Where are they now?: Angela Mortimer

WHEN ladies' tennis really was a game for the fair and gentle, the British stood a chance. Between 1955 and 1961, six Grand Slam titles went their way, three of them to a slight Devonian named Angela Mortimer, coached on the courts of Torquay's Palace Hotel.

The Australian championships, which she won in 1958, bring a special glow and she still attends in most years. 'After winning the French in 1955, I had been quite ill for a couple of years with a virus I had picked up in Egypt and I'd gone for the climate primarily, to recuperate.

'We couldn't afford hotels so we'd stay with other players and I made many friends.' The girl she beat in the 1958 final, Australia's Lorraine Coghlan, was also her landlady.

Defeated by Althea Gibson in the Wimbledon final the same year, she returned triumphantly to the All England Club in 1961, beating Christine Truman in the first all-British final since 1914. She retired in 1964 and in 1967 married the British Davis Cup player, John Barrett, now a journalist and television commentator.

'John's away half the year but I don't travel with him a lot because he is always working. I did work for Teddy Tinling (the dress designer) for nine years but I have not been involved with tennis since. I play socially at the All England but raising a family has kept me busy.'

Now 61, she has a 22-year-old daughter in publishing and a 24-year-old son at law school. They live in Kingston-upon-Thames.

(Photograph omitted)