Eileen Sheridan: The Mighty Atom | The Bike Show – a cycling radio show and podcast from Resonance FM
It’s not a big secret that I am a big fan of The Bike Show. I occasionally listen to other cycling podcasts, and have yet to find one which is as consistently entertaining and enlightening as the Bike Show. Even if you haven’t been involved in the Bike Show directly, I think it must be obvious from the continuing excellence of the show that Jack is constantly striving to take his listeners to places they might not have gone left to themselves, and alway pushing himself to maintain and exceed his already high standards. It is sort of superfluous for me to publicise the Bike Show, as I’m sure that most regular readers of this blog also subscribe to the show, but if you’re not, you should!
The latest edition is one of my favourites, and ties in with my last post about my neighbour’s Claud Butler, as she mentions that her first ‘proper’ racing bike was a CB. An interview with the amazing and inspiring Eileen Sheridan, the first British female professional cyclist, who, like Reg Harris, was a star of the 40s and 50s, which period is widely accepted to be the Golden Age of Cycling.
Buffalo Bill's Bicycle Blog 
Thanks Bill, glad you enjoyed it.
Eileen wasn’t the first woman pro. I believe that honour goes to Marguerite Wilson, the blonde bombshell record-breaker of the 1930s, who Eileen held in very high esteem. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marguerite_Wilson
Eileen was sandwiched between Marguerite and Beryl Burton, and unlike them, she managed to adapt to life after cycling. Sadly, and in circumstances that I don’t know much about, Marguerite killed herself. Beryl, in Eileen’s words ‘overdid it’. Eileen told me she repeatedly urged Beryl to retire, to take it easy. But to no avail. Beryl died on her bike. Eileen gave the eulogy at her funeral.
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Beryl Burton’s story deserves a show of its own! Much too big a life to be confined to the comments of a blog. Jack?
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I think it’s hard to beat the docu-drama that aired on R4 last year: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01p0fpl
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