Russell, Ivy (Oct. 1, 1937). I'll Never Have a Baby! In: The Daily Mirror, p. 12. https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0000560/19371001/117/0012 THE WORLD'S STRONGEST WOMAN SAYS I'LL NEVER HAVE A BABY! IVY RUSSELL, a Croydon domestic servant and world's woman weight-lifting champion, wrote this article. Soon she is to defend her title against Nan Carquest, challenger from the North! I'M the world's strongest girl at my weight. I've had enough proposals from admirers to have no doubts that I'm attractive. Like any other girl I have my dreams about Love and Romance. But I shan't marry. I shall never bring a child into the world---except my own world of dreams. It's an understanding I have with myself, due to my own personal history. I was born a puny babe of 2lb. 13oz., racked with lung trouble. At fourteen I took up athletics. To-day I think I'm as near being a perfect strength machine as any woman could be. But one never knows. ... *** Suppose I let myself be swept off my feet by some romantic male? The echo of wedding bells for any normal woman is the cry of a baby of her own. Supposing my baby proved to be tubercular? I should know it had inherited the complaint from me. I should feel I had committed a crime, betrayed a trust. No, I shall go on lifting weights, demonstrating jiu-jitsu tackles. It's safer. I might break my neck, But I shan't break my own or anyone else's heart. Heaven knows, I seem to get my fair share of romance. There was the Strong Man who toured the fairs. He came along, appraised me at my work-out. Terse and to the point was his way of popping the question: "You're a bit of all right. How about making it a double-harness act?" He's still plodding in the shafts all alone on Life's road. Over the last few years the post has brought me shoals of proposals of marriage from men I have never met or seen. Plentiful, too, have been letters containing proposals, suggestions, offers, in which the word "marriage" is always conspicuously absent. Gosh! My correspondence, even after it has passed through the censoring hands of Mr. Streeter, my manager, has left me no illusions about more than one brand of male. The thing that puzzles me is.. why do such creatures run after a Strong Girl? Or is that grade of male just dumb? If suggestions like that constantly come my way, despite the fact that I'm obviously a pretty tough customer, what about the less robust type of girl? Prettily lisped virginal pleadings might melt the heart of a villain in fiction, but in real life they'd probably only more inflame a sex-obsessed brute. That's why I'm so keen on urging all girls to learn how to defend themselves. *** I'm not advocating a spartan regime of pulling weights about. But an hour or two of regular training each week for a few months will teach any girl sufficient of the art of self-defence to be able to show an insulting male just where he gets off. At some time or other every girl encounters at least one nasty situation of this kind. I did a year or two ago when taking a short cut late at night by a lonely, poorly lighted path. I noticed two loafers standing well back in the shadows. As I drew level one called out in a mocking falsetto, "Good-night." I'm pretty well-known in Croydon. The man might have recognized me. So I said a civil "Good-night" in return. That settled it. He slouched over, grabbed me round the waist, and began to maul me. The next moment the would-be Lothario went flying over my head, and landed with a thud on his back, dead to the world. His pal gave one terrified look at me and took to his heels. I don't think that pair of beauties will ever molest a lonely girl again. ... People, particularly those aware of my earlier history, are constantly asking me how I became so strong. I can only say that you can't buy health and strength, nor can you drink it out of a bottle. It's nothing but hard work and constant grind. Do I diet? Probably less than most girls. I avoid starchy foods as much as possible, and during heavy training I cut out all fats. So many people who come to see me train turn up expecting to see something like a cross between a female gorilla and a performing elephant. They can't seem to understand that strength in a woman can go hand-in-hand with grace and normality. Nor has strength made me ham-handed. I earn my living as a daily maid, and at my job I don't think I smash more crockery than anyone else! So far from being a disadvantage in my job, I get frequent calls on my strength. Perhaps I'm quietly nursing someone's baby when an SOS arrives from a few doors up the street: "Please can Ivy come and move our piano, as mother wants to dust behind it." The pianos I've shifted! *** Incredible as it may seem to some people, I'm so normal that I do all my own personal needlework. I appreciate nice clothes, and I must confess to a real weakness for dainty undies. MY HERO...CLARK GABLE! Is it irony that I can toss a grown man clean over my head with little effort, and yet a sentimental film will start me desperately using a hankie? With seven nights a week devoted to spartan training, I regularly take Saturday afternoons off to go to the cinema. I may be the world's Strong Girl on all other occasions, but when the lights in the cinema dim and either of my four favourite stars---Fredric March, Clark Gable, George Arliss or Wally Beery---come on the screen I go all weak! That, if nothing else, should prove how horribly normal I am!