Around the Lake

I've discussed might have been racing circuits in Radnorshire before, here. An anonymous poster even mentioned that TT rider Malcolm Uphill had assessed the possiblity of a track around Llandod Lake. Now a new fan of the blog sends me this cutting, from the December 1963 issue of Motor Cyclist Illustrated.

I guess it dates back to a time when the local council actually wanted to do something positive for the town.

Llandrindod's Inner Gateway

Who knew that Llandrindod had an Inner Gateway. I've always thought of it as a Victorian town but Powys County Council must have discovered some medieval town walls because they're ready to mark that inner gateway with some exciting new works of art. Phillipa Lawrence, see her work here and Tony Stallard, here, are the artists who are going to put Llandod on the map with works of "national importance".

Councillor David Peter urges the townsfolk to get involved. Well I'm not from Llandrindod but I'm certainly one of the County's long-suffering council tax payers, so here goes. The main argument used in favour of these works of art, at least when talking down to us philistines, seems to be bringing tourists into the town. OK, why not go for something big and vandal proof like the Giant Merino (pictured) .... maybe, given the town's sporting history, a couple of giant bowls ... one black one, one white one.

More from the Summer of '62

Still August 1962 and future Grand Prix racer Brian Redman takes his Morgan through Woodcote in that year's Six Hour Relay, before handing over to Builth Wells driver .... I'll repeat that for effect Builth Wells driver ... Bob Duggan.

The Morgan team covered 298 laps and finished a close second.

Apologies

Apologies to regular readers of this blog for the lack of posts recently, it's due to connection problems. Anyway in the meantime here's a picture of Miss Enid Riddell - Le Mans racer and Nazi sympathiser - standing next to a fat bloke with a Hitler moustache.

Jack Turner

Interested in Welsh sports and racing car manufacturer Jack Turner? You could do worse than read this on ebay. If there's a record for the most informative ebay item description this must be in the running! I guess it will only be up for the next week but well worth reading in the meantime.

By the way I notice that I've overlooked some requests for information that have come-up in the comments sections of various posts. Apologies. I'll switch on the function that emails me when comments are placed on the site.

Crockett, the Lion-Conqueror

James Crockett, the Lion-conqueror was born around 1831 in Presteigne, the son of a circus musician and the 6'9'' Miss Cross, the Nottinghamshire giantess. His Radnorshire birthplace is confirmed in the 1851 census as well as in contemporary newspaper reports.

At first Crockett followed his father's profession by playing in the band of Sanger's Circus, but weakened lungs saw him take on the role of lion-tamer. In 1861 Crockett shot to fame when his lions escaped into Astleys Amphitheatre, killing a young lad in the process. Armed only with a whip the lion-conqueror succeeded in returning the beasts to their cage.

Having played in Paris, Berlin, Vienna and St Petersburg, Crockett crossed the Atlantic to the United States in 1864 and it was there the following year that he died. The Lion-Conqueror dropped dead after having spent the morning riding in a 4th of July procession in Cincinnati wearing a tin helmet inspite of the intense heat.

Radnorshire Bardic Poems, 43

It seems ages since I posted a translation of a bardic poem addressed to a patron in what became Radnorshire. I haven't run out there are dozens more to come I'm afraid! This is one of Lewis Glyn Cothi's praise poems addressed to Ieuan ap Llywelyn of Crug Eryr, Llanfihangel Nant Melan and his wife Edudful vz Maredudd. Clud by the way is the Welsh name for Radnor Forest, metheglin was a spirit made from honey.

Poem 167, Praise of Ieuan ap Llywelyn and Edudful vz Maredudd.

In Nant Melan there is a hearth
Within the palace of a fair, cheerful prince;
God's blessings to the wise goodman,
Good day to a wise and gentle goodwoman:
Light, bright, swift Ieuan,
His name and his claim are under Clud;
Edudful with her dark blond husband
Fill all with food and drink.
Land and fire cannot be mentioned
Except in the context of the swan of Nant Melan,
And Edudful's diligent bard
Has called her "a second Sunday".
Llywelyn Fychan like Ilar,
Was twice as strong as an oak;
Ieuan, his son, possesses
The same strength and quality.
Maredudd Fychan, the best in Britain,
Generous, of the main line of old Noah;
Edudful, his daughter, came
With his hand and his greeting.

