Wilsden seems, on the face of it, to be an unlikely place to have produced an Olympic medal winning gymnast, but we can proudly claim this to be true.
Edith Carrie Pickles (she was always known by her middle name) was born on 10 May 1904 at Cragg House, (next to the sandwich shop on Main Street). She was the second of six children.
Their parents, Sarah and Frank Pickles ran a grocery business and by 1911 the family was living at 193 Main Street (now part of Caterleisure)
Carrie was probably always the dare-devil of the family. An old Wilsdener recalled the time she had been at the top of a human pyramid in a gymnastics display at one of the early Wilsden Carnivals.
Wilsden had its own ladies’ gymnastics club prior to WW1. She then became a member of All Saints Gym Club (it is unclear whether this was in Bingley or Bradford), and when the family moved to Shipley in 1920, Carrie joined the Bradford Gym Club which at that time was producing high calibre gymnasts.
Upon leaving school Carrie trained as a shorthand typist but she continued to train hard as a gymnast, becoming the Yorkshire County Champion in 1924-26 and winning the British Ladies’ Championships in 1927, 1928 and 1929.
Carrie was chosen for the British ladies’ gymnastic team at the 1928 Amsterdam Olympics, her fellow Bradford Gym Club member Margaret Hartley was also one of the twelve-strong team.
This was the first year that women were allowed to compete in gymnastics and athletics, although only in the team gymnastics event which comprised drill, apparatus and vault. The GB team uniform was short gym tunics, worn a daring six inches above the knee, and black woollen stockings.
The British team won the bronze medal but they could not afford to stay an extra day for the presentation and so received their medals at a later date.
Soon after the Amsterdam Olympics Carrie started teaching gymnastics. She set up Saltaire Ladies’ Gymnastics Club in 1929 which she combined with her day-job of typist and book-keeper.
In 1933 she married Charles Pollard and they had two daughters, Jill and Jan, both born in Thackley where they lived for many years.
Carrie was appointed Olympic coach to the women’s teams for the 1948 London games and again in 1952 at Helsinki. Meanwhile her two daughters also became excellent gymnasts, with Jill competing in the 1960 Rome Olympics. She took over from her mother as head coach at Saltaire Gym Club for over 20 years and formed the first UK acrobatic gymnastics squad there before further developing sports acrobatics in Scotland.
