Brands Hatch, 1951

With women racing on equal terms with many of the men at pre-war Brooklands, it's a surprise that the ladies failed to make much of impression when motor sport resumed after 1945. The influential 500cc Formula Junior class would seem to have been tailor-made for women, it being a class where a light body weight was a great advantage. For whatever reason it was not to be and this newsreel of a ladies race in 1951 gives a good impression of the chauvinism of the times.

By the way the race was won by Elisabeth Store in Alf Bottoms' JPS although the moral victor was the motorcyclist Olga Kevelos - winner of two gold stars in the International Six Days Trial - driving a works Kieft. Olga was winning the race so easily that she was asked to slow down only for Store to surprise her at the finishing line. Joan Gerard, wife of Grand Prix driver Bob, was third in a Cooper.

Rossa?

The blue and white car is John Surtees' Ferrari heading to a World Championship clinching victory at the 1964 Mexican Grand Prix. Enzo Ferrari was having one of his occasional fits of pique against what he perceived as a lack of support from his Italian compatriots. The car was entered under the banner of Chinetti's North American Racing Team, hence the American racing colours.

Llanbadarn Fawr

Pictured is a detail of the tympanum at Llanbadarn Fawr church in Radnorshire. For an English expert "a weak copy of the West Herefordshire school" or for an expert of more Welsh sympathy "the closest in character to the illuminations of the older manuscript tradition."

The tree growing out of a cat's head? The nine-pointed star? Mysteries which no-one has explained. How strange that we search the world for mysteries yet so often ignore those on our own doorsteps.

Brooklands 130-MPH Badge

Collectors of Brooklands memorabilia are getting excited about a forthcoming sale which will feature Kit Baker-Carr's 130-mph badge. Just 16 of these badges were awarded to drivers who lapped the Outer Track at over 130 miles per hour. The 16 were Kaye Don, John Cobb. George Eyston, Oliver Bertram, Dudley Froy, Whitney Straight, Charles Brackenbury, Chris Staniland, Freddy Dixon, Richard Marker, Lord Howe, Kit Baker-Carr, Jack Duller, George Harvey Noble, and two lady racers Kay Petre and Gwenda Hawkes.

Nowadays when a woman circulating mid-field in some obscure racing series is cited as evidence of feminist progress, it's interesting to note that more than 70 years ago their sisters were mixing it with the very fastest of the men.

Radnorshire Bardic Poems, 33

This is an elegy composed by Lewis Glyn Cothi to Rhys and Owain ap Philip of Cenarth in the parish of St Harmon. They were the grandsons of Owain Glyndwr.

189, Elegy for the two sons of Philip ap Rhys

Rhys and Owain were mighty of face like the ash,
The hand and arm of St Harmon;
From Gwerthrynion they went
To heaven, to see Non.

Oh Non and Caron! Oh Iorys!
His choir needed the deer of Philip ap Rhys.
Oh my Jesus! Oh Mauricius!
Now their shirts linger beneath the stones.

Two shirts without sleeves for gentle folk,
Long is the yearning and grief;
Two coats made from the ribs of the oak,
Two gowns from heaven and earth.

Earth is the end,
The proud ignominy of the grave,
A strange revenge, to steal Rhys!

Owain was the youngest,
He and his oldest brother
Were the most generous, the tallest like pine trees.

Cenarth is cheerless
Without the falcons of Deheubarth,
So too the courtyard of Sycharth in the two lands of Powys.

There is no land without drink,
No township without custom,
A hand is not useful without finger or thumb.

Their generous father’s land
Is left without benefit, without their fair brows
Without their grip, without their two fingers.

A husband and wife
Are left weak by the loss of two chieftains,
And from placing two stones over their two shrouds.

They were the thumbs of Bedwyr
They were the marshals of the host,
They were two eagles, like ancient Cyrys.

Two hands their two shores
Two waters, two shields,
Two places, two vineyards, from the same fair court.

