My earliest recollections of a racket and tennis ball go back to when I
was quite small. My greatest amusement was to play up against a brick
wall, with numerous dolls and animals of all kinds as spectators--really
as big a gate as we get now at some tournaments! Each toy in turn was
chosen as my opponent. Needless to say, I always won these matches. My
adversaries took very little interest in the proceedings. This was some
years before I even played in a court, and I think it was a very good
way of starting the game.

I then played in a court we had at home, which was not very good;
gooseberry bushes prevented our running outside the court at all. I next
joined a club at Ealing Common, and at the age of eleven won my first
prize, the Handicap Singles at our club tournament. Of course I was
receiving enormous points, and I remember to this day how bored the best
lady players in the club were when they had to play me. My game then,
from all accounts, involved a sequence of very high lobs. I am now quite
envious of the accuracy of my lobbing in those days. I had absolutely no
pace, but was active and very steady, and desperately serious and keen
about the game. At this time also I used to play at college, preferring
tennis to cricket, which was the exception. Cricket was the great game.
Tennis was pushed into the background, and very little interest was
taken in it, even when the matches were played to decide the winner of
the racket presented each year to the best player in the school by some
kind parent. I won this racket one year, but could never use it, as it
was heavily weighted with an enormous silver shield on which was a
lengthy inscription. Of course the balance of the racket was absolutely
upset.

There was not much chance of improving at school, because nobody took
the trouble to have the court or net of the right dimensions. The rules