Champ silenced her doubters

ANGELA Mortimer was one of just four British players to have won Wimbledon since the Second World War and possibly the least likely.

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A shy young girl who grew up roaming Dartmoor, she survived digging up an unexploded wartime bomb on the moor, aged eight.

Born in Plymouth, her father John worked in property while her mother, Florence, liked to hold tennis tea parties with Angela and her older sister.

At 15, Angela took a two-hour bus ride to Torquay to audition for tennis lessons, that had been advertised for children under 12.

Coach Arthur Roberts told her she was too old at 15, wasn't any good and lived too far away.