PE has always been important at MHSG. On Friday 3 May 1901 the School held its very first gym display at Dover Street. Girls marched into the gym to the accompaniment of music and did exercises including skipping, parallel bars exercises, a flag race, club exercises, hoop exercises and “pretty figure marching.”
The photos show girls in the gym at Dover Street dressed in heavy serge gymslips. How different from the more comfortable sports kit girls were wearing for a gym display given at a Coffee Morning and Bring and Buy Sale on 11 April 1962.
In May 2007, Dame Kelly Holmes, double Olympic gold medal winner, opened the new sports hall and worked in the gym with lucky MHSG girls who could run and jump with ease. But although the early gymnasts seem much more restricted, we have to remember that they were lucky to be able to do games at all!
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