These two were,
Over seas, over lands,
For thousands they were Lludd and Llefelys.

Brothers who loved poetry,
They gave to the bards,
After the manner of the Wales of Uthr and Emrys.

I cry out to God in heaven,
I do so in anger,
A cry again and again after that.

The lions of Gwenllian
Swim in the heavens,
They went from the court to the churchyard.

Two men who had land,
Two saints of a prince,
Two privileged goshawks of the land’s parishes.

Two lands with two shores,
Secure their inheritance,
Heaven at last is their share, Owain and Rhys.

100RMI

Although 5BPH is perhaps the better known of Innes Ireland's Lotus Elevens, his second car 100RMI certainly brought the Scotsman more major successes. A 2nd in class in the 1958 Rouen 3 Hour event was followed by a class win (see picture with co-driver Peter Lovely) in the Reims 12 hour race. Innes then took the car to an overall victory over the Ferraris in the Trophee d'Auvergne on the new Clermont Ferrand circuit. A class win at the Ollon-Villars hillclimb completed a successful Continental season.

The car although sometimes entered under the Team Lotus banner was infact owned and prepared by Innes. The number plate of course stands for Robert McGregor Innes and it was an Irish registered car - a Wexford plate.

Drum Ddu

In the previous poem it seems to me that Lewis Glyn Cothi alludes to the area within the Builth hundred that harboured outlaws - Drum Ddu. We know that Lewis was an outlaw himself at one period, so he may have know the area from then - the outlaw bard Llywelyn ap y Moel almost certainly did. Drum Ddu continued as a rebel stronghold well into the sixteenth century and even later - no doubt it was more heavily wooded then than it is today.

Anyway, this enables me to make a tenuous link to the fretless bass player Percy Jones, who included a track entitled Drum Ddu on the Brand X album Manifest Destiny. Now jazz fusion is not my scene but you can check out Radnorshire born Percy's interesting website here. One thing mentioned on the site is a CD of R&B tracks made from an old tape recording of The Viceroys playing at Glasbury Village Hall in 1965. In a way that CD must be almost as fragile and rare a piece of historical evidence as some of the manuscripts containing the old bardic poetry.

Radnorshire Bardic Poems, 32

This poem begins with praise of St Afan, so was probably composed for a parish feast to celebrate the saint's feastday - 16th October. the Patron of the feast Dafydd ap Maredudd belongs to the major descent group in Buellt, the Moelwyniaid. Lewis Glyn Cothi again alludes to an ancient manuscript roll in his possession, to which he adds the names of his own patrons.

No. 139, Praise of Dafydd ap Maredudd and Siwan vz Rhys

I have fashioned verse for you Afan of Buellt,
I have poems as numerous as dewdrops;
The son of Caredig C’redigion,
You are Afan, so true writing confirms,
Son of Cunedda Wledig, a good, wise man,
Backbone of the wealthy lands,
Son of Edeyrn of the race of the generous
Padarn Peisrudd, like a sprout from Israel,
Kinsman in the faith to Holy Dewi,
Kinsman of dark-fair Teilo the anchorite,
A bishop in your triple cope,
You are a saint of their lineage.

In your parish there is a divine Welshman,
He has the parish to follow him;
Dafydd the son of Maredudd,
Part of the silkwork of Llysdinan,
Of the line of generous Ieuan ap Morgan,
A lion of the land of Buellt and her splendid material.
Except for Dafydd, there is no man
More like Ieuan ap Moelwyn.

Truth grows from the words of his tongue,
Truth is what the man seeks.
There is not a word that is not honoured,
Yet only truth goes to the chair.
His tongue is the ready bragget
That varnishes judgements.
There were seven who counted the stars,
Many suppose, in the vale of Tiber;
Their seven tales to the nation
Protected a child after breakfast.;
Dafydd is the eighth,
His tale will come to his son.

The God of the Hebrews, to my breast
Has given an old rolled manuscript.
Just as he placed in Moses’ tablet
Ten commandments at the end of the roll,
Two names - they are not of the same age -
Have been placed in my heavenly roll:
The name of Jesus who was and will be,
In the tablet, and the name of Dafydd.

