"Coming from the border means that I feel like I am from Wales."

A couple of months ago I was quite unkind to Ellie Goulding - for any old fogeys reading, she's a rising young pop singer - because, bamboozled by the hopeless Western Mail, I believed she was from Knighton, a fact which she seemed to ignore on her twitter page. Now it turned out that the WM had confused Knighton with Kington, well it is a long way north of the Gabalfa flyover, so apologies to Ellie who actually hails from Lyonshall. What is interesting is that Ms Goulding herself does on occasions express a certain ambiguity about her ethnicity.

Perhaps someone will remind me who it was remarked that the border between England and Wales was a gradual progression, with England proper not starting until east of Llanllieni (Leominster). Anyway, I've always been interested in those snippets of history, uncontaminated by academic veracity, which ordinary folk believe - the kind of thing you read on tea-towels about Welsh being the oldest language for example. One such is the belief that Herefordshire used to be a Welsh county but that every hundred years or so a Welsh county is transferred to England. This belief actually contains a grain of truth, namely that, objectively, the aim of the powers-that-be has always been the destruction of a separate Welsh identity.

According to the historian Percy Enderbie, writing in 1661, Welsh was spoken over a large part of Herefordshire. Not just in the districts of Erging (Archenfield) and Ewias, south of the Wye, but also in the old Marcher lordships of Clifford, Winforton, Willersley, Eardisley, Huntington and Lugharness - the parishes of Stapleton, Willey, Kinsham, Combe, Rodd, Nash, Lttle Brampton and Titley. No doubt Welsh disappeared from these areas fairly soon after Enderbie's time, although a browse through the field names of some of these places north of the Wye will show plenty of examples of Welsh names surviving until the mid-nineteenth century.

Of course the real stronghold of the Welsh language in Herefordshire was south of the Wye in parishes such as Craswell, Clodock, Longtown, Llanveynoe and Michaelchurch Escley. Here eight out of nine defamation cases between 1712 and 1774 were in Welsh and a 19 year old from Michaelchurch Escley who came before a court in 1757 was described as a "strainger to the English tongue." It's usually cited that the last speakers of Herefordshire Welsh died in the mid-nineteenth century and an initial glance at the 1891 Census doesn't show any residual bilingualism amongst folk from Herefordshire parishes who had migrated to the coalfield.

Even before DNA, bloodgroup evidence suggested a divide between the east and west of the county and surnames are another example of the Welsh origins of many Herefordians. How Welsh any of these folk actually feel is debatable however, perhaps someone could research the loyalties of public house boozers during Wales/England rugby matches. Unlike Cornwall, there seems little evidence of Herefordians acknowledging it's old language and culture.

Over the years there have been various half-hearted calls for parts of Herefordshire to be included in Wales. I remember a parish council in the 1960s, Brilley perhaps, voting to join Radnorshire. More recently an NFU official caused a stir by claiming that Herefordshire farmers would be better off in Wales. The subsequent comments on a local BBC website are interesting as some of the most vehement opponents of reunion are those with Welsh surnames, one can hazard a guess as to why.

Forgotten Radnorian

The former Mrs Gibson-Watt

Favourite tweet on Ms Hewitt's £3K a day price tag " .... is she a perm footballer?"

Interlude Musical

Book of the Month

Radnorshire is fortunate to fall within the area of interest of the Logaston Press, if the county had to rely on Welsh publishers alone, then good books of local interest would be few and far between. It's also noticeable that the Herefordshire publisher seems to survive without recourse to the public purse. The county is also fortunate to have an author such as Mr Parker, who on this occasion has turned his attention to the local politics of the nineteenth-century.

The first half of the book details the elections to the county's two Parliamentary constituencies - the county seat and the Radnor Boroughs seat, which survived until 1885. This is the tale of local gentry rivalries, alliances and accommodations told in a lucid manner with excellent illustrations of the protagonists and their mansions.

