing facility became a Red Cross hospital. She is remembered for her dedication to caring for both Allied and Axis soldiers without discrimination and helping around two hundred Allied soldiers escape from Belgium (which was occupied by Germany at the time). Her brave effort sadly cost her her life. She was tried for treason and sentenced to death by firing squad on October 12, 1915. The History's Heroes website explains that "When Edith was a girl, one of her favourite winter pastimes was ice skating. There was a moat behind the church where the Cavell sisters and brother would skate when it froze - and Edith had also been seen skating down by the fort at Intwood." Fittingly, Mount Edith Cavell in Jasper, Alberta overlooks Pyramid Lake, a popular outdoor skating spot for tourists and locals alike.

THE OTHER MELITTA

As a singles skater, Austria's Melitta Brunner won the bronze medal at the 1929 World Championships. However, her biggest success was arguably her Olympic bronze at the 1928 Winter Olympics in pairs skating with Ludwig Wrede. Together, the pair won another three World medals to boot. However, ANOTHER Melitta's story is every bit as impressive. Melitta Anderman was born in 1929 in Vienna (the year Brunner won medals in both ladies and pairs skating at Worlds) and was the only daughter of a well-to-do Jewish haberdasher and his wife. Her family all managed to survive the World War II annexing of Austria by Nazi Germany and flee to the U.S. with their lives, despite her father being arrested and spending time in the Dachau concentration camp for a year. In her "Viennese Memoirs" on file with the Leo Baeck Institute's Center For Jewish History, Melitta describes her skating connections: "My best after school times were spent with my mother skating in the Wiener Eislaufverein (Vienna's largest ice skating rink which is now adjacent to the Intercontinental Hotel). For whatever reasons, my mother named me after a popular Viennese ice skater, Melitta (Bruner). Though I was no figure skater, I loved the feeling of gliding on the ice and was pretty good. I participated in a skating festival and again had a chance to wear my snowflake costume. My mother also had her a little excitement there when she broke an arm during one of our afternoons on the ice." Like in Anne Frank's story, Anderman related that "Jewish discrimination laws came out overnight. We were no longer allowed to go to public parks, theatres, movies and any congregation was forbidden." This included skating. The enthusiastic skater describes Kristallnacht in November 1938, her father's arrest, the loss of their home and scarcity of food and her mother being detained and later released while the family was onboard a train to Paris. She started a new life in New York City with the Metropolitan Opera Society and married a pharmacist. They now call Manhattan home. She concluded her memoirs by saying "I thought the past was gone and a new shiny world would rise around me. I tried that for over fifty years. I also thought I had no scars but I am riddled with them. But this is all part of who I am, where I come from and where I'm going - I presume that's life." Want to hear Melitta's entire story in her own words? A wonderful audio interview with her from 2012 can be listened to here. I think you'll find her candor and story just amazing... and you'll never guess her husband's name: Ludwig!

TRICK SKATER EXTRAORDINAIRE

Speed skater, barrel jumper, stilt-skater and showman Phil Taylor served in the Canadian Army during World War I. Returning from service with a partially amputated leg, the Saskatoon Public Library's records tell us that like JUST LIKE fellow skater and Saskatchewan native Norman A. Falkner whose story we visited in the third episode of the Axels In The Attic series, "he continued his figure skating and was considered the 'best fancy skater in Saskatoon'. Like Falkner, Taylor was successful in parlaying his athletic prowess into a career as a 'show skater' despite the obstacle of having to overcome the loss of a leg. He was still performing his one-man show at the Dreamland Rink in San Francisco around 1947. He later married an Australian and moved to Australia, and thereafter kept on skating." With a prosthetic leg, Taylor toured with Ice Capades and performed regularly in ice shows with his daughter. He was also one of, if not the first, professional skaters to perform an exhibition at an amateur competition when he stilt-skated at the 1932 Winter Olympics in Lake Placid.

