A short history of the Paralympic Games

It began more than 60 years ago almost as a hospital sports day in Buckinghamshire .

Today the Paralympic flame burns brightly in our region, heading towards London and the start of the Games on Thursday. More than 4,000 athletes from across the world will be competing in 20 sports.

Margaret Maughan and Sally Haynes were patients at Stoke Mandeville in the fifties after both were paralysed in accidents. Like others they were persuaded to take up archery and fencing as part of their rehabilitation. Revolutionary at the time but it changed their lives completely.

Margaret went on to win Britain's first ever Paralympic gold medal in Rome in 1960.

The Paralympic Games owe their origin to the vision of Dr Ludwig Guttmann, a doctor at Stoke Mandeville - the world renowned spinal injuries hospital.

In 1948 he organised an archery competition in which sixteen injured servicemen and women took part.

Four years later it became the International Stoke Mandeville Games as Dutch ex-servicemen were also invited to compete.

In 1960, the first ever Paralympic Games. It took place in Rome, with 400 athletes from 23 countries and has been held every four years since.

At short notice, Stoke Mandeville hosted the Games in 1984. What's been achieved here is a source of great pride to Doctor Guttman's daughter.

"I'm terribly, terribly proud of him of course - it's a wonderful legacy he has left all thse athletes and they really are - they're not disabled sportsmen, they're sportsmen who happen to be disabled."

Sitting volleyball's one of the sports that will be keenly contested. In the British team is Martine Wright from Tring in Hertfordshire who lost both legs in the London bombings in 2005

All very different to when Margaret and Sally competed in those early Games.