If over Maesyfaidd, Iefan
Has the status of Joachim and his roots,
Then every Sunday Edudful is
Like an Anna in Maelienydd.
A wife and husband in pure white fur
Who give their gold, these two,
Who give alms to the poor,
Who feed ale to this province.
Every day, every night, he is
Before the table of the wise folk,
Foods, vegetables in summer,
Butter, soups in the winter,
Metheglin from the bees of the woodland,
The first drawing of the Weobley ale,
This is the court that is
Full of the nine joys,
People of good humour,
A hundred there, or more.
Their two sons, by the Sacrifice!
Will become one increase and power;
Gwilym and Rhys are two columns,
The strong roots of the tree of paradise,
The two shoots fill the earth,
And wise Ieuan is the old oak.
His children both grow
On the ancient vine of Nannau;
One is a post in Llanbister,
A yew tree that keeps his word,
The other is the pillar of Crug Eryr,
That grows like a fir tree.
Two roots from the grandfather's cot
Who count the gold of the Iforites,
Two princes of Bran's royal blood,
Two green oaks of the wood of Elystan
Two sons like Gradifael,
Truly Jesus will form them.

Good health to the mother and father, amen,
Were old Noah indeed healthy,
Were any one of their land old,
Gwilym and Rhys will live as long.

Gentlemen, Start Your Engines

It's 1959 and the London-Devon Rally is hardly one of the major events in the calendar, but yes, the organisers have somehow persuaded Miss Jayne Mansfield to flag the cars away. Could have got hold of a bigger flag though.

Llandrindod Uncovered

What to say about this book about growing up and living in Llandrindod Wells in the 1950s and beyond? It isn't well written but it is certainly a page turner and the rhymes, while giving McGonagall a run for his money, usually have something interesting to say.

Mr Roberts certainly doesn't echo the words of the Reverend Eli Jenkins' prayer, he seems to prefer to see the worst side rather than the best in quite a few of those who cross his path. The book can seem cruel and thoughtless, only the author's opinions appear to count, with little or no regard for the feelings of others. It has all the fascination of the gossip column and will no doubt prove a gold-mine for local historians in year's to come.

Growing up around the same time as the author and living not a million miles from Llandrindod Wells, I recognize quite a few of the characters who populate this book. Somehow, I never got to meet Ken Roberts and on the evidence of No Stamps in My Passport that's a fact for which I am fairly grateful. A book that is well worth buying and reading, although some may wish to contact a solicitor after doing so..

A Film Show

I'm afraid I blame most of societies present day ills on a combination of project work in primary schools and the malign unforeseen consequences of Jeremy Sandford's influential television programme Cathy Come Home. The later helped create our social problems while the former means that no-one will ever get around to actually doing something to cure them. Whatever, it was interesting to read Jeremy's account of a film show held in New Radnor in the house of local doctor and amateur film-maker Dick Jobson. It's quite a long piece but you can read it here. One of those in attendance was "racing motorist" Innes Ireland who turned up in a Ferrari. In all probability this was the Ferrari 250 GTO in which he won the 1962 Tourist Trophy. Innes quite often used this as a road-car, indeed his wife used it to do her shopping.

Book of the Month

Yet another worthwhile book from the excellent Herefordshire publisher Logaston, please check here for details.

One of the most annoying things about the many films and television series about Elizabeth Tudor is the way in which they nearly always deny the presence of English regional accents at the Queen's court. Despite the historical inaccuracy everyone is shown as speaking with Received Pronunciation, indeed there was a controversy in the press a few years ago when Mary Queen of Scots was played by a Frenchwoman. A few critics couldn't bear the fact that the actress did not speak RP, even though the historical Mary spoke French and Scots.

These films and television series also exclude the many Welsh speaking individuals at the court of a Queen the historian A. L. Rowse described as a "red-haired Welsh harridan." Not the least among them was Blanche Parry, the Chief Gentlewoman of the Privy Chamber, the Queen's companion and confidante for 56 years.

It says a lot about the relationship between Wales and England that this is one of the few English penned books to use Welsh bardic sources to illuminate the history of the period. The author has had nine bardic poems translated and two are quoted in full in the book. It will no doubt come as a surprise to many to learn that Herefordshire south of the Wye - Blanche Parry was from the parish of Bacton - was Welsh in speech in the sixteenth century and beyond; and that the gentry of the area were such great supporters of the bardic tradition.

Many Welsh readers are, of course, aware of all of this, but it is rare indeed see an English book using bardic poems as source material. In the same way it is rare to see a book from Herefordshire that recognizes the Welsh character of large parts of that county.