BLACKMAIL BY SKATES

In her memoir "Memories of the Crystal Night", Holocaust survivor and psychotherapist Dr. Ursula Falk shares her painful story from World War II: "With the help of my beloved mother, 'ole vescholom', my father escaped to Belgium by night and fog. We fled to Breslau with my two siblings, ages two and eleven. There we lived in a cold apartment with my single aunt. Again, because of my Mom's courage and exceptional faith and intelligence, to say nothing of her generosity, she assisted my two cousins to escape the country. One took his new bride to Sweden, the other went with skis to Czechoslovakia and from there to Israel (then called Palestine). The landlady in the apartment, an avid Nazi, took the one toy, a pair of skates, and blackmailed us for the last possessions we had. Nazi SS came armed with swords on Kristallnacht and ran their sabers through the couch and stuffed chairs looking for 'weapons', of which we had none. They held me out of a multi storied window and threatened to toss me out of it. For some unknown reason the one Nazi pulled me back inside. Children were screaming out of other windows and I held my breath and could not look. My voice was stilled within me. Previous to these horrors I had already been raped by an unsavory Nazi criminal who rode his bicycle into the apartment downstairs hallway and stilled my voice with stuffing a dirty handkerchief in my mouth. From a distance the next day we saw fires and learned that Jewish books (any book written by Jewish authors) were being burned in the streets. The smoke and flames seemed to be reaching the heavens. We must never, never forget Kristallnacht and the everlasting destruction and death that followed! Shalom u’vracha." Being blackmailed over a pair of ice skates is nothing compared to the horrors that Falk endured, and one can only admire her determination through her words and profession to help others. It's astounding.

Each of these stories has one thing in common... the fact that - with the exception of Cavell, who sadly didn't make it out of the war alive - these people fought through their hardships and persevered, just like all great skaters do. Whether we skate or not, there's a lesson in that we all too easily seem to forget. The world may be cruel at times, but whatever it may throw our way we have it in our hearts to soldier on and keep on living.

Skate Guard is a blog dedicated to preserving the rich, colourful and fascinating history of figure skating. Over ten years, the blog has featured over a thousand free articles covering all aspects of the sport's history, as well as four compelling in-depth features. To read the latest articles, follow the blog on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and YouTube. If you enjoy Skate Guard, please show your support for this archive by ordering a copy of the figure skating reference books "The Almanac of Canadian Figure Skating", "Technical Merit: A History of Figure Skating Jumps" and "A Bibliography of Figure Skating": https://skateguard1.blogspot.com/p/buy-book.html.

Ethel Muckelt: The Oldest Olympic Women's Figure Skating Medallist In History

Many unique stories colour the fabric of figure skating's history but perhaps none so literally as Ethel Muckelt. Born May 30, 1885, Ethel was the youngest daughter of Mary Ann (Hanway) and John Muckelt. She had two older brothers (John and Richard), four older sisters (Bertha, Annie, Edith and Lily) and two younger brothers (Frank and Harold). Although it's incredibly hard to wrap your head around having that many mouths to feed, the 1891 UK Census tells us that the family lived at 112 Edge Lane, Stretford in Manchester, England. Manchester's wealth was actually built on the textile industry and the Muckelt family were right at the center of that boom. Out of their home, Standish House, John Muckelt ran Logan, Muckelt & Co. and manufactured and exported indigo blue dyes and printers for the African textile market.

By age fifteen, Ethel was living in a boarding school in Heaton Norris Parish and while she studied, developed an interest in figure skating. Honing her craft at the Manchester Ice Palace in Cheetham Hill, her life would have changed drastically when her father passed away in 1904 at the age of fifty seven and her two oldest brothers were forced to take over the family business. However, the 1911 UK Census tells us that Ethel continued to live comfortably in Sale, Cheshire (not far from Manchester) and focus attention on skating. She benefited from geography. Manchester's rink was the only one open in England during the Great War, as many were converted to munitions factories or used for storage. The famous Westminster Ice Rink wouldn't reopen until 1927 and living in Sale would have absolutely offered her training opportunities other skaters in England wouldn't have had at the time.

Ethel Muckelt and Kathleen Shaw

Although Ethel competed regularly in singles competitions at home in England (her main competition being Kathleen Shaw), BIS historian Elaine Hooper asserted, "Although Ethel did skate singles, we regard her as a pairs skater." Her first international competition was indeed in pairs. She finished fifth with Sidney Wallwork at the 1920 Summer Olympics in Antwerp, Belgium at the age of thirty-four. When that partnership dissolved, she entered the 1923 World Figure Skating Championships in Vienna, finishing in last place behind Herma Szabo and Gisela Reichmann of Austria and Sweden's Svea Norén. One would think that in her late thirties, Ethel would have been discouraged and give up but this she was actually just getting started.