Two speeches, by Mary, were on my lip
Yesterday, yet spoken by Taliesin:
They were a speech concerning the psalters of Mary,
And Siwan’s speech of welcome.
A daughter of Rhys, with five fingers from the bank,
Is youthful, talented Siwan.
The Enid of Gruffydd this white wave,
A fair spoken grandchild of Ricert;
An Euron of the race of Anarawd,
A portent in her five years of fortune.
To Buellt, there as she grows,
The sun of Cantre’ Selyf has turned,
To Llanafan, a heavenly spot,
To Llysdinam, above the river meadow.
The best court between the Wye and the church
For a talented lad, Llysdinan.
I aim for Rhos Dinan,
I go to the peak of Caer Ddinan.
I’m not to be had, I’ve no wish, ever,
To be more than two steps from the castle of Dinan the Giant.

Siwan is in fair Llysdinan,
Dafydd, humble his words.
Today Dafydd and Siwan,
Both call for a feat on a fair headland.
Little Siwan is good for profit,
Dafydd is good and young,
They are good to everyone, all are good,
They were so kind, God be kind to them.

Radnorshire Bardic Poems, 31

Another praise poem by the fifteenth century bard Lewis Glyn Cothi which yet again reflects his great regard for the cantref of Elfael. Ieuan Du and Lleucu vz Ieuan Coch lived in the parish of Diserth, probably at Trecoed.

No 152, Praise of Ieuan Du and Lleucu vz Ieuan Coch

I walked through many lands
When I was footloose and free;
I saw with my own eyes
The riches of those evil countries;
I saw that their wealth was not to be had,
Not a score of their race were generous;
In Elfael I found bountiful folk,
There is no more generous land than this.

In Elfael on our own doorstep,
There is good fun and generosity;
In Elfael, the patrimony of the men,
There are warriors once more;
In Elfael, the land of Mael of the mead,
In crisis there is courage.
Here there is one of my nation
Who would hold the two lands once more:
Generous Ieuan Du, a leaping stag,
It is he, the son of Dafydd.
They talk throughout the five counties
Of the lineage of Hywel ap Meilyr;
I brought here for sale
A song for the goshawk of Diserth;
He gave me, and not sullenly
Three times its worth, and a little more.

There was once a lion in the town of Caerleon,
With his men of the Round Table;
He conquered, and shared with them,
Townships as far as Rome.
Ieuan has been a faithful pupil
To Arthur of old,
He has conquered, and will do so again,
In six places in Uwch Mynydd.

For Ieuan there is a hall
Entirely made of carved wood.
There within its walls
Is all that warms a resting man:
The warmth of food and discussion,
The warmth of gold, followed by verses,
The warmth of wine inside one,
The warmth of another silver coin.
Ieuan and his fair mistress
Share with all who are present.

There you’ll meet cheerful Lleucu,
A famous host, the daughter of Ieuan Coch;
She is the grandchild of Cadwgan,
He is the grandchild of Meilyr’s son.
A proverb, by the face of Non,
The kindness of these people;
They are the best of our country,
Sowing minted gold, providing mead.
Their mothers, their fathers,
Their brothers up in the vale of Edw,
Their children will be the strength of our land,
Their grandchildren will be honoured.
These two, a fine adventure,
Will excel over all others.

Jesus placed Lleucu under an oath,
Giving her hand to this prince;
He granted a wealth of power, Iefan,
And in that power and her share;
He granted tenants, he granted houses,
He granted fine soil, he granted good land,
He granted gold coins to him and to her,
Now grant them a long life.

