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How orienteering began
History of the sport Further south, the advent of cheap black and white photocopying persuaded John Disley to try again using 1:25,000 O.S. maps, and in 1964 he organized a series of fortnightly events in Surrey which attracted local teachers and children as well as now-familiar names such as Peter Palmer and Chris James.
To gain media interest Disley also invited his athletic friends, including Chris Brasher, Roger Bannister, Gordon Pirie and Martin Hyman. Newspaper articles and Sunday supplements soon followed, and the word 'orienteering' became more familiar to the British public. The Southern Navigators Orienteering Club was formed on May second 1965. An English Orienteering Association was formed the same year, with Brasher as Chairman, and SN defeated SROC in the first inter-club competition, held at Coldharbour in Surrey. In 1966 the 1st English Orienteering Championships were held near Hindhead, also in Surrey; Peter Palmer arranged a South East Schools Championships, and took the 8 best competitors to the Swedish O-Ringen in Huskvana; and an English orienteering team competed in the 1st World Championships held in Finland. These early races used photocopied Ordnance Survey maps with a scale of 1:25000 and control sites identified by 6-figure grid references. British orienteers also showed ingenuity in adapting the sport to the limitations of local terrain. But more Scandinavian missionary work in the form of Jan Kjellstrom, son of Alvar Kjellstrom who was the founder of the Silva, one of the world's leading makers of compasses and orienteering equipment, helped to accelerate developments in competition, mapping and coaching. |
Discussion of a British Orienteering Federation with IOF membership had begun as early as 1964, but it was not until June 15th 1967 that the British Orienteering Federation was formed, at a meeting at Barnard Castle in County Durham. This was followed the next day by the first British Championships, held in the adjacent Hamsterley Forest. The 1st British men's champion was Gordon Pirie. The 1st Junior Championships were held in October the same year in the Forest of Dean. 1967 also saw the first JK International Orienteering Festival, held in honor of Jan Kjellstrom who tragically died in a road accident earlier that year. The annual JK moved to Easter in 1969, and now regularly attracts a field of four thousand or more. The 1974 JK was the 1st British event to attract more than one thousand entrants.
Technical improvements continued to be made. The 1968 British Championships on Cannock Chase in the West Midlands used colored OS maps, and the following year Geoff Peck produced the UK's 1st specialist 1:20000 orienteering maps for the British Championships at Kirroughtree Forest in S/W Scotland. Club orienteers were now producing a wide range of local maps in different scales and styles and a BOF Mapping Committee was set up to standardize map legends and symbols.
BOF was originally established as a federation of 6 associations representing Scotland and 5 English regions: Northern England, Southern England, the North Midlands, the South West and the West Midlands. It reached its present size of twelve associations in 1972. That same year it appointed Tony Walker as its 1st full time professional officer. A National Office with a part-time secretary had been established in Surrey in September 1967. In April 1974 it moved from Edinburgh to the Lea Green Sports Centre near Matlock, then to offices above a building society in the centre of Matlock in July 1980, before moving to its current premises in Darley Dale, on the A6 north of Matlock, in September 1984.
There had been a significant growth in BOF membership after the 1976 World Championships were held near Aviemore in Scotland, and were featured in a BBC documentary narrated by Chris Brasher. This was the first competition in Britain to use professional orienteering maps, which were produced to the highest quality by Robin and Sue Harvey working from an empty farmhouse - and thought by the estate workers to be 2 geography students on a research project. Sue Harvey is currently President of the IOF.
The World Championships returned to Scotland in 1999. Together with its spectator races (Highland 99) it produced the largest participation for any orienteering competition ever held in the UK, and had a fitting climax when Britain's most successful international orienteer, Yvette Baker (formerly Yvette Hague), added a Gold Medal to her previous World Championship Silvers and a Bronze by winning the women's Short Distance race.
This story is in 4 parts. 1 2 3 4 this is part 4.
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