Another detective story, and a bit of an insight into how I work.
Here we have “Skating”, and the man in the circle is named as J. Ferguson Pye. To make life easier for me, I will insert the whole text, which says he “Has been the British Champion (International Style) for the last six years. Won the Northern Cup (Manchester) three years in succession and then retired. Has held the British Championship with Miss E. Mackelt last six years for pair skating, and won Senior International at Vienna, 1924. He is competing in Olympic Games at St. Moritz, 1928, and for World Championship at Berlin, 1928.”
Now the first problem is that this card was chosen for our “Card of the Day” because of the image, which shows speed skating, and the 500 metres speed skating was the first event at the first “Winter Olympics”, held in Chamonix, France, on the 26th of January, 1924. It also saw the first ever golden medal given to the American Speed Skater, Charles Jewtraw. However the text has nothing at all to do with speed skating, it is all about ice skating, totally different, for ice skating is all about grace and less about power.
I used to ice skate, by the way, just another snippet for you all.
Now in case you are wondering why I said “Winter Olympics” in inverted commas, it was because that title was not given to these games until 1926; at the time these were taking place they were simply considered a Winter Sports Week.
Anyway, so the first thing I do is put the name into my search engine to find Mr J. Ferguson Pye, and to see if he moonlighted as a speed skater, and nothing at all comes up. Seriously nothing. It is like Mr. J. Ferguson Pye, and all of his skating records have been abducted by aliens.
So then I look at the Northern Cup. This mentions a Mancunian skater Sydney Wallwork, who won it in 1913, and 1914, and in that year he also won the inaugural pairs competition, with Ethel Muckelt, with whom he also won a pairs contest in Edinburgh that qualified them for the 1920 Antwerp Olympics.
Now this could be E. Mackelt, off our card, so I start looking for her as Mackelt and Muckelt, and it turns out that Pattrieouex got it wrong – Ethel Muckelt it was, she was also from Manchester, and I found out that after she appeared at Antwerp she left the steady arms of Sydney Wallwork, and took up with a younger man, Jack Page, with whom she won every pairs title up to 1931, took silver at the 1924 World Championships and was just off the podium at the 1924 Olympic Games. She was also second in the British Championships in 1926, beaten by Jack Page, because gender was ignored, men and women competed against each other.
That was all pretty exciting but J. Ferguson Pye is still awol….
Then a breakthrough, Friday morning, when I start working through Olympic records and come across something very unusual, because in one of them it says her partner was Jack F. Page.
So the hunt is on again, and I finally tracked down John Ferguson Page, born on the 27th of March, 1900, a British skater, individual and pairs “figure” skating, (never speed). It turns out that, like many famous Johns, he preferred to be called Jack. He was also born in Manchester (and died there in 1947). And he still holds the national record with eleven individual titles at British Championships. I also found out that he died by his own hand, gassing himself in his office. There are quite a lot of Olympians who committed suicide, we should be seriously shocked at how many.
The big question remains, how did Pattrieouex come to call him “Pye”? All I can think of is that the top to the “g” was missing and the typist thought “Paye” must be wrong, so extracted the “a”.
And it seems extraordinary that I can find no trace of anybody picking this one up before, for the card has been in existence almost a hundred years. And I cannot find him on any other card. Unless you know differently, and can supply us with the details. ....?