My grandmother, the tennis champion who escaped the Nazis

Growing up, Felice Hardy knew very little about her grandmother, Liesl, except that she had been a top-class tennis player in Austria before moving to England in the late 1930s. In fact, Liesl had made sporting history, including at Wimbledon - but glossed over it - perhaps because that period of her life had been too terrible to acknowledge.

After she died, Felice started investigating her family's history, and discovered a painful secret that had been kept from her all her life. It would eventually lead her to a new understanding of her grandmother, her mother – and herself. Felice has written a book called The Tennis Champion Who Escaped The Nazis.

(Photo: A black and white photo of Felice Hardy’s grandmother, Liesl Herbst, who smiles towards the camera, sometime in the 1930s. She is wearing tennis whites, holding a tennis racket in her right hand with her left hand on her hip. Credit: Hardy family archive)

Presenter: Jo Fidgen
Producer: Zoe Gelber and Andrea Rangecroft