On this day, the 29 May, 1954, the English athlete, Diane Leather Charles, (1933 -2018) became the first woman to run a sub five minute mile.

Born in Streetly, Staffordshire, Diane was the only daughter of the six children of Mabel (nee Barringer) and the surgeon, James Leather.

As a child she played lacrosse, and her interest in athletics was not ignited until she watched the 1952 Summer Olympics.

She joined the Birchfield Harriers Athletics Club in Birmingham, while studying chemistry at the Birmingham College of Technology (now Aston University), where she was later employed as an analytical chemist.

Although Leather was coached for mile racing, at the time the longest recognised event in women’s athletics was the 200 metre race. In 1953 she ran a mile in 5 minutes 02.6 seconds which was acknowledged by the IAAF as the ‘world best’, rather than the ‘world record’, as the distance was not officially recognised for a further 15 years.

Leather broke the 5-minute barrier with a time of 4 minutes 59.6 seconds in 1954 during the Midlands Women’s AAA Championships at Birmingham’s Alexander Sports Ground, 23 days after Roger Bannister became the first man to run a sub four minute mile.

In 1955, Leather bettered the mile record yet again, by a further 15 seconds, achieving her personal best of 4 minuted 45 seconds.  This remained a world record until 1962, when New Zealand’s Marise Chamberlain ran 4 minutes 41.4 seconds.

She competed in her final competition, the 1960 Summer Olympics in Rome, at the age of 27, competing under her married name Diana Charles.

After her retirement, Diane lived in Cornwall for the remainder of her life, where she worked in child protection.

She was married for 55 years, and had four children and 13 grandchildren.  She died in 2018 in Truro aged 85.

29 May, 2019