46^th World Table Tennis Championships

Osaka, Japan · April 23 - May 6, 2001

Profile of Helen Elliot Hamilton

By Tim Boggan, ITTF and USATT Media

At the ITTF’s Apr. 26^th Annual General Meeting, President Adham Sharara was happy to welcome USATT President Sheri Pittman to the Federation’s Executive Board—the more so because the IOC is very concerned that in many sports there are still so few women in decision-making positions,.

Mrs. Pittman is the first woman president in the 70-year history of U.S. table tennis. However, in this presidential regard she is not unique, for at these Osaka Championships one might also meet the current and first woman president of the Scottish TTA, Helen Elliot Hamilton.

A Swaythling Club invitee (“Club President Di Schoeler is one of my old mates,” said Helen. “We’ve had a lot of laughs together”)—the doughty, 74-year-old Scot did not come to prominence merely by sitting around a Board of Directors table. As far back as the 1940’s and ‘50’s she took her place in a pantheon of stars comparable to those exciting us at the Competition Hall’s center courts here in Osaka.

 Helen came into her own in the post-World War II years at both the World Championships and the English Open (then the equivalent of today’s European Championships), where she was a three-time Singles finalist.

In 1948 in London she reached the first of her three consecutive World Women’s Doubles finals—taking the runner-up trophy with Hungary’s Dora Beregi. In 1949 and ’50 she became the titleholder, first with Hungary’s Gizi Farkas, then, this time successfully, with Beregi.

In 1954 she won the English Open Mixed Doubles with the legendary Victor Barna. In ’55, she successfully defended her Mixed title--with England’s Aubrey Simons. Afterwards at the World’s, she and Simons defeated the Ogimura and Tanaka partnerships to reach the final, where—shhh—they were leading Eva Koczian and Kalman Szepesi 2-1 and 16-5 in the 4^th when…well, streaks come, streaks go.

Helen was the Scottish Women’s Singles Champion 13 years in a row. But finally she had to give up competitive play—“Helen,” she said to herself, “it’s time you made some money”—and so she opened a wool shop. “I liked to knit, was interested in knitting machines.” Then she got into what she calls the hotel trade. “I fancied it. Began in Lincoln—that’s in England—liked the work, and later moved to Perth—that’s in Scotland, midway between Glasgow and Edinburgh, where it’s familiarly known as “The Gateway to the Islands.”

But meanwhile her interest in table tennis tenaciously remained. In fact, for 15 years she coached—most notably at World Champion Johnny Leach’s Butlands Holiday Camp in England. She remembers the present ETTA President Alan Ransome as a promising “wee boy” winning free weeks’ stay at this Camp repeatedly through his teen years. “Nothing in table tennis gave me more lasting satisfaction than working with those 11 to 18-year-olds,” said Helen with a wistful smile.

In 1973, she became Secretary of the Scottish TTA, and now after another three decades in the Sport she still enjoys watching matches—though she says, “The Game’s not a spectacle anymore.” “Because of improved technology, today’s play requires tremendous control. But though occasionally there are brilliant points, to me the dogged maneuvering that produced long rallies and magnificent struggles is gone.”

However, Helen said she did enjoy watching a Japan tie the other day. “This one player—I believe she was from China originally—played an old-fashioned defensive pick-hit game. Actually, she reminded me of myself—I suppose that’s why I was watching her. I, too, had a good pick and not just from my forehand but from my backhand as well, for I was taught by Barna. Also, I had a very heavy forehand chop which, by making a similar motion, I could turn into a nothing ball.”

Helen said her defense really bothered the oriental penholders. “The Japanese were not difficult for me to play,” she said, “for while I was growing up in Edinburgh I practiced with many penholders. I remember the Corbillon Cup matches in Stockholm in ’57 when Scotland met Japan. The Japanese hadn’t lost a game in the two previous World Championships, and though we Scots were beaten 3-2 by them I won both a singles and a doubles match.”

Remembrances Helen has—and they’re not all centered on table tennis. Now twice widowed with three grandchildren, and one great grandson, she helps her daughter to have some free time by baby-sitting and assisting at the family’s bed and breakfast “guest house.”

“I’ve had a wonderful life,” Helen says. “But if given the chance to live it over again I would have emigrated to the United States as my sisters did. There are opportunities for a grafter there—a hard worker can get someplace there. I enjoy the American’s sense of freedom, the wonderful changing scenery and the worldly sophistication of many of the people in the States.”

Perhaps had Helen emigrated to the U.S. back in the early ‘50’s it would not have taken 70 years for the USATT to elect a cosmopolitan woman to represent them at such World Championships as these.

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