Grand Prix Wives, 5

A long time since I added the names of any drivers wives from Motor Racing's dangerous years, so here are a few more. Dorine Dutoya was the wife of Willy Mairesse, and another great Belgian driver Oliver Gendebien was married to Marie-Claire Ango de Flers. Of course Helen McGregor was and still is married to Jackie Stewart, while Loti Lucas, who was married to Chris Irwin, still posts regularly on the TNF forum.

No-one seems very interested in these women other than on the usual babe front. Time moves on and I guess it is unlikely that their story is ever going to be told, a shame really as it would have made a change from the rivet counting that makes up so much of motor racing history. In many ways it was a tragic story with so many of these girls being widowed or divorced in more tranquil times after the stressful years of racing had ended.

Might Have Been Team

Although Alf Francis' book Racing Mechanic 1948-58 is generally considered to be one of the classics of Motor Racing literature, the Polish born spannerman himself is a figure of some controversy. To many he is one of the great characters of post-war racing, an intuitive engineer and someone whose hard work and determination kept the Rob Walker team on the road. For others he was "a mechanic with ambitions above his station" whose lash-ups were responsible for Moss's career ending 1962 crash.

In any case by the mid-60s Alf had removed himself to Modena where he went into partnership with Italian transmission specialist Valerio Colotti. For the 1965 season Ecurie Alf Francis purchased the old BRP transporter and two Cooper T72's with the intention of competing in the recently revived Formula 2 category. With Colotti transmission and an Alfa Romeo engine developed by Giancarlo Rebecchi, it was announced that the cars would be driven by Innes Ireland, Jo Siffert and a young Frenchman, Bernard Plaisance.

Innes and Siffert were listed to compete at the Oulton Park Spring Trophy meeting in early April but the cars failed to appear. This was to be the story for the rest of the year, non-attendance, non-qualification and just a couple of starts for Siffert and Plaisance. A 10th place for Seppi in the Pergusa Grand Prix, a circuit where a week later the Swiss driver would beat Clark in a closely fought Formula One race, was the only finish that Alf's team could manage.

Innes Ireland never got to turn a wheel in anger in the revived Formula 2 races of the mid and late Sixties. Alf Francis had flourished in the buccaneering 1950s but in the more technical atmosphere of the 1960s his time had passed.

"He will let his bleeding heart run away with his bloody head!"

George Lansbury (1859-1940) MP for Bow and Bromley was the leader of the Labour Party between 1932 and 1935 and like Nye Bevan - although see below - his maternal roots are to be found in Radnorshire.

In Lansbury's case his mother Mary Ann Ferries was born and raised in a cottage called Dolly Dingle in the parish of Clyro, the daughter of a Gloucestershire born mole catcher Moses and his locally born wife Catherine Jenkins. The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography is wrong, by the way, to think that Mary Ann's father was called James. Perhaps the variant spellings of the surname in various records, Ferris and Ferriers as well as Ferries, has confused searchers.

Lansbury was the grandfather of actress Angela Lansbury and also of the animator Oliver Postgate, creator of the Clangers ( see photo)

Footnote I believe it was the Michael Foot biography which claimed that Aneurin Bevan's English speaking mother Phoebe Protheroe came from Radnorshire. In reality she was born in Tredegar. Her blacksmith father did however come from that part of the parish of Glasbury that lay south of the river Wye. Up until 1832 this was indeed part of Radnorshire, although after that date it was transferred to Breconshire. As Phoebe's father was born around 1818, he at least was a Radnorian.

"As black a traitor as if he had been born in Builth"

Let me hasten to explain that it was the Victorian novelist Mrs Gaskell and not myself who slandered the good folk of Builth with the quotation that heads this post.

In any case let us rescue another son of Radnorshire from any association, however unfair, with Bradwyr Buellt. According to wikipedia David Milwyn Duggan (pictured), leader of the Conservative Party of Alberta and mayor of the city of Edmonton was born in Builth in 1879. In actual fact Duggan was born and raised at Hundred House Mill, in the parish of Llansantffraid yn Elfael, Radnorshire.

Caesar Jenkyns

I suppose it's understandable that the little Breconshire town of Builth Wells would want to claim former Wesh soccer International and captain of Woolwich Arsenal Caesar Augustus Llewellyn Jenkyns as one of their own, but is it true?

The census returns tell a different story, as this son of a policeman in the old Radnorshire Constabulary seems actually to have been born in the village of Boughrood, which is, of course, on the correct side of the river Wye.

By the way if you think Caesar Augustus was an unusual name, his younger, Cwmteuddwr born brother, was called Plato.

