Mary Peters My Story

This story belongs to Anna, and her little sister, Erin,

and their grandmother's best friend, Mary.

It's a tiny tale about Mary's life and the things she used to do.

Now it's time for Mary to share her memories,

and take Anna and Erin on a journey of discovery.

Mary lives near the girls in Northern Ireland,

and they love spending time together, talking about sport.

My goodness, Erin and Anna. You've got more medals than I ever won.

What did you win those for?

The two-legged race, the sack race, the egg and spoon

and the running race.

-What about yours?

-Egg and spoon race.

-Good girl.

Did you win the sack race?

These were at the Ballybogey Olympics.

And I won a medal, too, way, way back, many years ago.

It was for the pentathlon, at the Olympics in Munich.

And the Olympics are in London this year.

And that was 40 years ago that I won my medal.

And I wanted to show you some photographs.

Do you know who's in that photograph, who you know?

-My granny.

-That's Granny Joan. And who's that?

-You.

-That's right.

This is even more difficult,

your granny and I were very young.

-Was that granny?

-It is.

-And where am I?

-There.

-Well done.

That was the 1970 Commonwealth Games.

Your granny was a badminton player and I was an athlete.

And the events that I did were the shot put,

you see the big ball under my chin.

And that's the hurdles.

And that's the high jump.

And this is me with my brother and my mummy and daddy.

And now he's 75 and I'm 73.

Did you win any more medals?

I won lots. I was an athlete for a long time.

But because this is Olympic year,

a lot of people want to see my special medal.

A little boy said to me recently, "Is it full of chocolate?"

Mary won her gold medal at the Olympic Games in 1972,

a long time ago, in Munich, a big city in Germany.

The Olympic Games is a huge sporting competition,

with lots of summer and winter sports.

Many countries come together to compete

against each other, to see who has the best athletes.

Mary competed in the pentathlon.

She did five different sports,

hurdles, shot put, long jump, high jump and running.

Look, here she is winning her gold medal!

Mary did an amazing job winning her Olympic gold medal.

Now, she's taking Anna and Erin

back to where her sports story first began, her old school.

This is my old school, Portadown College.

I went to school when I was little, here.

My name is on the board twice - I was head girl,

and I was hockey captain.

And I had really happy days at the school.

The headmaster started me doing athletics but I also played hockey.

-What was your school like?

-It was wonderful.

It was an older school, but it had the same name,

and I just loved it because we did athletics, and hockey,

and drama and all sorts of things.

I studied hard. I wasn't very bright,

but I was good at sport.

-I play hockey.

-I've seen you, you're good.

One day, maybe you'll be on the Olympic team and I'll watch you.

Shall we go and have a wee practice now?

They're off to have fun on the hockey pitch.

When I was little,

we used to bully-off to start a game.

You tapped the ground, and hit the stick, ground, stick.

Do that three times, and then you go.

-Good girl!

-Run, Anna! You need to be quick to beat an Olympic star.

Oh, close one!

Anna won!

Go, Erin! Get that ball!

She shoots, she scores!

Next stop, the Sports Institute.

It's a place where athletes train, and where Anna and Erin

are going to try out all of Mary's Olympic sports.

So, we're going to start with some arm stretches.

Up over your head and round in a big circle.

Up this way and round in a circle. Can you do it, Erin? Oh, good girl.

Up, and right round, and back to the middle again.

Put one foot in front of the other and bend your knee.

Good. And again.

And you would do maybe 12 or 15 of these

and then change over to the other foot.

And then I want you to put your hands here in front of your body

and I want you to swing your elbows. That's it.

And this warms up around your waist, makes you nice and supple.

I think we nearly ready to try some hurdles. Come on, we'll have a go.

Let's watch Mary's Olympics hurdles race from a long time ago.

Get set, go!

'She needs to get into the low 13s to get a good score.'

There's Mary in the nearest lane to us

and she has to jump over ten high hurdles.

'..As she comes up to take the last hurdle.'

Well done! She came in second.

And now it's time for Erin to try the hurdles for the first time.

