Sarah Brown of South London Orienteers passes away

Although her mother Elizabeth Brown (Southdowns) and sister and brother-in-law Deborah and Michael Reynolds were active in the sport much earlier, Sarah only began orienteering in her mid-thirties. Before then she had qualified as a dance and drama teacher, danced professionally, and then switched to running a shop, a cafe and then a restaurant in Scarborough. In fact some orienteers recall meeting her before she started orienteering: they went with her mother to the restaurant during the White Rose summer competition.

Sarah began to contribute to a Yorkshire Television programme called “Farmhouse Kitchen”. Then she became nationally known when a BBC TV set of programmes and accompanying book “Vegetarian Kitchen” introduced wholefood vegetarian cuisine to a wide audience.

Shortly after that Sarah did start orienteering. Living in Camden she joined London OK (LOK), and started going to weekly training on Hampstead Heath led by David and Miriam Rosen. She often went to weekend races where she might meet her mother. She ran three Karrimor Mountain Marathons with Miriam, met and married another orienteer Paul Street, and gave birth to sons Ralph and Greg.

After moving from central London to Richmond Surrey to be near Richmond Park, the family switched clubs to South London Orienteers (SLOW) where Michael May, the Haynes's, the Jones family and others were good company for Ralph and Greg, and Chris Robinson, Diane Leakey and Monika Bonafini good company for Sarah in age group relays.

Family holidays were planned round orienteering multi-days and most years would see a holiday with John and Sue Birtwistle and their lads, Duncan and Fraser, friends from LOK days.

Sarah was manager for the England Veteran Home International Team for twenty years, very much enjoying the gathering each year of top orienteers from the home nations.

After finishing working, she became more involved in organising for SLOW. She also led initiatives to promote interest in the athletes of the national team, which could be good for both the sport and the team. After all the team were friendly, relateable people like most orienteers. basically young people who had grown up through the regional junior squads and just got the orienteering bug in a really big way.

A fan website “On The Red Line” was setup, produced with help from Simon and Helen Errington (also friends from LOK days.) Sarah obtained a Sport England grant for a series of short coaching videos “Think Fast, Run Hard, Go Orienteering” presented by team athletes, which Katherine Bett directed. And there was amateur media work following the international orienteering calendar to provide material for On the Red Line.

In the last two years Sarah had to reduce her orienteering and orienteering spectating. But she was able to be a volunteer helper at WOC 24 in Edinburgh, and a reporter at the European Sprint Champs in Belgium last year. And she continued to complete short courses at Military League South events until last Christmas.

Sarah is survived by Paul, Ralph, Greg, Greg’s wife Sophie and young granddaughter Aurora.