ELIZABETH CHADWICK. Double Britsh champion was born in Inverness

By COLIN FARQUHARSON
Colin@scottishgolfview.com
The answer to my question of yesterday - Who was the sixth Scottish-born post-war winner of the British women's open amateur championship was ELIZABETH CHADWICK who now answers to the name of Liz Pook (Tony Pook is her husband).
Elizabeth Chadwick, pictured in her prime, won the "British" in 1966 and 1967. At that time I was a night sports sub-editor on the Aberdeen Press and Journal and we gave particular prominence to Scots who did well in sport, particurlarly golf (The P and J still does!)
Casting my mind back 45 years, I cannot recall us blowing our trumpets about Elizabeth Chadwick being Scottish ... but it's never too late!
Liz's life story would make a great film. Over the next two days, I hope that you enjoy the two articles about Elizabeth Chadwick/Liz Pook we will display for you.
She is coming up to the Curtis Cup match from June 8-10 at The Nairn Golf Club. And, as she says, it will give Tony and her a chance to see the place where she was born: Rossal Bank Nursing Home, Inverness.
Liz Pook writes:
"I am really looking forward to it all (the Curtis Cup), especially bearing in mind that I was born in Inverness and lived for three months in Invergordon. "My father was training with the Sunderland Flying Boats, whose motto was "The Sea Shall Not Have Them." From there they went out to the Gold Coast (in Africa) that was and he had to go out into The Atlantic  to pick up poor folk who had perished as a result of being hit by U Boats.
"And to think that I thought my Dad played cricket all through the War as on our sideboard there was a cigarette box engraved with "Presented to Sarg Robert T Chadwick for scoring over 1000 runs in the summer of 1943 Gold Coast."
"He was a brilliant sportsman and achieved seven holes in one!! I only got one and that was sheer luck as I thinned a six-iron and it hit the top of the pin, wrapped itself round the cloth fag and dropped straight down into the hole - thank you very much.
"And as I was dormie six up, we shook hands on the tee which must have been a rare event! See you at Nairn - I wonder if we shall find Rossal Bank Nursing Home? - I'll have to get out my birth certificate."

Liz and Tony Pook with their twin grandchildren

Chapter 16 of the LGU Centenary book: "One Hundred Years of Women's Golf"

WHEN PAIN IS PAR ...