Go!

Good girl, keep going all the way.

Well done. All the way.

All the way through. Good girl. That was your best by far. Look.

8.75. That's brilliant.

That's a really fast time for a little girl of your age. Well done.

BLOWS WHISTLE

Now it's Anna's turn. And she has bigger hurdles because she's older.

Go, Anna!

All the way through. Good girl! Oh, my goodness. 7.25. That's brilliant.

Look. That's absolutely brilliant for a girl of your age. That's wonderful.

That was amazing, Anna.

This is Mary doing the shot put at the Olympic Games.

She has to push a heavy metal ball as far as she can. Up, up it goes.

And it's a new world record!

Now the second event in the pentathlon is called the shot put.

You don't throw it, you push it from your neck.

And in competition, you have a full circle but because you're new to it,

you're just want to do what we call a standing put.

This is the shot put I used. It weighs four kilos,

which is very heavy,

but we've got nice small ones for you.

What you do is you put your foot against the board like that,

OK, and put that foot out that way.

And you push the shot from here, right up into the air. OK?

So you go... Argh!

-And that's the way I used to shout when I was putting the shot.

-Yay!

-It made it go further. OK, ready, Erin?

-Yeah.

-Nice and high and push hard.

-Now?

-One, two, three. You go now.

Hey, well done. And that's eight metres and ten centimetres.

Very good. Well done.

OK, it's your turn, Anna.

Let's go. Push.

Wahey!

Well done! Good girl!

Mary has taught the girls well.

Here's Mary doing the long jump.

It's a very fast run up and then she jumps. Wow! That's brilliant!

So this is the long jump.

And you run all the way down the path until you hit the board.

And your toe must not go over that black line.

You jump in the air as far as you can

and land with your feet as close together in the sand.

And then they measure the distance that you have jumped.

And that's how far I jumped in the long jump.

It was five metres and 98 centimetres.

OK, Erin. Are you ready? Ready, steady, go.

Good girl! All the way. That was brilliant!

Good girl. That's how far you jumped. Well done.

-That's very good for those little legs.

-Yes!

Now it's Anna's turn. Come on, Anna.

Fantastic!

Mary is about to do the high jump.

What a fast run up. And she's over!

What a star!

And this is the high jump and this is the height that I jumped

when I was competing at the Olympics.

And it's one metre 82, which is high because it's way above my head.

And I used to run in from the side and jump up

and go over the bar backwards like this.

And land on my shoulders. You put your feet on the ground like this.

You stand up.

What I want you to do is on the count of three,

we're going to throw ourselves backwards onto the bed.

Are you ready? One, two, three. Hurray!

No time to lie down, girls.

It's just got very exciting.

It's Mary's final event in the pentathlon. The running race.

The Olympic judges have to add up

all the scores from all the different events

and the person with the most points wins the gold medal.

Come on, Mary!

That's a great score.

It's Erin's turn to run her race and she's very fast.

Good girl!

Well done!

That was brilliant. Well done. Come on and see the time.

Look.

Six seconds again.

Are you ready? Get set.

And Anna's off. She's tearing down the track.

And she looks every inch the winner.

5.94. Brilliant.

Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.

After all the scores were added together, Mary was the winner

and had set a new world record by having the largest score ever.

There she is getting her gold medal. What a champion!

And I've got really happy news for you. Stand up on the rostrum.

Because we've got two winners. Two gold medallists.

Right up on top, Anna. There's your medal, Erin.

And there's your medal, Anna, to go with your collection at home.

-Did we have a good day?

-Yeah.

-Yeah.

-What has been the best thing for you?

-What did you enjoy most?

-The hurdles.

-And what did you enjoy, Erin?

The long jump.

And the most enjoyable thing for me was sharing the day with you.

That was lovely. Thank you so much. Love you both.

What a fabulous heap of fun.

That was Anna, Erin and Mary's tiny tale about the things

Mary used to do and why she has a gold medal.

And now Mary has shared her story with the girls,

it's time for Anna and Erin to start their own story.

Do you know someone with a story to share?

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd