1952/1953 Okehampton Columbines Hockey Club team: Back row, Betty Comyn, Ducal Steuart, Marjorie Measures, Muriel Cook, Elizabeth Kearsey and Beryl Guscott. Front row, Vera Northcott, Vivienne Heard, Cathy Self, Diana Furse and Janie Mortimore.
Who can remember the days when a hockey stick looked like this?
This lovely picture was submitted to Oke Links by Mike and Hilary Wreford of Okehampton. Hilary (née Bird) was a former player, captain and secretary of the hockey club. The image of the Okehampton Columbines hockey team dates back to the 1952/1953 season.
The team included Marjorie (Minnie) Measures, a popular French teacher and deputy head of Okehampton Grammar School, who was an outstanding sportswoman. She skippered the Columbines for many years, having already captained the British Universities hockey side. She went on to become a regular member of the Devon county team. She was later chosen to be a selector for the Devon and Western Territory sides.
As a teacher, Marjorie was instrumental in selecting some of the outstanding schoolgirl players for Okehampton, such as Val Rees, Ivy Trant, Beryl Guscott, Diana Furse, Hilary Bird, Jennifer Cook, Marie Slee, Pat Penfold and others, who would play for the school in the morning and the town in the afternoon.
Mike remembers that while it was obvious that Minnie was an excellent hockey player, it is not so widely known that the French teacher had actually been selected to represent England in the 1940 Olympics. Sadly, the outbreak of World War II caused the cancellation of the games and like so many people, her life was altered for ever.
Janie Mortimer can be seen in the front row of the picture - she was an outstanding sportswoman and was married to Denzil, whose own promising sporting career had been curtailed by the onset of the war. Denzil had moved to Okehampton as a newly qualified teacher. He was a footballing centre forward with lightning pace and cannonball shot. He was spotted by various football league scouts and played several games as an amateur for Exeter City before his big break came, in the form of a contract offer from the famous London side, Arsenal.
Denzil travelled to Highbury to be met by Exeter-born England international player Cliff Bastin and he signed league forms before the Gunners’ management team of George Allison and Tom Whittaker. However, shortly after this, war broke out and the league programme was cancelled after just three games. Denzil was denied what might have been a glittering career with the top London side.
During the war, Denzil rose to to the rank of captain in the Tank Regiment, but he suffered a serious head wound that put paid to him heading the ball on the football field. Following the war he returned to Okehampton and resumed his career as a teacher. In his first season playing for Okehampton Argyle, he scored a record 84 goals.
As a respected teacher, he was known as a strong disciplinarian, later becoming headmaster at North Tawton Secondary Modern School and later, deputy head at his first school, Okehampton College.
The Song of the Columbines
Columbus found America in good old stirring times
And rightly wrote its name on history’s page.
But Okey’s found a hockey club, it’s called the Columbines,
A rival to its enterprise and age.
They have all the skill required to control the lively ball,
They can pass and shoot and dribble with the best,
And at half time to the solid satisfaction of us all,
They can suck the Lordly Lemon with real zest!
Chorus
They are strong in the arm and it won’t do any harm,
If you come and have a look at them one day,
For when things look rather blue, well, they score a goal or two,
Before they really settle down to play.
The shout of ‘Columbines’ brings a shiver down the spines
And into the heads of rivals brings grey hairs.
Their costumes and their fit - well, they’re absolutely ‘it’,
Oh! You’d love a little team like theirs.
R Wilkinson
May 1921