By LEWINE MAIR
When Joanne Morley won the 1991 Daily Telegraph's Woman Golfer of the Year Award, she spoke at the presentation about the help she had received from others.
Her mother, Jean, was one among those she picked out, and she also made mention of Liz Pook, a sister member of Cheshire and the winner of the British women's championship in each of 1966 and 1967.
In overcoming a handful of disappointments while playing her way to the top of the British amateur game. Joanne had time and time again been cheered by notes of encouragement from Liz Pook.
The notes were more than usually inspiring, for Joanne knew. only too well. that her sufferings were as nothing to those of the writer. . . . Liz Pook, nee Chadwick, was one of the game's great fighters.
She had 2s at all the short holes before making the 35-footer which enabled her to beat the great Catherine Lacoste in the British championship at Ganton in 1966 and she came back from four down after five holes to defeat Linda Bayman in the first round the following year on her way to a successful defence.
Having left the tournament circuit in order to start a family, Liz was in 1986 on the point of returning to golf - she even toyed with the notion of becoming a teaching professional - when an operation on her back went badly wrong.
The accident which left this most plucky of champions fighting paralysis rather than par had its origins in a game of tennis.
Captain of the B team at Buckden, the village where she and her husband Tony lived at that time with their two children, Andrew and Caroline, the former Curtis Cup golfer had been despairing that her backhand was so much weaker than her forehand.
'Try a double-hander,' someone had suggested, helpfully. She did, but succeeded only in slipping a disc. With the pain shifting, rather than subsiding, she was subjected to several tests until, in January 1987, she was told by Addenbrooke's Hospital that one test had revealed a tumour in the thorax area which needed immediate attention.
With one thing or another - most notably an inflammation under her left arm which refused to settle - surgery had to be delayed until April. By then she was organised, apart from anything else, having prepared the 88 frozen meals needed to tide her family over the three weeks she expected to be in hospital.
When the operation finally went ahead, whatever it was they had seen on the scan - probably a blood clot - had disappeared, but her spine was in a state of shock from the exploratory surgery.
She was paralysed from the waist down and unable to write properly. Her faith stopped her from feeling angry. A committed Christian who had never allowed her golfing travels to interfere with church-going, Liz drew strength from talking to patients worse off than herself.
There was an occasion, though, when she let fly. With her emotions disturbed by all the drugs she was having to take, she took aim on a psychiatrist with a glass of water.
It was an action which, she added. with customary humour, may have explained the way in which the psychiatrist at Stoke Mandeville gingerly introduced himself when she arrived there in June of that year.
Taught to make adventurous use of her wheelchair by the two war-savaged Lebanese boys brought to Stoke Mandeville by Dr Pauline Cutting, Liz surprised all those who had doubted that she would ever walk again and was released shortly before Christmas.
For a long time, a thick paperback book, The Disabled Rights Handbook, was as handy as any dictionary or cookery book. 'Worse than The Rules of Golf,' she would protest, laughingly.
Help has come from many quarters. After an appeal from the former county captain and current president uf the LGU, Carol Comboy. Cheshire provided a lightweight wheelchair and the special hand controls needed to adapt her car. More recently, to cite another example. the members of her club, Bramall Park. gave her a computer which. she says. 'has opened a whole new world for me'. By way of a hobby, she and her husband collect old golf books.
Their collection on women's golf is extensive and Liz was ablc to give much help with this LGU Centenary book. And if that were not enough, she keeps in touch with many of the 2,000 people who have written to her since that fateful day when the operation on her back went so wrong.
To this day, her legs have felt all the time as if in a vice but. by wearing a caliper on her right leg and using two sticks, she can move slowly about the family home near Bath.
She has accepted invitations to attend tournaments, and she has also forced herself to give many a talk with a view to boosting funds for the Spinal Injuries Association.
'Why I do them,' she confided, 'is something I can't quite comprehend. I get so nervous.'
Those who know her well would suggest that it IS merely another manifestation of the fibre she showed all her golfing days. Of all her achievements in golf, it is her record vis-a-vis the aforementioned Catherine Lacoste of which she is most proud.
Over the five matches they played, Liz won three, halved one and lost one: their meeting in an unofficial international with France at Royal St George's in 1966 is the one she described in a recent note as 'a real belter of a match. "Somehow I was out in 33 and three up. having holed out with my six-iron for an eagle 2 at the fifth. It was a blind second. and 1 can see myself now. running up the hillocks in the expectation of spotting the ball close to the flag but little thinking it would have dropped.
"Catherine fought back, winning two holes. Then, at the 14th, I holed a chip to go back to two ahead. By way of a reply. she holed chips at each of the 15th and 16th before finally we finished all square.'
By way of a brief footnote she added. '1 would sooner a match finished in that manner than win in a scrappy fashion anv day.'
Rather than dwell on the things which have gone wrong. Liz has concentrated on the brighter side and, in so doing, has been a shining light to golfers everywhere who might otherwise have got things our of perspective.
She points to how, since the accident, her life has been enriched by the kindness of friends and the brave people she encountered in hospital. She gave a special mention to Jane Brittain, a former Staffordshire County player she met recently at the pain research programme.
Again, she will tell you that her family. which had been close in the first place, has become still more tight-knit, with her husband the proverbial tower of strength.
Her son and daughter - and this is as telling a tribute as any to the way in which she has handled her demise - have both chosen to work in the caring professions, her son with the elderly and her daughter with children.
In her golfing days, Liz swore by Vincent Peale's "Power of Positive Thinking." Gary Player, whose card she marked in the 1967 Open. had preceded her as a disciple and, indeed. the South African autographed her copy of the book.

Now the philosuphy implicit in Peale's treatise has shrunk to an inscription on a little card sent to her at Addenbrooke's when she was at her lowest. 'Misfortune,' it counselled, 'is an occasion to demonstrate character.'

TOMORROW: Liz Pook recalls her British championship successes in 1966 and 1967.