Monte Carlo 1932

Click photo to enlarge

Joan Richmond

The very first VSCC Welsh Weekend was held in Presteigne in 1939, and second place in that year's event went to the racing driver Joan Richmond driving a Lancia Lambda. Joan came to prominence in 1921 by driving a Citroen from her home town of Melbourne to Camooweal in Western Australia. Coming to Europe her biggest success was in the 1932 JCC 1000 mile event at Brooklands which she won with Elsie Wisdom in a Riley. Returning to Australia after the war she lacked the funds to continue racing but found a sporting outlet in sailing inexpensive Sabot yachts.

I wonder how much of a challenge Joan found the Radnorshire hills, after all this was a lady who drove her Riley to the start of the 1932 Monte Carlo Rally from Australia via Asia and the Middle East!

In the News

There's a profile of Innes Ireland in today's edition of the Scottish newspaper the Sunday Herald. Read it here.

Radnorshire Bardic Poems, 30

This is a praise poem by Lewis Glyn Cothi to Watcyn Fychan of Hergest

No. 127, Praise of Watcyn Fychan

Mary has made a heaven of the present
In the estate of fair Herast,
And Master Watcyn, God, a powerful father,
Has made into a man of estate.
Estate is being strong,
Being wise to give judgement;
Estate is the charge of two kindreds
And the ruling of others.
Many judgements with the white harness
From whence comes the saint of Gwallter Sais.
He is the sword form Dover to Glasbury,
And along the Humber, Tomas's chieftain.

He would be a generous prophet,
Sixty acres will fall into place;
He would silence and be heard,
The truth comes from the quiet prayer.
Gwatcyn, who gathers and calms,
Who compels with weapons.
Gentle and wild, moorland and wood,
In my opinion, so unalike.
With the spear he causes
The rebellious to loose men,
He does not make peace
For the hosts who come to war.
Gwatcyn is a wise-bloom
Slow-brave, witty-wise.
He subdues the men of the lowlands
With his fair words,
Some of the fearless out of fear of battle,
Some others out of love.
Abaying the two lands of Powys
With the tip of a finger.
Not Dudley nor the Duke nor their men
Have done as much as he.

The land of Powys, mother of the mead,
Is his kindred, and Gwynedd.
Let there be called beneath his banner
Eighteen lands, they'll come to him:
Cedewian and Caereinion,
Ceri and broad Arwystli,
From London to great Mechain,
From Cyfeiliog to Maelor.
By now he rules a hundred castles,
A hundred great townships, a hundred healthy crowds,
A hundred citadels before the conquest ends,
A hundred companies with a hundred spear-rests,
A hundred stallions, the first of a thousand,
From a hundred to twenty thousand;
He seeks a core of counties along the border,
Twenty lands follow him,
Twenty seals from the heights of Windsor,
Twenty offices for my great lord.

Watcyn at the limits of his lands
Is honoured as a baron;
His credible father was a baron,
Their great-grandfathers were barons;
He is a baron without a word gone to waste,
He shall be a tall earl, the lion of Herast.

A Few Words About

Ivy Leona Cummings was born in London 27th October 1900, the daughter of car dealer Sydney Cummings. She achieved some early celebrity when she lapped the Brooklands track at aged twelve after sneaking onto the circuit in her father's car. After the Great War Cummings raced at Brooklands, on the sand at Skegness and in France. You can see some early film of her in 1921, winning a race in France follow this link and click on view the story. In 1926 the Cummings Bugatti led the Grand Prix de Boulogne for the first three laps before overturning in a ditch on lap four - the three laps accounted for a quarter of the 448 kilometer race. Cummings married a radiologist Dr Henry Warren-Collins who persuaded her to give up the track. She died in London 4th December 1971.

More Memorabilia

Here's an interesting item, currently on sale at ebay.

The seller states "This example was believed to have belonged to former F1 Lotus driver - the late Innes Ireland. It is thought that he modified the standard mounting bracket to allow the badge to be fitted through the radiator grille of his vintage 3 litre Bentley." That would explain why there is no identifying detail such as a name or membership number - which is usually to be found on the mounting bracket.

