Wendy Farrington

The daughter of an Army colonel, Wendy Farrington was born in Yorkshire but spent most of her teenage years either at boarding school in Belgium or living in Monte Carlo, where she first had a passion for skiing. At the age of 16 she finished third in the slalom at the British Women´s Ski Championships and was third overall in the British Girls Under-18 Championship the following year.

Having been second to Josephine Gibbs in the British Championships in 1960, Farrington progressed from the Britain “B” team to the “A” team and went to the Squaw Valley Winter Olympics that year. She competed in all three disciplines with a 28th place (out of 42) in the downhill being her best finish. Farrington was second again in the British Championships behind Tania Heald in 1961 but won the title the following year when she was appointed captain of the British women´s team. Farrington led them to the 1964 Winter Olympics at Innsbruck, where she competed only in the slalom but was disqualified after missing a gate.

Farrington enjoyed water skiing and diving as hobbies and, after her skiing career, pursued a career as a dancer. She worked at the Moulin Rouge in Paris, where she was a jazz dancer and dolphin trainer. Farrington then obtained a contract to work in the United States but could not stay after the contract ended, so she arranged a “marriage of convenience” to a colleague called Rodney Texas. What started as a contractual arrangement, however, eventually became a proper marriage, until the pair separated in 1969. Farrington joined the Brahma Kumaris Spiritual Movement in 1982, originally in Paris but later based at their Rome headquarters.