MARY PETERS - SPORTING LEGEND - NEW BOOK

 

My Story

Mary Peters (with Ian Woolridge and Jim Gracey)

The Blackstaff Press 2023

https://blackstaffpress.com/mary-peters-9781780733753

 

“My accent doesn’t tell the truth at all because there isn’t a single drop of Irish blood in my veins.  I was born in Halewood, on the outskirts of Liverpool, and both my father and mother were born there too.  We weren’t even Liverpool-Irish.”

 

Yet, Lady Mary Peters is so firmly associated with and attached to Belfast and wider Northern Ireland that her beginnings have faded into the mists of distant history.  She was a phenomenal Olympic athlete and is a passionate supporter and encourager of young sports people.

Mary was born in 1939 and moved to Northern Ireland aged eleven because of her father’s transfer there for work.  He had passionate sporting ambitions for his daughter and helped her as much as he could.  He and others came up with ideas for makeshift sports equipment, e.g. broom handles, nails and a length of bamboo to construct a high jump.  Gradually, Mary had her sights set on becoming a pentathlete. 

No doubt the most significant sporting encounter was meeting Buster McShane, a weightlifting coach and gym owner.  He was a tenacious coach, a self-made man who was to drive, cajole and push Mary to the sporting limits and ultimately to an Olympic gold medal in Munich in 1972.  (“I wanted to win for Northern Ireland.”) Their partnership, with emotional highs and lows, in sport and friendship is the stuff of legend, and rightly so.  Either side of the Munich gold, she won the equivalent in Edinburgh and Christchurch.  And was selected as BBC Sports Personality of the Year in 1972.

But time ticked and she realised her competing in athletics had to end.  But that did not mean anything like the end for Mary Peter’s involvement in sport.

In 1975, Mary launched what was to become known as the Mary Peters Trust, a charitable organisation which aimed to support young sports people, able-bodied and disabled, across her beloved Northern Ireland.  A host of now famous and successful sports stars benefitted greatly from the Trust.

She put her heart and soul into establishing a first-class athletics track based in the outskirts of Belfast and it is very successful, appropriately named The Mary Peters Track.

The honours started building: MBE in 1973, CBE in 1990, DBE (Dame Commander) in 2000, CH (Companion of Honour) in 2015, Dame of the Order of St John (DBtJ) and, in 2019, Lady Companion of the Order of the Garter (LG).  She was now Lady Mary Peters.

She was named Lord Lieutenant of the City of Belfast in 2009 and carried out many formal duties.  Who better?

This book tells an astonishing success story, of ambition, dedication, guts and determination, the ability to ride the rollercoaster of an athletics career with courage and little fear of challenge.  It also tells the story of a supreme dynamic duo in Mary Peters and Buster McShane.  I would suggest strongly that in an era of young people in various walks of life dreaming of instant fame that this is a story that talks of hard work and struggles over years. Perhaps It is the only way to truly enjoy golden, lasting success.

Lady Mary Peters stands tall forever in both Northern Irish and global sporting history.

A fine example to us all.

A highly recommended and inspiring story of an amazing life.