In the second half we move on to a Welsh dimension with the widening of the franchise and the emergence of more modern politicians such as the Liberal MP Frank Edwards. The author also has three chapters covering those extra-Parliamentary activities of the small farmers and labourers: the cottagers revolt against the Enclosures, the Rebecca Riots and the later Rebeccaism of the salmon poachers. Although the author recognizes the positive outcomes of such challenges and the local establishment's fear of and willingness to compromise with the commonality, I do notice a hint of disapproval of, for example, the cottagers' champion Cecil Parsons. While an old established family like Lewis of Harpton refused to enclose long established encroachments onto the common, the newcomer James Watt was less cautious. Thomas Weale's wife Margaret may well have had an ungovernable temper and was carried, in her bed, and dumped on the floor of a local public house rather than out on the common, but the fact remains that the Weale's home was demolished and the family and their six children evicted into the snow. Likewise Richard Page and his wife may have been evicted for the non-payment rent, but what is not recorded is that the couple were in their eighties.

Although mentioned in passing, I would also have liked to have seen a separate chapter on the party politics of the new county and district councils of the 1890's, Radnorshire's passion for Independent councillors came only later. Like Mr Parker's previous Radnorshire book, this is a thoroughly researched and well-written work, at £10 it should be in the library of every Radnorian with an interest in the history of our county.

Llandingdong Bells

There's a new blog set amidst the urban decay of 21st century Llandrindod. Should be worth checking out.

Book Review

Now I admit that I have no qualification whatsoever to review a book about Herefordshire placenames, but, hey, even the author Mr. Coplestone-Crow admits that he himself is no expert. Indeed he has relied heavily on placename guru, the late Dr Margaret Gelling who also provides a less than glowing foreword.

On the face of it untangling English placenames is a fairly straightforward business - you take a familiar element, the ley in Litley for example, meaning a clearing and then add on some random Saxon forename, in this case Lutta ,to give Lutta's clearing. OK I'm joshing a subject which I know nothing about - but it would be useful to know a little bit more about names like Lutta, and if there is any other evidence for their presence in the localities to which they supposedly gave their names.

It is in Mr Coplestone-Crow's treatment of the old district names of Herefordshire that the book has great value. Of course I was aware of the old Welsh districts of Ewyas and Erging, although not the extent of the latter. The district of Mawfield or Maes Mail Locheu was news to me, while my confusion concerning the location of Lugharness - it means Lordship on the River Lugg and according to Percy Enderbie was Welsh in speech in the 17C - was cleared up. Oh and doesn't the observation that Geoffrey of Monmouth made a copying error, confusing the D in what is now Doward with CL to give Cloartius as the location of Vortigern's last stand, rather suggest that he was using older sources rather than his own imagination?

Not a book which will be of much interest to Radnorians, except for the occasional irridentist such as myself, Herefordians, no doubt, would be well advised to snap it up.

I Spy

According to a recent article in the Daily Mail the Mossad agent Erika Chambers was the daughter of motor sport's Marcus Chambers.

Of course there have been less tenuous connections between the sport and the world of espionage than this. MI5's Jock Horsfall, killed at Silverstone in 1949, would have made it into the encyclopedias if he had lived to race another season - unfortunately nearly all motor sport reference books seem to think that Grand Prix racing began with the World Drivers' Championship in 1950! Horsfall's major claim to fame was using his battered transporter to transfer The Spy Who Never Was, Glyndwr Michael, to the submarine HMS Seraph.

Brooklands racer Mark Pepys, that's the Earl of Cottenham to you and me, was also a high-ranking MI5 officer - although perhaps a little too friendly with the Nazi spy Anna Wolkoff. Wolkoff's great pal was another pre-war racer Enid Riddell, indeed Anna seemingly died in a car driven by Riddell in 1973. Now Riddell's name crops up in nearly every account of pre-war English fascism you care to read but sadly no-one seems bothered to research her background. I believe that Enid was the daughter of a London stockbroker and his estranged South African wife, oh and she didn't die in that 1973 crash as most accounts claim.