The price at the moment is a paltry £28.50, about 100 times less than the price paid for a "Jim Clark" badge a few months ago. The word is that the BRDC retain ownership of these badges although I don't know if they actually take any steps to get their property back. Who knows, they might, after all Innes was the BRDC president back in the early 90s.

Update: The badge finally sold for £125. A pre-war Ivy Cummings badge, and as a woman she would only have been an honorary member, sold on ebay for £511 a couple of months ago. I guess the poor condition and lack of provenance counted against this item.

Auction Watch

This piece of Ireland memorabilia is coming up for auction at next week's Cheltenham racecourse sale. The goblet was awarded for fifth place in the 1964 Austrian Grand Prix - with his usual luck Innes was headed for a podium finish before a broken tappet saw him having to nurse the BRP home in a race won by Lorenzo Bandini's Ferrari.

The goblet was sold for £276 in the rather overheated Sotheby's sale of March 1997. At Cheltenham H&H are estimating between £50 and £80.

White pages

Great fun, looking through the Radnorshire phonebook for 1922. What a go ahead place Llandod was with 146 numbers listed, Builth had a respectable 40, with Knighton (16), Presteigne (12) and Rhayader (10) lagging behind. The villages are hardly represented at all with four numbers listed for both Newbridge and New Radnor. I'll post some interesting snippets another time, just one motor racing connection for now: The family of the famous pre-war racer Tim Rose-Richards are listed. They lived at Caer Beris in Builth from 1918 to 1923.

Radnorshire Bardic Poems, 29

In the fifteenth century Ieuan ap Philip rebuilt a part of Cefnllys Castle. In this praise poem Lewis Glyn Cothi describes the rebuilding. At the end of the poem some of the lines are lost.

No. 171, Praise of Ieuan ap Philip

The famous man of the dominion
Within the yard of Cefnllys,
Ieuan, his frownless body,
The son of Philip, a fond sight.
Truly in his black face
The dignity of Philip Dorddu.
The blessing of Ifor ap Maredudd,
Ieuan, placed on his cheek.
Ieuan is, by my life,
The right-hand of the world's knowledge.
As for face, he allows no folly,
Auburn black with a wise tongue.

For the land he builds a court,
Like an earl's house from a three court mould.
Turning three into one house,
A tower of Tewdwr's five sons.
It, too, grew together,
A close of shields, so very snug.
Three woodlands of pale oak
Have been jointed together.
As wide as the house of Llyr Llediaith,
His work is a moon of lime like an altar.
An architect with a line fashioned
A grove of trees within a white napkin.
A yard like the church of Oswallt,
A crown of obligation above the slope of the river cliff,
An enclosure of planks,
For Ieuan it is Corfran's citadel.

The lion has made in Cefnllys
A hundred high lofts above a single court;
The axe of Rhosier ab Owain
Has hewn them in a bondwood.
He's made a new hall for a wage
Second to the hall of Arthur;
For Ieuan, on a night of feasting,
It is an Ehangwen in Maelienydd.
Everyone comes there to a Dewi,
Across the three seas at Whitsun,
And the Dewi is Ieuan;
And his fortified court on the bank's edge,
By the hand of Curig, is like
The stone building of St David's Menevia.
The fair court is the same colour as a relic,
A holy Enlli is Cefnllys.
It was an improvement on the others,
An altar for the grandsons of Ifor.
This wood yard shines,
A college like the church of St Mary,
A light like the church of St John,
All is bright atop a bank.

Ieuan from his hall
Shares his rent with every grade.
Ieuan is good and carefree,
He holds two lordships.
He is twice as good..........
Black his fac........
He provides the weak with alms,
God is Ieuan's guardian.

Book of the Month

This self-published book by Joe Saward details the lives of the famous racers Grover-Williams, Robert Benoist and Jean-Pierre Wimille. Although it covers the driving careers, the main thrust of the book is concerned with their activities in the French Resistance and with the Special Operations Executive. Benoist was executed at Buchenwald in 1944, Williams survived at Sachsenhausen until March 1945 while Wimille - perhaps the leading driver in the years immediately before the World Drivers Championship came into being in 1950 - was killed during practice for the Buenos Aries Grand Prix of 1949.