Ethel Muckelt and Jack Ferguson Page

This late bloomer forged a partnership with Jack Ferguson Page and entered the pairs event at the 1924 Winter Olympics in Chamonix, France. They finished just off the podium finish in fourth but earned their only first place vote from British judge Herbert Ramon Yglesias. No national bias there! Ethel wasn't done there. She entered the women's competition as well and won the Olympic bronze medal behind Szabo and American Beatrix Loughran. Her medal win was absolutely credited to her top three finish in the school figures, as she finished seventh of the eight competitors in free skating. In all credit to her ability as a free skater though, if you compare the video of her free skating performance in Chamonix to her pairs performance with Jack, it's like watching two different skaters. She seemed far more polished and at ease skating pairs. In fact, at the 1924 World Championships, Ethel and Jack had the best international result of their career together in winning the silver medal, receiving praise for their fine shadow skating.

Ethel Muckelt and Jack Ferguson Page

Ethel's last appearance at the World Championships as a singles skater was in 1925. After finishing a disappointing fifth, she focused her attention entirely on her pairs career with Jack. Together, they won the Johnson Trophy for pairs skating in England (donated by two-time World Champions James and Phyllis Johnson) an incredible nine times together while Jack continued to skate singles with varying success. However, T.D. Richardson told an amusing anecdote about Ethel's partner: "He was an extremely fine school figure-skater, but he had absolutely no musical ear at all the sort of man who has to be told to stand up when the National Anthem is being played. While this was undoubtedly a great handicap he was, on the whole, badly treated by Continental and World judges. I had him first on my card at Davos in 1927, when he was the only skater who did not fall at least once most of them, including the winner, were tumbling about in the high wind and driving snow. But nothing could disturb Jack Page, and as Böckl the winner himself said afterwards: 'If ever anyone deserved the title Jack did so on that occasion.'"

After finishing sixth at the 1926 World Championships, Ethel and Jack reappeared at the 1928 Winter Olympics in St. Moritz, Switzerland. By this time, Jack was twenty-eight and Ethel forty-two. They skated exceptionally well at this event, but placed only seventh out of thirteen teams. Perhaps the most special moment of their careers came at the World Championships in London that followed, when they finished fourth and skated in front of the King and Queen of England. The July 3, 1928 issue of the "Cumberland Argus And Fruitgrowers Advocate" noted that "when they appeared they were enthusiastically applauded" by the royals. An interesting anecdote from that particular competition came from this very same article, which noted that after the competition concluded, Jack, Maribel Vinson, Sonja Henie and Willy Böckl teamed up to give an exhibition of fours skating for the audience and dignitaries present.

Although those 1928 World Championships were the last time Ethel would compete internationally, she continued to compete (and win) domestically in pairs skating with Jack into the thirties.

Charles Campbell Emmett, M.P. and Ethel Muckelt in 1935

After living in Timperley (also not far from Manchester), Ethel moved to the affluent area of Altrincham in Greater Manchester and became a national and international level skating judge. Among her international assignments were the 1939 World Championships held in Budapest, Hungary just months before World War II broke out.

Fabric samples from Logan, Muckelt & Co.

The War obviously slowed Ethel's judging career, but her family's business survived, selling both dyes and dress fabric in West Africa both during and after the War. Articles from the "Kenya Gazette" assert that her family's business continued to operate in Nairobi well into the sixties. However, after surviving the horrific air raids of The Manchester Blitz, Ethel passed away a "spinster" (according to the England & Wales, National Probate Calendar Index of Wills and Administrations, 1858-1966) on December 13, 1953 at the age of sixty-eight at the General Hospital in Altrincham. She remains to this day, at the age of thirty-eight, the oldest woman to win an Olympic medal in figure skating history .

Skate Guard is a blog dedicated to preserving the rich, colourful and fascinating history of figure skating. Over ten years, the blog has featured over a thousand free articles covering all aspects of the sport's history, as well as four compelling in-depth features. To read the latest articles, follow the blog on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and YouTube. If you enjoy Skate Guard, please show your support for this archive by ordering a copy of the figure skating reference books "The Almanac of Canadian Figure Skating", "Technical Merit: A History of Figure Skating Jumps" and "A Bibliography of Figure Skating": https://skateguard1.blogspot.com/p/buy-book.html.