Family Tree Family Group Sheet
Frances's parents came from north London and moved to Hampton, Middlesex when they married in 1928. Her father, Philip Harold Bigg (Phil) was working at the National Physical Laboratory in Teddington, having joined it straight from university. Hampton was only 1½ miles away by road, or even closer when cycling across Bushy Park, so it seemed a good location for their first home as a married couple.
Her brother, Anthony, who was born in April 1930, was their first child. Frances, their second, was born at home at 25 Gloucester Road, Hampton, 14 months later, on 27th June 1931.
Frances was 9¾lb at birth, roughly the same weight as Anthony had been before her, and she was born before the doctor arrived. She was christened Frances Joan on 25th October of that year with Arthur Hawkins, a long-time friend of Phil's, as godfather, and her grandmother, Edith Robinson, and another friend of the family, Vivienne Barrell, as godmothers.
From birth, Frances was a happy and vigorous baby. After the first month, she slept soundly through the night, often not waking until 7 o'clock in the morning.
She was 2 years old when she started morning play with Diana Hartshorn, the daughter of a colleague of Phil's at the NPL. Diana remained a close friend for the rest of her life.
In 1936, when she was 5, Frances went to her first school, an infants school called Five Beeches. This was in Ormond Avenue, directly opposite the plot of land upon which the house that the family considers to be home, was later built. She was there just one year.
On 7 January 1937 Joan went into hospital with suspected gall stones. Phil's mother came to Hampton to take charge. The investigation confirmed that an operation was required, and this took place on 15 January when her gall stones and gall bladder were removed. On 18 January, Lil returned to Ruislip with the children who were sent to the local council school for the spring term. Both The Mall, which is where Anthony had been attending, and Five Beeches waived their fees for the term. However, with the cost of the operation being thirty guineas and the hospital fees being a further ten guineas (there was no NHS in those days), this was a time of severe financial pressure on the family.
In September 1937, Frances joined the Preparatory Form of The Lady Eleanor Holles School in Hanworth Road and this was the school she would attend for the rest of her school years. Academically, she was satisfactory, but was frequently criticised for letting herself down by being careless in her work. However, she performed well enough to get her Matric in June 1947 when she sat the London General School Certificate examinations.
Earlier that year, her parents had sent Frances to the National Institute of Industrial Psychology (NIIP) for vocational guidance. At the time, she was interested in working with children, so didn't think much of the Institute's suggestions of Personnel Management or Estate Management! In any event, her sixth form subjects were Botany & Zoology and Physics & Chemistry. She also did two terms of Pure Mathematics with which she appears to have coped very well. She obtained her Higher School Certificate and left school in July 1949 when she was just 18.
One activity she started to take seriously in her teens was swimming. She joined Kingston Ladies Swimming Club and in early 1948 obtained both her Elementary and Intermediate Life Saving Certificates from the Royal Life Saving Society. By the time she left school in 1949, she was an accomplished swimmer.
Another significant decision she made during her school years was to join the Sea Rangers. In an interview published in the London Evening News in February 1956, she says, “When I was a Sea Ranger - from the age of 15 to 17 - I became interested in rowing. We had an old gig. I found that with my strength I did better than the others. So I became really keen”
Little did she realise at that time that rowing would dominate so much of her life for the next 50 years.
In the autumn of 1949, she started a five-year course leading to a Bachelor of Dental Surgery (BDS) qualification at University College, London. During this first year she stayed with her Uncle Fred and Aunt Steve who were then living in Sutherland Avenue. At the time, Fred was the back-office manager of the Phoenix Theatre in the West End. That didn't work out, so for the rest of her university years she commuted from Hampton. She managed to finish the 5-year course satisfactorily and was granted her BDS in August 1954.
In the autumn of 1950, her second year at university, she started serious rowing, the sport that was to become the love of her life. She kept a detailed scrap book of her rowing and related holidays from the start of her second year at university until 1969 and this has proved to be an invaluable source of information for this biographical note.
She joined the London University Women's Boat Club (ULWBC) three weeks after the start of the autumn term. Here she met Dot Evans, another lifelong friend, for the first time. Dot was doing some coaching and was surprised to see that Frances was taking things down properly. “So was I!” she says in her scrapbook. The Novice IV was already fixed so Frances was put in to stroke the Junior IV - in her usual self deprecatory way she said that it was probably because she would have been least able to keep time with the others if she had been put elsewhere in the boat!
After the Winter IVs she was put into the VIII. This was very good training for her as there were several experienced rowers in the crew. They won the women's head of the river fairly easily. Of course, there were only a few entrants, but it was still a good feather in her cap. After this she returned to IVs again and became part of a Novice IV. They lost in their first regatta which was at Barnes and Mortlake, but on 23rd June 1951 they managed to beat the same crew at Weybridge in the first heat and went on to win the event from a field of six boats. She was now a Junior!
Frances was awarded a half purple at the end of that season, and a full purple in July 1952.
That summer, she was in the UL VIII that went to the Holland as guests of the University of Leiden. This was her first trip abroad, so she had to acquire a passport. Apparently, the trip was part of a regular exchange with Leiden. Although a success in many ways, from a racing point of view it wasn't! “We lost very definitely.”