The book claims that Benoist's arrest was the result of information obtained by the Germans from SOE heroine Violette Szabo. This is a controversial claim and I would like to read some reviews of Saward's evidence from experts in this field, at present the only reviews I have seen come from the motor racing side. Saward quotes a conclusion by SOE historian Michael Foot which to my uninformed eyes seems very unfair to Szabo "the ghastly story of Violette Szabo's suffering is so far as I can ascertain completely fictitious". I have read that Foot's SOE history was written purely from documents held by the SOE and that he conducted no interviews with surviving agents. Subsequently Foot was successfully sued by SOE agent Peter Churchill and also by R. J. Minney, the author of the book about Szabo "Carve Her Name With Pride". Far from Szabo's suffering being "completely fictitious" her cellmate at Limoges reports that Violette was raped by her interrogators. By the time he wrote his Dictionary of National Biography entry on Szabo, Foot seems to have revised his opinion of Szabo's treatment, he writes "brutal interrogations got nothing out of her but contempt." None of this is mentioned by Saward.

Grand Prix Saboteurs has Szabo betraying the Paris safehouse where Benoist was arrested. The evidence for this were German documents seen by Benoist and others while under arrest and interrogation at the Gestapo's Avenue Foch headquarters. Why did the Germans allow these documents to be read? A second question, how do we know that Benoist was able to see these documents? The source is Benoist's son-in-law Andre Garnier, who seems to have been able to speak to Benoist at the Avenue Foch. I find this all unconvincing.

Joe Saward has done motor racing history a service by detailing the heroic lives of Grover-Williams and Benoist. I look forward to reading some informed reviews of this book.

Radnorshire Bardic Poems, 28

Here’s an ode by Lewis Glyn Cothi praising the family of Phelpod ap Rhys of Brilley.

No 145, Praise to the four sons of Phelpod ap Rhys

Four entangled oak roots to Cynon,
Who maintainer four courts,
Four lambs of St Peter,
Four earls of Phelpod ap Rhys.
Four who speak as one, so that some would not
Dare to venture a finger’s step from them,
Are they not four fair girdles
From the stout house of Phelpod ap Rhys?
Four corners for the land like the four fingers of a hand,
Four lions from the same court,
Are they not fair like four guiding heads,
The golden tapers of Phelpod ap Rhys.
The grandsons of Rhys share one design
With Phelpod ap Rhys of the land of the Isle of Honey,
To welcome the poets and storytellers,
To desire for knotted gold and song.
In the summer I have Dafydd’s gold freely,
The gold of Rhys I’ve had upon my clothes,
The gold of Sion, in gifts, given eagerly,
The white-hot gold of Tomas of the same temper.
The mead of Dafydd was had, like the Teme,
The mead of Rhys, to my waist, like the water of Egwad,
The mead of Sion, an ocean to my eyes,
The blue mead of Tomas, such as his father made.
What better four under the moon?
Best the four who share a single love.
Four angels of God set amongst us,
Four sons of Phelpod, supreme lions,
Four gospel books, their feast is not denied,
Four sons of Phelpod of one exaltation,
Four waters of Paradise of one content,
Four lances of Phelpod between four lands,
Four corners of the earth, of one appearance,
Four stags of Phelpod between four battles,
Four gifts of mankind, they fight as one,
Four notes of Phelpod, from his seed and stock,
Four prime feats, a lamp for all the country,
Four arms of Phelpod against four treasons,
Four main winds, let there be four experiences,
Four sons of Phelpod in reconciliation,
For Maels of Elfael, from brow to pate,
For Mays of Brilley where all are treated,
Four beryl stones who would greet me,
From four beryl stones let there be seed and progeny.
Let there be seed like that from a young salmon,
From four knowledgeable lions,
From four marvellous brothers,
From four saplings of the oak of Rhys