Jocelyn Wardrop-Moore

Educated at St. Marylebone Grammar School, London, before going on to become an accomplished skier, Jocelyn Wardrop-Moore was an outstanding musician and was the principal clarinettist in the Royal Academy of Music orchestra. She won a prize for clarinet playing at the 1954 Munich Festival when she was the only female clarinettist amongst entrants from all over the world. She later taught youngsters how to play the clarinet.

It was also in 1954 that Wardrop-Moore took up skiing and had an immediate impact by finishing second to Switzerland’s Frieda Dänzer in an alpine combination event at St. Moritz. That same year Wardrop-Moore became only the second woman ever to compete in the hazardous “Inferno” race at Muhren. “The Inferno” was regarded as the toughest of all ski races, taking five hours to climb to the summit, followed by skiing back down again for 45 minutes.

Wardrop-Moore was runner-up to the eventual overall champion Addie Pryor in the downhill element at the 1954 British Women’s Ski Championships, and the following year was runner-up to Sue Holmes in the slalom event. Wardrop-Moore broke a leg in a bad fall in Switzerland, however, shortly afterwards. The surgeon who set the triple break said he doubted she would ever ski again. By the end of the year, however, she had returned to the slopes and finished third behind Holmes in the 1956 British Championship, and was immediately selected for the Cortina Winter Olympics where she finished 35th and 42nd respectively in the slalom and giant slalom

Wardrop-Moore was also a fine tennis player and had an ambition to take part in motor rallies. Her grandfather Sir James Erskine was a former Member of Parliament for the Westminster St. Georges constituency between 1921-29. Wardrop-Moore married Douglas Murray, a lieutenant in the Royal Navy in 1949.