Gee Atherton

Personal information
Full name	George David Atherton
Nickname	Gee, GeeMan
Born	(1985-02-26) 26 February 1985 (age 27) Salisbury, England, United Kingdom
Height	185 cm
Weight	85 kg
Team information
Current team	GT
Discipline	MTB
Role	Rider
Rider type	DH & 4X
Professional team(s)
2001 2002–2003 2004 2007–2011 2011–	Animal Animal/Muddy Fox Muddy Fox Animal Commençal GT Bicycles
Major wins
GBR DH National Champion (1 Wins) EUR DH European Champion (1 Wins) UCI DH World Champion (1 Wins) UCI DH World Cup (5 Wins) UCI 4X World Cup (1 Wins)
Medal record Competitor for  United Kingdom Mountain Bike World Championships Silver 2007 Fort William Downhill Gold 2008 Val Di Sol Downhill
Infobox last updated on 19 May 2009

Gee Atherton in the Elite Men's Dual Slalom race at the 2009 Sea Otter Classic in Laguna Seca, CA.

George David Atherton, known as Gee Atherton (born 26 February 1985, near Salisbury, England) is a professional racing cyclist specialising in downhill and four cross mountain bike racing, and is a multiple national champion, multiple World Cup winner, and 2010 downhill World Cup Champion.

Since 2007, Gee has been one third of the Animal Commençal racing team, alongside brother Dan Atherton and sister Rachel Atherton.

Gee, along with Rachael and Dan, is the star of the web series "The Atherton Project" a series which follows their day to day lives. In 2012 Gee will be racing for GT racing.

Gee appeared on the BBC's Top Gear (series 7), racing a Renault Clio down the streets of Lisbon and winning.^[1]

Palmarès[link]

References[link]

External links[link]

• athertonracing.co.uk
• Atherton Racing Profiles, Silverfish
• George Atherton, Doug Cook, Descent World, 2004
• Gee Atherton Interview, British Cycling, 29 April 2006
• An interview with the Athertons, Steve Thomas, Cycling News, 6 September 2007
• Gee Atherton Wins Garbanzo Downhill, NSMB, 10 August 2008

Florence Margaret Smith, known as Stevie Smith (20 September 1902 – 7 March 1971) was an English poet and novelist.

Life[link]

Stevie Smith, born Florence Margaret Smith in Kingston upon Hull, was the second daughter of Ethel and Charles Smith.^[1] She was called "Peggy" within her family, but acquired the name 'Stevie' as a young woman when she was riding in the park with a friend who said that she reminded him of the jockey, Steve Donaghue. Her father was a shipping agent, a business which he had inherited from his father. As the company his marriage began to fall apart, and he ran away to sea and Smith saw very little of her father after that.^[2] He appeared occasionally on 24 hour shore leave and sent very brief postcards ("Off to Valparaiso, Love Daddy"). When she was three years old she moved with her mother and sister to Palmers Green in North London where Smith would live until her death in 1971.^[1] She resented the fact that her father had abandoned his family. Later, when her mother became ill, her aunt Madge Spear (whom Smith called "The Lion Aunt") came to live with them, raised Smith and her elder sister Molly and became the most important person in Smith's life. Spear was a feminist who claimed to have "no patience" with men and, as Smith wrote, "she also had 'no patience' with Hitler". Smith and Molly were raised without men and thus became attached to their own independence, in contrast to what Smith described as the typical Victorian family atmosphere of "father knows best". When Smith was five she developed tubercular peritonitis and was sent to a sanatorium near Broadstairs, Kent, where she remained for three years.^[3] She related that her preoccupation with death began when she was seven, at a time when she was very distressed at being sent away from her mother.^[2] Death and fear fascinated her and provide the subjects of many of her poems.^[4] When suffering from the depression to which she was subject all her life she was so consoled by the thought of death as a release that, as she put it, she did not have to commit suicide. She wrote in several poems that death was "the only god who must come when he is called". Her mother died when Smith was 16 and suffered through her life from an acute nervousness, described as a mix of shyness and intense sensitivity.^[4]

In the Poem "A House of Mercy", she wrote of her childhood house in North London: <poem> It was a house of female habitation, Two ladies fair inhabited the house, And they were brave. For although Fear knocked loud Upon the door, and said he must come in, They did not let him in.^[3] </poem>

Smith was educated at Palmers Green High School and North London Collegiate School for Girls.^[2] She spent the remainder of her life with her aunt, and worked as private secretary to Sir Neville Pearson with Sir George Newnes at Newnes Publishing Company in London from 1923 to 1953. Despite her secluded life, she corresponded and socialized widely with other writers and creative artists, including Elisabeth Lutyens, Sally Chilver, Inez Holden, Naomi Mitchison, Isobel English and Anna Kallin. After she retired from Sir Neville Pearson's service following a nervous breakdown she gave poetry readings and broadcasts on the BBC that gained her new friends and readers among a younger generation. Sylvia Plath became a fan of her poetry, "a desperate Smith-addict", and made an appointment to meet her but killed herself before the meeting could occur.

Smith died of a brain tumour on 7 March 1971.^[1]Her last collection, Scorpion and other Poems was published posthumously in 1972, and the Collected Poems followed in 1975. Three novels were republished and there was a successful play based on her life, Stevie, written by Hugh Whitemore. It was filmed in 1978 by Robert Enders and starred Glenda Jackson and Mona Washbourne.^[5]

She was described by her friends as being naive and selfish in some ways and formidably intelligent in others, having been raised by her aunt as both a spoiled child and a resolutely autonomous woman. Likewise, her political views vacillated between her aunt's Toryism and her friends' left-wing tendencies. Smith was celibate for most of her life, although she rejected the idea that she was lonely as a result, alleging that she had a number of intimate relationships with friends and family that kept her fulfilled. She never entirely abandoned or accepted the Anglican faith of her childhood, describing herself as a "lapsed atheist", and wrote sensitively about theological puzzles;^[6]"There is a God in whom I do not believe/Yet to this God my love stretches." Her 14 page essay of 1958, "The Necessity of Not Believing", concludes "There is no reason to be sad, as some people are sad when they feel religion slipping off from them. there is no reason to be sad, it is a good thing."

Career[link]

Smith wrote three novels, the first of which, Novel on Yellow Paper, was published in 1936. All her novels are lightly fictionalised accounts of her own life, which got her into trouble at times as people recognised themselves.^[4]Smith said that two of the male characters in her last book are different aspects of George Orwell, who was close to Smith (there were even rumours that they were lovers; he was married to his first wife at the time). She also wrote nine volumes of poetry. The first, A Good Time Was Had By All, established her as a poet: soon her poems were found in periodicals. A confessional poet, her style was often very dark; her characters were perpetually saying "goodbye" to their friends or welcoming death. At the same time her work has an eerie levity and can be very funny though it is neither light nor whimsical. "Stevie Smith often uses the word 'peculiar' and it is the best word to describe her effects" (Hermione Lee). She was never sentimental, undercutting any pathetic effects with the ruthless honesty of her humour.^[4]

Apart from death, common subjects include loneliness; myth and legend; absurd vignettes, usually drawn from middle-class British life, war, human cruelty and religion.^[4]Though her poems were remarkably consistent in tone and quality throughout her life, their subject matter changed over time, with less of the outrageous wit of her youth and more reflection on suffering, faith and the end of life. Her best-known poem is Not Waving but Drowning. She was awarded the Cholmondeley Award for Poets in 1966 and won the Queen's Gold Medal for poetry in 1969.^[6]