She won the high jump silver medal at the 1956 Melbourne Olympics and was European champion in 1954.

[3] In the 1954 Commonwealth Games she won a gold medal for Northern Ireland in high jump.

[4] Later that year, she got the gold medal in high jump for Great Britain at the 1954 European Athletics Championships.

[1] Coached by Franz Stampfl,[1] she competed for Great Britain in the 1956 Summer Olympics held in Melbourne, Australia in high jump , where she jointly won the silver medal with Mariya Pisareva.

[5] She was one of many signatories in a letter to The Times on 17 July 1958 opposing 'the policy of apartheid' in international sport and defending 'the principle of racial equality which is embodied in the Declaration of the Olympic Games'.