Was French lady racer Violette Morris primarily an Abwehr agent or a Gestapo torturer? Seemingly she was both and important enough to be assassinated on orders from London in 1944. The mysterious Robert O'Brien, who competed in the 1952 Belgium Grand Prix, has been suspected of being a CIA agent - certainly his motor-racing activities took him behind the Iron Curtain, driving for a Countess Walchiers, a lady who appears to have no existence outside the pages of the racing press. Oh and when MI6 wanted to find spy Richard Tomlinson a job , who did they turn to? Why none other than a man once described by Max Mosley as "a certified halfwit"

Off the Beaten Track

You realise your blog is getting unwieldy and maybe ready for the scrapheap when even the author can't dig out his old posts!

Anyway I've previously posted about, but can't find, the Innes Ireland memorial on a remote peninsula in Ross Shire. The sculptor responsible for the plaque has a website which includes a photo which shows, for once, the memorial in its proper context, with the Atlantic Ocean in the background. Check it out here.

A Radnorshire Book from Canada?

I've posted before about the Duggan brothers from Llansantffraid yn Elfael who made something of a splash in Albertan politics back in the early years of the last century, here and here. Now a correspondent writes to point out that Joseph Duggan (pictured) penned a volume about his little Welsh home called "The Unforgotten Valley, Studies of Life and Character on the Welsh Border". Anymore information about this book?

Of course Duggan married the Builth contralto Bessie Evans, daughter of local musical maestro Llew Buallt and readers might be interested in a snippet from the recently published treasury of local history Cymru Evan Jones. It seems that Llew (Evan Evans) was living at Melin Dol Llinwydd on the Duhonw brook during the great flood of 1853. Such was the height of the deluge that the family had to seek shelter in the loft and then as the waters continued to rise were forced to break through onto the roof. Their troubles were not over, as half the building suddenly collapsed into the torrent, young Evan would have been seven years old at the time.

The Elusive Mrs Lace

Motor historians are far more interested in old cars than old drivers, after all old racing cars can be worth a pile of cash, while those who drove them, except for a few stars, are largely forgotten.

Still it comes as a surprise at how little is know of quite well-known names from the past. Take for example the pre-war racer Alfred Clucas Lace (1897-1978). Remembered mainly for the crash in which two spectators were killed at Brooklands in 1938. Lace was always known by his initials and historians seem quite unaware of his forenames or anything about him away from the track.

Then there was Lace's "wife" Mrs A. C. Lace - that's her pictured following a Bugatti in her Singer at a 1936 Brooklands meet. Now Mrs Lace can hardly be said to have had a distinguished racing career. She won the Ladies race at the 1938 London Grand Prix meeting at Crystal Palace and had two good finishes in the Monte Carlo rally, 27th with Elsie Wisdom in 1938 and 25th, driving alone from Riga in 1939.

So who exactly was Mrs Lace? With the help of the archives and some informed contributions to the Autosport Forum we learn that her maiden name was Phoebe Elizabeth Mylchreest, a grand-daughter of Joseph Mylchcreest, the "Diamond King," a Manxman who had made his fortune in South Africa. Phoebe was therefore a cousin of Tom Sheard the first Manx born winner of the Junior and Senior TT races, as well being the niece of the contralto Ada Mylchreest, an early favourite on the BBC.

Born in 1914, young Phoebe - she was seemingly called Betty - was barely 17 when she married a Mr McQueen in London in 1931. By 1934 she was competing on the track as Mrs A. C. Lace, although it's doubtful if the couple were ever married. By the late 1930s young Betty was the proprietress of the Hay Hill Club in Mayfair, subsequently having the misfortune to be made bankrupt just before war broke out. Around the same time Mr Lace, who optimistically described himself as a professional racing driver, was also bankrupted and soon left for Finland, where he was among the small group of British volunteers in that country's Winter War with the Soviet Union. Meanwhile in 1940 in the immediate aftermath of the Battle of Britain, Betty Lace married the New Zealand fighter ace Brian Carbury. At the time she was using the surname Williams, although why is a matter for speculation. The marriage cannot have lasted long as Carbury remarried in 1948.

