Daley Thompson is generally regarded as the greatest all-round athlete ever.
He was unequalled in terms of competitive ability as a decathlete.
Thompson was unbeaten as a decathlete for nine years from 1978 to 1987 but many of his fans do not know about his connection to Dundee.
Mum Lydia was a mill worker who was born in the city in 1927.
The two-time Olympic decathlon champ was never slow to talk about his Dundee roots and took to wearing the kilt on occasion.
His Scottish heritage is hugely important to him.
Thompson, who has published his autobiography at the age of 65, has always said he got his resolve and determination from his mother.
“My first stroke of luck was having good genes,” he said.
“My mum, a small, light-skinned woman with fair hair, was born Evelyn Rosemary
Grigor in Dundee in 1927, the youngest of fourteen children – wow!
“She left school at fourteen and worked in a mill for a couple of years, but at sixteen with the Second World War in full tilt joined the Auxiliary Territorial Service (ATS) and spent six years at RAF Greenham, Berkshire, packing parachutes for army lads going off to fight.
“When she went back to Dundee, she found it a bit dull and so moved to London and never went back.”
Lydia was glamourous with beehive hairdo
There she met Frank Thompson.
He had spent most of his life in Britain but had been born in Nigeria.
He was charming, handsome, powerfully built and ran his own cab company.
Francis Morgan Ayodele “Daley” Thompson was born on July 30 1958 in London and lived in Notting Hill with his brother and sister.
At the age of six, his father left home and Lydia became a single mother.
The Dundonian grit shone through.
“She always had two or three jobs: working on a reception, or in an office, or cleaning my junior school at 4.30 or 5am in the morning,” he said.
“She had the highest work ethic of anyone I’ve ever met, and I get mine from her.”
Lydia was glamourous, confident and larger than life with a beehive hairdo to match.
The local community had great respect for her.
She was no shrinking violet and did not suffer fools gladly.
Thompson was packed off to boarding school at the age of seven.
He didn’t want to leave home.
But it ended up being just great.
Triumph and tragedy at Farney Close
Farney Close boarding school was designed to encourage and discipline children who had difficulty living at home and attending regular schools.
From the age of 10 he played football every day after school and for three different clubs on the weekends.
Then he concentrated on sprinting and jumping.
He was summoned to the headmaster’s office in 1971 and told his father had been murdered on the streets of Streatham by a jealous husband.
“I’m not sure how Frank’s murder affected my mum,” said Thompson.
“He wasn’t in her life anymore.
“The truth is, my mum was very stoical and wouldn’t have said anything,
even if she was upset.
“She never complained about anything.”
By the time he was 16 and leaving Farney Close, he’d won the Sussex Schools 200 metres championship and thought of himself as a sprinter.
He was introduced to Bob Mortimer, who was coach of the Newham and Essex Beagles Athletics Club and became the biggest single influence on his career.
He was building up a group of sprinters and Thompson won the English Schools 200m at Durham and the Amateur Athletic Association Junior 100m in 1975.
Then, one day, someone had chickenpox.
They needed someone else for the decathlon down in Wales.
He won with 6,685 points, 2,000 more than the British record for 16-year-olds.
And the rest is history.
Could Daley Thompson have competed for Scotland?
Thompson’s first Olympic experience was at Montreal 1976, aged 18, where he finished 18th in an event won by Bruce Jenner with a new world record.
Jenner predicted Thompson would win the Olympic decathlon title in time.
The Sunday Post highlighted his Dundee connection before the 1978 Commonwealth Games and said the Scottish selectors were interested in him.
“His mother gives him a Scottish qualification, but, recently, he indicated his first loyalty would be to his country of residence, England,” said the Post.
“He added, if anything went ‘wrong’ he would be willing to wear the Scottish colours.
“But, clearly, the Essex man, who has just taken three A-levels at Crawley College, doesn’t want to involve himself in any tug-of-war over representation.”
Scotland’s loss was England’s gain.
He won the Commonwealth decathlon for England in 1978 with 8,467 points before winning the gold medal at the 1980 and 1984 Olympics.
Thompson was world champion in 1983, a double European winner and three-time Commonwealth champion during his illustrious career as an athlete.
His mother watched him compete for the first time at the 1986 Commonwealth Games in Edinburgh and he spoke about the relationship in his autobiography.
“She was a source of great strength and a lot of happiness when I was younger.
“In fact, I’ve always said that I get my resolve and determination from her.
“However, as I got older and began to make my own way, things became strained, and we drifted apart.
“During the years that followed, my mum never came to watch me compete until 1986 at the Commonwealth Games in Edinburgh when, to be honest, my career was just about finished.”
His mum’s home was a shrine to Olympian
He said Lydia being there was “great” and he “loved it”.
“I was 28 and my mum had come to watch me compete for the first time!” he said.
“Afterwards, when I went to her house, it was like a shrine to me.
“She’d never encouraged me, never said a word to praise me, in fact, she’d tried to discourage me, and yet in her home there were pictures and paintings of me everywhere.
“It was a really weird experience.
“After all these years, it’s hard to explain my feelings about that day and the unusual relationship with my mother that it implies.”
Thompson said his mum found it difficult to express her feelings.
“One day, a few years beforehand, when I went to see her, I blurted out, ‘You
know, I’m 25 years old and you’ve never told me you love me’.
“She answered, ‘Yeah, it’s not the kind of thing I do,’ and that was the end
of the conversation.
“It was strange, but that’s how she was brought up.”
Thompson was declared an honorary Dundonian by the Evening Telegraph before he finished fourth at the Olympic Games in Seoul in 1988.
He was forced to retire from athletics in 1992 because of a recurring hamstring injury.
His mother died in October 2014, at the age of 87, before they were able to build any bridges but she is never far from his thoughts.
- Daley Olympic Superstar by Chiselbury Publishing is out now.
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