THEY were the sporting heroes from a past generation.
For the past six years, photographer Katherine Green has been meeting and documenting the survivors of the 1948 British Olympic Team.
And now the images and oral histories are on show at the North Light Gallery in Armitage Bridge. The exhibition will be there today and tomorrow.
The Olympics were last held in London in 1948 and the contrast between then and now is stark.
London was recovering from war, athletes were truly amateur and therefore not paid.
The athletes trained on rations whilst working full-time and raising children. They had to take unpaid leave to compete and many had to hand sew their own kits. When the Games were over, they returned to work and carried on as normal.
The project includes: Audrey Beever (gymnastics), Cathy Brown (swimming), Edwin Bowey (wrestling), Jimmy McColl (football), Denise St Auby (diving), John Peake (hockey), John and Dorothy Parlett (athletics), Tommy Godwin (cycling) and Dame Mary Glen-Haig (fencing).
They are all now in their late 80s or 90s and have relived their time at the Games.
Katherine said: “At the same time as drawing parallels between 1948 and the 2012 Olympic Games, I do hope these portraits and oral histories go some way to demonstrate the knowledge and experience of a valuable generation of people who are often overlooked in our society.
“It has been a great privilege to spend time in the company of such interesting and modest people.”
Katherine is a social documentary photographer, from East London, who studied postgraduate photography at Central Saint Martins College of Art & Design.
She is currently working on a three-year commission for the National Portrait Gallery/BT to document community groups in the five Olympic boroughs in the run-up to the games.
