Early Life and Army Career
Holmes was born in Pembury, Kent, the daughter of Derrick Holmes, a Jamaican-born car mechanic, and an English mother, Pam Norman. Her mother, 18 at the time of her birth, married painter and decorator Michael Norris, whom Holmes regards as her father, seven years later, and the couple had two more children (Kevin b. 1977 and Stuart b. 1980) before splitting up in 1987. Holmes grew up in Hildenborough and attended Hildenborough CEP School, and then Hugh Christie Comprehensive School in Tonbridge at the age of 12.
She started training for athletics at the age of 12, joining Tonbridge Athletics Club, where she was coached by David Arnold and went on to win the English schools 1500 metres in her second season in 1983. Her hero was British middle distance runner Steve Ovett, and she was inspired by his success at the 1980 Summer Olympics.
However, Holmes later turned her back on athletics, joining the British Army at the age of 18, having left school two years earlier, working initially as a shop assistant in a sweet shop and later as a nursing assistant for disabled patients. In the Army, she was initially a lorry driver in the Women's Royal Army Corps (WRAC), later becoming a basic physical training instructor (PTI). Holmes then elected in June 1990 to attend the first course to be run under the new Army Physical Training Corps syllabus, and successfully passed out as a Class 2 PTI. Although militarily quite young, Holmes' athletic prowess was impressive and she was encouraged to attend the course selection for full-time transfer to the Army Physical Training Corps (APTC).
Holmes eventually qualified as a Sergeant Class 1 PTI, although she remained in the Adjutant General's Corps after the disbandment of the WRAC in 1992. She also became British Army judo champion and in Army athletics events once competed in the men's 800 metres at a meeting, as it was considered that for her to run in the women's event would be too embarrassing for the other competitors. At another event, she competed in and won an 800 metres, a 3000 metres and a relay race all in a single day. She also won the Heptathlon.
Holmes watched the 1992 Summer Olympics on television, and seeing Lisa York in the heats of the 3000 metres, an athlete whom she had competed against, and beaten, decided to return to athletics. For several years she combined both athletics and her employment in the Army, until increased funding allowed her to become a full-time athlete in 1997.
Read more about this topic: Kelly Holmes
Famous quotes containing the words early, life, army and/or career:
“The shift from the perception of the child as innocent to the perception of the child as competent has greatly increased the demands on contemporary children for maturity, for participating in competitive sports, for early academic achievement, and for protecting themselves against adults who might do them harm. While children might be able to cope with any one of those demands taken singly, taken together they often exceed children’s adaptive capacity.”
—David Elkind (20th century)
“As life grows more terrible, its literature grows more terrible.”
—Wallace Stevens (1879–1955)
“Methinks it would be some advantage to philosophy if men were named merely in the gross, as they are known. It would be necessary only to know the genus and perhaps the race or variety, to know the individual. We are not prepared to believe that every private soldier in a Roman army had a name of his own,—because we have not supposed that he had a character of his own.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Like the old soldier of the ballad, I now close my military career and just fade away, an old soldier who tried to do his duty as God gave him the light to see that duty. Goodbye.”
—Douglas MacArthur (1880–1964)