Dorothy Recognised by British Honour System at Last!

In our book, ‘A Proper Spectacle’ we wrote:

"Dorothy Tyler was the first woman to qualify in Great Britain as a jumps coach, and coached several athletes to international honours.  She gave much of her life to athletics and it is an extraordinary omission that her work for British athletics has never been recognised by the British Honours System."

Two years after we sent off our attempt to rectify this injustice, Dorothy was at last recognised! On January 31st 2001 we received a call from Dorothy to tell us that she was to be awarded an MBE. She visited Buckingham Palace in May 2001 to receive her honour from His Royal Highness, Prince Charles. Dorothy only waited 66 years after her first Olympic medal in Berlin - and how much she longed for this recognition!

Here is an excerpt from ‘A Proper Spectacle’ about Dorothy’s amazing career:

"When I came back from the Olympics in 1936, no-one was interested.  A few neighbours asked me how I got on. In 1939 I broke the world record in the middle of a school field. Even then I only got two lines in the Stop Press.  I think there would have been more about it if I had been a man. Women weren’t given much press coverage."

Dorothy’s amazing athletics career did not end there and she competed in three more Olympics - London in 1948 (when she won another silver medal), Helsinki in 1952 and Melbourne in 1956.