Given her profligate usage of surnames it's difficult to know what eventually became of Ms Mylchreest. She was seemingly alive in 1971, and still using the surname Lace which she had adopted in the days when she raced on the Brooklands track.

A Radnorian Fascist

With a 50% drop in local BNP membership, from 2 to 1, it's highly unlikely that the good citizens of the county will contribute greatly to the probable upturn in the National Socialist (Nazi) vote in the forthcoming General Election.

Lonely Radnorshire fascists can however take some consolation from the county's link with the Mosleyite Jeffrey Hamm. Through his British League of Ex-Servicemen and Women, the Monmouthshire born Hamm was already seeking to revive English fascism as early as 1944. The prime mover in the series of street fights centered around Ridley Road in the East End during 1946 and 1947, Hamm went on to be Mosley's secretary and most loyal lieutenant. His connection with Radnorshire? His grandfather Edward Jones came from Walton.

Welsh Language Circulating Schools in Radnorshire

Between 1736 and 1776 over 300,000 adults and children were taught to read in the Circulating schools established by Griffith Jones and paid for and later managed by the philanthropist Bridget Bevan.

In Radnorshire, schools were held in fourteen parishes up to 1774, and although their impact was certainly less than in many other parts of Wales, in the best year, 1740, around 600 Radnorians were taught to read.

Academics occasionally express surprise that schools were held in parishes where the Welsh language was no longer used in church services. I think the mistake the academics make is assuming that the switch to English-only services denotes that a parish has become wholly English in speech. A more likely explanation is that folk unable to speak any English were no longer a significant factor in the parish. For example the cleric of Abbeycwmhir writing in 1813 confirming that church services had been in English for many years, added: "the young people do not in general understand Welsh, but the old people do understand English." To me this suggests that not only was the older generation bilingual but, in view of the qualifying term "in general," so too were some of the younger.

Incidentally the Welsh school referred to in the letter was held at Wernfawr farm.

Put it in Perspective

We tend to view history from the perspective of today. Nowadays Radnorshire is very much a pipsqueak when compared with, say, London, but was that always the case? In medieval times, when London had a population of around 50000, the lands that became Radnorshire probably had around 16000, not much less than today. Look at history from that perspective and this part of East Central Wales was a much bigger player than it is today. Historians sometimes miss that kind of thing.

Something similar happens when we consider Britain in the immediate post-Roman period. This blog is written in English and not Irish, so it's natural to see the Anglo-Saxons - the eventual victors - as being the greatest threat to Roman Britain. If you lived at the time perhaps you would have seen things quite differently, with the Irish and the Picts posing far more of a problem.

Look at a map of Irish placenames in Wales and we find that they are concentrated in West Wales, including Ceredigion, and from there into the strategic heartland of Britain run two great rivers the Wye and the Severn. Guarding the headwaters of these two river routes you find the old Welsh kingdoms of Gwerthrynion (basically the old hundred of Rhayader) and Arwystli. Gwerthrynion itself seems to be named after Vortigern, a likely military leader of Britain in the early 5th-century. So were these little kingdoms originally established as military provinces against the perceived major threat of Irish expansion into the Midlands?

Anyway here's an interesting link which argues that Stanage - that part of Radnorshire on the Teme, east of Knighton, has important Vortigern connections. Perhaps Time Team should dig them up.

Welcome Back

After a couple of weeks of deep freeze when the only folk on the roads seemed to be people with jobs, lowly paid care workers and the like, it's nice to see so many swish cars out and about in the thaw. People with careers getting back behind their desks .......how ever did we manage without them?

Meanwhile a "climate expert" is warning about the formation of glaciers on Snowdon. Gosh, it wasn't that long ago that the "experts" were telling us that snow on Snowdon would soon be a thing of the past. Not to worry though it seems that we misheard all that "global warming" stuff anyway, as Friends of the Earth point out, what they were really saying was "global storming." Er .... right.