Whilst in Holland, the crew was taken to Bosbaan which is the oldest artificial rowing course in the world. The course was built in 1936 as part of an employment project and originally had five lanes but was then widened to six lanes in 1954 when Amsterdam hosted the European Rowing Championships, the first international event where women were allowed to participate as elite rowers. Frances was very impressed. “It has everything. A grandstand by the finishing tower, restaurants, and a semi-circular pool at the end with landing stages and separate changing rooms for each country (with showers, etc.)”
Frances found this trip most enjoyable. “Besides the rowing, we thoroughly enjoyed the party, the trip round Amsterdam's canals and harbour, seeing Leiden University and eating real cream ices!”
Frances first represented Great Britain in 1953 when her ULWBC VIII was selected to compete at the last of three 'test' regattas run under FISA auspices to investigate whether the concept of international women's regattas was viable. By then in was clear that it was, and the first Women's European Rowing Championships took place the following year.
The test regatta took place in Copenhagen on 13 August 1953 and there were entries from Norway, Finland, Austria, West Germany and Poland as well as the usual GB, France, Holland and Denmark teams. The original intention had been to send the best club IV and VIII. However, in the event, only the VIII was chosen.
Their selection must have been quite close because they made a hash of the Head of the River, probably because they had all come back to University early to put in some extra practice - and it looks like they over did it! However, when the ARA Eights regatta was held two weeks later they beat both crews that had beaten them in the Head of the River and subsequently were selected to row at Copenhagen.
After graduating as a Bachelor of Dental Surgery in August 1954, Frances stayed on to work for a Diploma in Orthodontics, which she was granted in October 1958. She subsequently worked at the National Dental Hospital (Eastman's) as an Orthodontist. On the rowing front, she and her UL crewmate Barbara Philipson joined United Universities Women's BC. Both played key roles there as competitors and in its management, as it became the dominant force in British women's rowing until the mid-1960s.
In 1957 Frances was selected for the eight to row at Duisburg and it was on the way to this event that she fell ill. In her scrapbook she comments: “We left Victoria at 10am on Monday, August 19th. The boat had left on Wednesday via the longest sea route. We were all beautiful in grey skirts and navy blazers and feeling fine. By the time we got off the boat I was no longer feeling fine! By the time we got to Duisberg I felt lousy! ... I retired to bed as soon as we arrived telling Bridget to row next day - and that was that.”
A German doctor who was asked to look at Frances diagnosed a wide range of complaints - gastroenteritis, cholecystitis and acute rheumatism - but not Polio. After the regatta, on the following Monday, Frances staggered home accompanied by two of the crew, travelling first class to make things easier - which it did. Typically, she had told nobody at home of her plight, so the first her parents knew was when they received a phone call on the Monday, asking them to collect Frances from Victoria that evening. The next day the doctor called and immediately sent Frances to Mogden, the local isolation hospital - it was Polio. She stayed in Mogden for 7 weeks.
In a brief personal medical history written in 2007, she wrote of her polio: “In hospital 2/3 months, off work 5/6 months. Legs OK, trunk, chest, shoulders, neck, arms and hands affected.”
Frances's stoical attitude seems to have meant that only her family were really aware of how much this illness had affected her. For although she did recover enough to represent GB again twice more, for a long time she was far from sure that she'd be able to row at all, never mind at a high level. She had lots of physiotherapy from Mr Walton, an orthopaedic surgeon who specialised in getting polio victim back on their feet, and Mrs Watts(?), one of his physiotherapists, and that made a big difference. However, that she got well enough afterwards to row again at the level she did is a credit to her guts and determination. She was left with significantly reduced lung capacity and paralysis in some of the muscles of her hands.
Poliomyelitis became a notifiable disease in 1912, so from that date we know how many cases were notified to the authorities each year. Viewed by the decade, polio was most prevalent in the fifties, though two of the four individual years with the highest number of cases recorded were 1947 (7646 cases with 688 deaths) and 1949 (5918/657). Other than these years, the peak years for polio in the UK were 1950 (7760/755) and 1955 (6331/270). The last year with many cases was 1957 (4844/255), which is when both Frances and her brother, Malcolm, caught it. As these illnesses were nearly 8 months apart, it is unlikely that they had a common cause, other than that there was a lot of it about that year!
The vast majority of people (70-90%) who catch polio have no symptoms, except perhaps those of a mild flu-like illness. Of the few who exhibit symptoms, most do not suffer permanent effects. Malcolm, who had caught polio in Manchester at the end of his first term at University, was fortunate enough to be in this category. Only around 1% of sufferers acquire permanent paralysis. Unfortunately, Frances was one of them.
After the polio she initially thought that she would never row again and looked for other sports to take its place. She tried golf and scuba diving - as well as ballroom dancing, where she got to gold standard! - but was never excited by these activities as she had been with rowing.
It was also touch and go whether she'd be able to continue her career as a dentist. Fortunately, she had trained as an orthodontist, so her relatively poor manual dexterity, which affected her for the rest of her life, was manageable. She always said she would have had a problem as a normal dentist.