Durban’s Wimbledon moment of triumph
WHEN the 2017 Wimbledon Ladies’ Singles Final starts next Saturday, several staff members and old girls of Durban’s Gordon Road Girls’ School will be remembering the final of 40 years ago.
The 1977 match was the occasion when one of their old girls won the title.
The year in which Virginia Wade won was special: it was Wimbledon’s Centenary Year. Then the day of the Ladies’ Final, July 1, 1977, was also the Silver Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II. Wade recalls that the queen attended the Ladies’ Final that year, and, as the monarch handed over the famous Venus Rosewater Dish, she congratulated Wade her on her win. However, because the crowd was making such a noise at the time, singing For she’s a jolly good fellow!, she could hardly hear a word of what the queen was saying.
Wade was the last British woman to win Wimbledon.
But Wade, now a vigorous 72, will also remember that she was educated at “GRGS”, learnt her tennis there and was a member of their 1956 tennis team. The six girls who were also in the squad in the picture would have been in Standard 5, as it was called in those days, now Grade 7.
One of her contemporaries in Durban, Jenny Sage (née Smith), a pupil at GRGS from 1950 to 1956, recalls that she had the privilege of partnering Wade in the tennis team. But they were not the school’s first doubles partners team. Maybe Wade was better at singles?
Another of Wade’s fellow pupils, Almut Booth (née Bourquin), who is seated beside Wade in the picture, and who supplied this photograph for the school’s history, Look Back With Pride (author Patrick Coyne), recalls that Wade as a teenager was striking to look at with her black plaits and very light-coloured eyes, and “when she smiled a fascinating groove appeared in her cheek”. She remembers Wade as being a bit of a restless spirit, who even in those early days showed competitive instincts.
She was not afraid to say what she thought, and Booth recalls her even arguing with the class teacher – which was not the norm in those days. Booth remembers admiring her great agility. None of her fellow-pupils could match her…
Booth also recalls with fondness Miss McCormack, their tennis coach. It was thanks to her keenness and kindness that Booth herself developed into a good tennis player. And no doubt their coach helped Wade towards being the great player she turned out to be.
Brian Johnstone, husband of Yvonne Johnstone, previous principal of Gordon Road Girls’ School, revealed that his father, Ray, recalled the teenaged Wade playing in an adult team at the Albert Park Tennis Club. Her outstanding ability was evident even then.
Wade had lived in Durban from the age of 12 months when her father, Canon Eustace Wade, was the Anglican Church’s Archdeacon of Durban. The family returned to England when she was 15.
She resumed her education at the exclusive Wimbledon County Girls’ School in Surrey, where she recalled always being embarrassed about her South African accent. When Wade asked her headmistress to let her off school to play as a teenager at Wimbledon, she was told “she would never make a career out of tennis”.
However in 1961, at the age of just 16, she was a proud member of the school’s winning tennis team. And it was also the first year she played at Wimbledon. The number of successive years she played in the ladies’ singles at Wimbledon is still a record.