The Day the Music Died

A couple of tales from the Evan Jones book. Firstly concerning the famous Llandrindod minister, Kilsby , something of a celebrity in his day. Annoyed that his congregation turned to look back as the stragglers came into church, the preacher decided to announce each late arrival,
"Here's Mr Jones, Dolberthog" and so on.
Finally a lady visitor to the town appeared,
"Well I've no idea who on earth this is, everyone turn around and look at her."

Secondly the sad tale of Tomos Prys, a fiddler from Llangamarch who maintained the old tradition of circulating around the gentry houses and farms of the district until the end of the 18th Century. At a time of religious revival when folk eagerly turned their backs on fun for the pleasures of the pulpit, Tomos happened to come across a noted local preacher,
"Hang on you can have my fiddle,"
"Why are you giving me your fiddle?"
"Well you've already taken my audience."

And in such ways passed away Hen Gymru Llawen (Merrie Old Wales).

Book Review

This is a selection taken from the papers of "the doyen of peasant historians" Evan Jones (1850-1928) of Ty'n y Pant, Llanwrtyd. As the editor points out in his foreword, some aspects of the author's interests have had to be largely omitted from this edition - archaeology and music for example. What remains are 300 pages covering the folk culture of the Builth Hundred, its farming, local history, social life, sports, religion, customs, poetry, superstitions and traditional proverbs.

It is a book that will be well received by anyone with an interest in Mid Wales, agricultural history or folklore in general. By its nature it is the type of book that can be dipped into at leisure, divided as it is into numerous short paragraphs on a myriad of topics which had caught the attention of Evan Jones during a lifetime of collecting.

Checking out the occasional item of Radnorshire interest, I was quite excited to see examples of the work of, what the author described as a Radnorshire born country rhymer in the Welsh language, Shams Clee. Unlike Evan Jones, we now have access to the 19C Census Returns which show that Clee was infact born in Llanfihangel Bryn Pabuan.

How I came to acquire this book provides a sad comment on the history of Builth Hundred. I had meant to buy a copy before Christmas, but had never got around to placing an order. Visiting some relatives I was told that one of them had just purchased the book after reading a review in the local paper and, since Evan Jones' sons Emrys and Afan had been regular visitors to her parents during her youth, she had hurried out to place an order. Unfortunately the book was of little use as she had failed to notice that it was written in Welsh. I purchased the book (at a small discount!) and reflected on the sad truth that many of the families whose ancestors and farms are mentioned within its pages would be in a similar position - unable to read about their own history.

The book is published in an attractive hardback edition by Gwasg Gomer at £16.99.

Talgarth

Browsing the 1891 Census I was surprised to discover that a majority of the Talgarth born population of the town aged over 30 were able to speak Welsh. Look at the wider parish and there must have been bilingual natives of the district who spoke the language - presumably the historic dialects of the place - well into the Twentieth Century. I suppose most people will shrug their shoulders at this, but it left me a little bit amazed. Of course big Victorian families being raised as monoglot English speakers put paid to any chance of bilingualism persisting.

Looking at wikipedia I see that "Talgarth is also becoming a place for artists and writers." Oh well.

Just Popping Down the Shops

Here's the cover of Autosport picturing Innes Ireland's 1962 Tourist Trophy winning Ferrari 250GTO chassis number 3505GT. Now there's a quote in the Lis book that confirms that Innes drove this car on the roads of Radnorshire:

"I used to take 3505 home quite often and drive it to the races I was taking part in. I remember driving it down to Brands Hatch on the road, when I arrived the mechanics put a hot set of plugs in it and changed the wheels and I drove it in the race, then drove it home again. My wife used to use it to go shopping, it was a very docile animal."

Wonder if anyone remembers this car piloted by Innes on the Radnorshire roads or even his wife taking it out shopping!

Freno Bene Si!

