A RECORD-BREAKING long jumper who lived in Horley is to be inducted into the England Athletics Hall of Fame.
Muriel Cornell, who died in Redhill in 1996 aged 89, will be honoured at a ceremony in Birmingham on Saturday.
Her daughter, Lorna Cawthorn, and grand-daughter Trudy Boisvert are planning to attend.
Mrs Cawthorn, who lives in Spain, told the Mirror: "She was the most exceptional person.
"Her brother and my father founded an athletics club and when it was a year old they held an annual sports day and my uncle said to my mother, 'We need you to come and compete because the more people we have got competing the more prizes we can get, and the more prizes we can get the more members we can get'."
The young Muriel Gunn, as she was then, quickly agreed and tried a range of different sports. But it was later on, at the club's training ground in Mitcham, London, that Mrs Cornell had a try-out at the long jump.
Mrs Cawthorn, 81, said: "She had a go at long jump and there happened to be a journalist there from the News of the World and he came up to her and said, 'Would you mind if I measured your jump?' She said, 'No I don't mind', and it was a world record. First time she had ever jumped and it was a world record."
From here Mrs Cornell's athletic career was launched and she went on to set the world record in the long jump.
Her distance of 19ft 21/2 inches (5.85m) set in Birmingham in 1930 remained the British long jump record for 23 years.
Mrs Cawthorn says her mother was also a world class hurdler and held the world record for about 30 minutes at the Women's Amateur Athletics Association Championships in 1928, before it was broken in the next heat.
Mrs Cornell was due to compete in track and field at the 1932 Olympics, but was forced to withdraw after becoming pregnant with Lorna.
Misfortune then struck, as she tore her Achilles tendon just before the 1936 games in Berlin.
Mrs Cawthorn added: "But she went to the [1936] Olympics as team manager. I believe she did meet Hitler, but unfortunately she didn't conk him out. She could've killed him but she didn't do anything. It's a shame.
"When she was there they [the Nazis] asked if they could examine her?
"A lot of the athletes, they wanted to give them X-rays and mummy had X Rays and her heart was amazing. One of the doctors noticed her Achilles problem and said 'I can sort that out.'
"After the war, during the Nuremburg trials, we were all sitting having lunch and my mother suddenly went white and nearly fainted and I said 'what's the matter?' and she said 'the guy they have just condemned to death for torture was going to operate on my leg'."
In her later years, she served as judge at the 1948 London Olympics, contributed articles for sports magazines and wrote a book full of training advice called Athlete Eve. She was also on the International Olympic Committee and served as secretary for various athletics clubs.
Mrs Cawthorn added that, as well as her athletic glory, her mother is often fondly remembered by her family for the wedding cakes she used to bake.
The England Athletics Hall of Fame honours people who have made an outstanding contribution to the sport.
