Friday, December 01, 2006

Dorothea Duff

I’ve posted before that Dorothea Duff is listed on the Mosleyite’s website as being a “racing driver” interned during the war along with other British Union fascists. A little research has brought a few more facts to light, although no details of her motoring career.

Dorothea Reynolds-Peyton was born in London in 1898 to a wealthy family of independent means. In 1920 she married Major Douglas Duff, a partnership that does not seem to have lasted very long. Mrs Duff then seems to have embarked on a life of adventure. She travelled in Tibet without obtaining the necessary permissions, learnt to fly and, perhaps most daringly of all, found employment as an able seaman. This made her something of a minor celebrity especially when she embarked on voyages to and from Australia on the four masted Finnish barque, Ponape.

Like Fay Taylour, Mrs Duff did not join the BUF until after the war had started. She then attracted the attention of the authorities with her efforts to bring together leading pro-German jew haters such as Mosley, Maule Ramsay and Domville in the anti-war movement. So nothing on Mrs Duff’s racing activities or her life after the war, she certainly seems the type of upper-class adventuress who would be attracted to the thrills and spills of the track.

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