Sin and Other Matters

The Rhayader boy who supposedly disappeared into thin air is a reminder of an Australian version of the tale which was the inspiration for Picnic at Hanging Rock. The film, of course, starred Llanelli Baptist minister's daughter Rachel Roberts. There's a recent post about Rachel on that interesting Cardiff blog Babylon Wales, read it here.

Anyway here's the local connection: back in the late 1940s, while she was attending Aberystwyth University, Rachel shared a house in Borth with, amongst others, a fellow student, Llanafan born poet, T Harri Jones. Someone really should make a film about that seaside house. Rachel's sexual and chemical excesses were such that the Swinging Sixties really took off in Borth in the 1940's.

The Strange Case of Oliver Thomas

I remember reading about this in some pot-boiler back in the 60s and it's interesting to see that it's still being pedalled around the internet. Briefly the story goes as follows:

On Christmas Eve, 1909, an 11-year-old lad called Oliver Thomas of Rhayader went outside to fetch water from the well. His family heard him screaming for help but when they went to look for him he could not be found, although his footprints in the snow could be seen ending halfway to the well. In a nice twist the boy continued to be heard sobbing for a number of days, although he had disappeared, without trace, into thin air.

It seems that this story is a version of another tall tale, the disappearance of Oliver Larch. I guess if you are going to concoct a story of the supernatural it's best to set it somewhere slightly weird and out of the way, no doubt Rhayader fitted the bill admirably.

Sir Chicken

Innes Ireland gets a mention in today's Sunday Times interview with Jackie Stewart:

"The attitude of some drivers was even more curious. Innes Ireland, the first Scot to win an F1 grand prix, regarded Stewart as a “chicken”. The Belgian driver Jacky Ickx was another opposed to change. “Innes was a real brave guy,” Stewart recalls. “He’d had some terrible accidents and survived, but I think he regarded it as part of the culture. Jacky didn’t much like the ideal either . . . he wanted to uphold the purity of it."

As it happens Innes had a very high opinion of Stewart's ability as a racing driver, better than Clark and the nearest thing to Moss amongst all those that he had raced against. Jackie, of course, epitomised the new businesslike attitude to motor sport which Innes detested; Ireland tells the tale of a young compatriot, new to Formula One, who invites him out to dinner in order to ask his advice. Innes is flattered, only to find that the advice sought is not about racing but about contracts, sponsorship and the like.

Ireland's views on safety were pretty antediluvian, even for the 1960s, for example he described safety belts as hysterical and mocked the fact that Jackie had his blood-group stiched into his underpants. About one thing Innes was surely correct and that was the fact that so much of the culture, the mystique of Grand Prix racing was based on danger and death. Even in 2007 it is this romanticising of death which permeates the interview with Stewart.

Frank O'Boyle

Back in the late 1930s Frank O’Boyle must have been the leading racing driver in the Irish Free State, his Alta Voiturette competing against the likes of Bira, Mays, de Graffenreid and Villoresi. O’Boyle’s car was maintained by the Evans family’s Bellevue Garage in London but Frank never once accompanied the machine when it was sent to and fro across the Irish sea; that task usually falling to Bellevue’s chief mechanic, the legendary Wilkie Wilkinson. The reasons for O’Boyle’s reluctance to leave Ireland have been hinted at, some trouble with the English authorities that may have occasioned a spell in jail. Here‘s some more detail.

O’Boyle was born around the end of the 1890s but by the summer of 1920, it seems, he was already the owner of a garage in County Tyrone. In September of that year he took part in a payroll ambush in which a driver, William McDowell was shot dead. The raiders getting away with the not inconsiderable sum of £1300. O’Boyle and two companions were soon arrested and after a jury trial failed to reach a verdict they were sentenced to life imprisonment by a military court martial.

One night in May 1927 O’Boyle, together with his companions from the payroll robbery, overpowered two prison guards at Belfast’s Crumlin Road jail, making their escape in a waiting motor car which was driven at great speed through the early morning Belfast streets. By 1929 Frank O’Boyle had been re-arrested by the authorities in the Free State for extradition back to the North. Dublin’s High Court disagreed and decided that it was unconstitutional to return a man who had been sentenced by a military tribunal, O’Boyle was free as long, of course, as he did not set foot on British soil.

What became of O’Boyle I don't know, he must have been well respected by the Irish motor racing crowd, a Frank O’Boyle Trophy race was held at the Curragh after the war, Stirling Moss even won it in 1951. The Alta was at the Bellevue Garage when war was declared in 1939 and could not be returned to Ireland, it was eventually sold back to the company for £250. Was O’Boyle a member of the IRA? He certainly claimed he was a political prisoner, although the British courts insisted he was a common criminal.