Innes Ireland, works Ferrari driver, it's something you read occasionally, usually when someone has a car or piece of memorabilia to sell. Yes, Innes did once race a Formula One Ferrari 156, nominally for the British Racing Partnership but in reality for the works, and yes, he did drive the legendary 250GTO to victory in the Tourist Trophy. Yet works driver is stretching a point. Perhaps if the fuel contracts could have been sorted out in 1962 he would have joined the Maranello team, but it is as a Lotus driver and, given his long association with the company as Consultant Engineer, as an Aston Martin man that Innes is more properly remembered.

Of course Innes was a student of motor racing history and also a romantic, so it is little wonder that he could declare that "the ambition of any racing driver worth his salt was to drive for Scuderia Ferrari". And although he never really achieved that lofty aim, his relationship with the Modenese stable is certainly worth recalling.

1962 was the year that Enzo Ferrari was so desperate to secure Stirling Moss's services that he agreed to enter a car for the Rob Walker team in the Formula One World Championship. A car, by the way, which was to race in Scottish racing blue rather than Italian red. As part of the deal Stirling would also drive Ferrari sports cars for the UDT-Laystall team and in this Innes Ireland was to be his co-pilot. Innes, for whom Stirling was always a hero, looked forward to the partnership with relish.

A February outing in the UDT-Laystall 250SWB (2735GT) in the Daytona Three Hour race, had seen Innes retiring after 59 laps with brake problems. Then came the first drive with Moss, the Sebring 12 Hour race, where they shared a 250 Testa Rossa (TR/61) entered by local Ferrari dealer Chinetti's North American Racing Team. Stirling has described the NART pit work at this meeting as chaotic and the car was disqualified for refuelling too early. The long delayed disqualification robbed Innes and Moss of victory, they were leading by two laps when they were eventually black-flagged. That was to be Stirling's last endurance sports car race, for he would soon suffer his career ending Goodwood crash. It was to this fateful Sussex meeting that Innes had driven up from Modena, in the new pale green UDT 250GTO (3505GT). The car in which he and Moss were due to attack the coming season. A journey that Innes has described as the most memorable drive of his life.

The Goodwood crash put paid to Moss's Ferrari plans and also the promising partnership with Ireland. A Sharknose 156 did turn-up at the Silverstone International Trophy meeting complete with Scuderia mechanics and technicians for Innes to drive, a tribute to Moss it was said at the time. Innes found a car with a superb gearbox, a V6 engine that no longer matched the power of the V8 Climax and poor handling that the Scot put down to the flexing of the spoked Borrani wheels. Fourth place was a good result for a machine that could no longer compete with the green cars.

Innes carried on without Moss in car 3505, retiring after fifteen hours at Le Mans while in seventh place and ending the European season with a memorable victory in the Tourist Trophy, a race that was won with a chassis still bent from a practice crash.

That winter Innes drove another 250GTO, the Texan Rosebud team's 3589GT in the Nassau races, a third place in the Nassau TT being soon overshadowed by his victory in the Governor's Trophy race in Rosebud's Lotus19. Innes continued to drive the Rosebud Ferrari in 1963, an early crash at Daytona being followed by a sixth place (third in Class) at Sebring with Ritchie Ginther as co-pilot. An experiment with a Ferrari engine in Rosebud's Lotus 19 nearly put paid to Innes that Fall. The Scot crashing into a marshall's car which had been foolishly parked in an escape road during practice for the NW Pacific GP in Seattle.

A long and no doubt painful recovery saw Innes back for the 1964 season, where he drove Ferraris for Colonel Ronnie Hoare's Maranello Concessionaires team. Let Innes describe that first outing at the Nurburgring for the Colonel's equipe:

"I tore out of the pits in a crescendo of noise and spinning wheels, glancing briefly over my shoulder. Up through the gears and away, for the first time at the 'Ring I felt free and confident as I chased after the leaders.

Although the 330P was more of a handful, more skitterish, more sensitive and more unforgiving than the 250GTO, it was also faster, more urgent in its voice, more challenging and even more exciting. But still it gave a wonderful feeling of security, that it wouldn't suddenly do anything nasty.

We fairly flew through the twists and turns, a touch of the brakes here and there, a flick of the steering wheel to point her at the apex of the next corner, then lots of throttle and a touch of opposite as we screeched past the earth bankings and trees as one, clipping them as if they didn't exist. Oh, the total joy and exhilaration of such moments, for they happen but seldom. The Foxhole held none of the usual terrors as we hurtled steeply downhill through its curves, foot hard down, flat out in fifth. The Flugplatz was an exciting anticipation of the moment of landing when a flick of the wheel took her round the following right-hander on full song without going anywhere near the brake pedal, Control and rhythm seemed to be absolute as we swallowed up the gap on those in front, that wonderful V12 engine willingly and happily revving its heart out on the long straight, the exhaust note bliss in my ears. Still we closed passing first one, then the leader and we were out in front. And still the rhythm flowed; we pulled away and left them behind and it was almost as if they weren't there at all. There was only that magical Ferrari and me living out a dream just for our own enjoyment. We sang in the wind and nothing could touch us."

Like his career, Innes's occasional Ferrari drives finally petered out, a sixth place at Le Mans in 1964, a sixth place in the 1965 Monza 1000KM race, and finally, an outing at Daytona in 1966 in the Drummond Racing Organisation's 250LM.

Who knows how Innes's career might have turned out if the petrol contracts had allowed him to join the Scuderia in 1962 as some had hoped. Enzo Ferrari would surely have approved of Innes's tigerish driving, but would Innes have found fulfillment in Modena's political arena. In any case it wasn't to be. Oh and the title of this piece? The words spoken by Enzo Ferrari after he jumped on the brakes at 125 MPH on the occasion in 1962 when he took an ashen-faced Innes out for a spin in a little baby prototype, the distant forefather of the Dino 246.

Lucy O'Reilly

Nazi Germany's sporting reversals have become the stuff of legend, Jesse Owens' slap in the face for Aryan supremacy at the Berlin Olympics of 1936 and Joe Louis' first round stoppage of Max Schmeling at Yankee Stadium in 1938.

In the field of motor sport such reverses were few and far between, as Mercedes and Auto Union took Grand Prix racing to a new level. Of course there was Nuvolari's 1935 victory in an Alfa Romeo at the German Grand Prix, of all places - but that could be seen as a victory for Adolf's pal Mussolini. No, the victory of a privately entered Delahaye over Caracciola's works Mercedes in the Pau Grand Prix of 1938 must have been a singular blow to Nazi pride, especially given the fact that the French car was piloted by a Jew called Dreyfus.

The Delahaye was run by the Ecurie Bleue, a racing team set up by French-American heiress Lucy O'Reilly. In one of those examples where misinformation gets repeated, you are likely to read that Lucy was the Dublin born daughter of an American millionaire, who, having met her husband Laury Schell while on the grand tour, moved to France where she became an amateur rallyist and racing driver of some note. Infact Lucy was born at Brunoy, near Paris on 26th October 1896, the daughter of a French mother and, yes, an American millionaire father. The truth is that when Lucy first visited the United States during the Great War, she spoke very little English.

Frustrated in her attempts to get French backing for her Delahaye project, Lucy moved her team to Monte Carlo and purchased Maseratis. In 1940 Lucy sent Ecurie Bleue on a daring voyage from war torn Europe to compete in the Indianapolis 500, sailing from Genoa on the ocean liner Conte di Savoia. Despite blowing up one of their cars in practice, drivers Dreyfus and Le Begue shared a creditable tenth place in the race, hampered at every turn by a complete failure to understand the American racing rulebook.

Accompanying Ecurie Bleue on this American adventure was Lucy's son Harry Schell, who continued to race for the team after the war, later becoming one of the leading Grand Prix drivers until his death at Silverstone in 1960. Lucy herself died in 1952.