CHAPTER 7
I was always happy driving, but over the course of my career, and my personal life, I have had, like most people, many ups and downs, which I dealt with as best I could. Behind the wheel I was in my element; it didn’t matter to me what I was driving – it could be a racing car, a big saloon, a go-kart or my little Imp. When I was rallying, the Imp was great on the corners and I would nip around the bends, but then the men came along in their big cars, passed me on the hills and I would be left behind; in my car with its small engine even the downhills were up.
There came a stage in my career when I had won many rallying events and was tempted to give racing a go. In those days racing was almost an exclusively male sport but that didn’t put me off. Some people were of the opinion that women shouldn’t participate at all. There was always a big divide between racing and rallying and some of the men said, anybody can rally, you have to race to prove yourself. Even in rallying, it was difficult for some of my teammates to accept me and it wasn’t until I started to win consistently that they came to realise I wasn’t just a dumb blonde.
Peter Procter was the exception – he was always my champion from the beginning. I think he realised that if I had been given the chance to drive a decent car I would have been even more successful. Peter’s racing career ended in 1966, when he was hit from behind in a saloon car race at Goodwood. The impact burst the petrol tank and the car flew into the air and somersaulted several times. He had no broken bones and leapt out of the car in flames, sustaining third-degree burns to 65 per cent of his body.
My mother and I adored him, and when she heard the news she telephoned me. When I went to see him the following week, in the Burns Unit of the Queen Victoria Hospital in East Grinstead, Sussex, all I could do was stare at him through a glass window as he lay there, covered in bandages. I never thought he would survive that horrendous accident, but he did due to the team of Sir Archibald McIndoe, who had pioneered experimental plastic surgery on airmen disfigured by burns in World War II. Motorsport is still dangerous today, but in those days the safety standards were primitive. I was delighted to meet Peter and his wife, Shirley, at the Stoneleigh Motor Show recently.
The first racing car I bought was a Lotus Elan; my pride and joy, it cost me all of £2,000. One Christmas I took it to the Brands Hatch Circuit in Kent to practise for the annual Boxing Day event. There were about 30 cars in the race, I was third on the grid and the weather had deteriorated dramatically. In Brands Hatch you come down under a tunnel and out onto the track itself, and as I was going around on the warm-up lap to get in line the car hit ice, spun off the track and hit the bank. I was left sitting there, dazed, with the steering wheel in my hand, fibreglass and bits of car all over the place. I’m not even sure I had four wheels left.
It was a practice run for the first race of the event and it was obvious that nobody had gone out to inspect the track. There was so much ice that I don’t know how anybody got around it, or even if they did. I heard that Jonathan Mills, the actor John Mills’s son, who was driving a Jaguar, went over the finishing line backwards. I had to bow out and swallow my pride.
Rootes lent me a car, and because no bones were broken I thought I would be all right. I was due to go to Sweden that evening for a televised ice race which the BBC were going to film and there was no way I was going to miss that. Pat Moss was driving in the event and I wanted to be there and, who knows, maybe beat her.
I got into the car in Kent and drove to Harwich, where I was to get the boat to the Hook of Holland. To this day I don’t know how I got there; I have no recollection of that drive whatsoever. All the other cars were there at the Harwich docks, and when the other drivers saw the state I was in they brought me to be examined by a doctor, who pronounced that I had concussion and three cracked ribs. I was told to go home, but as is so typical of me I insisted that I would be grand.
It was a seven-hour journey on the boat and I decided that if I had a good rest all would be well – although by this time every bone in my body was aching. I got into the bunk bed and after a couple of hours’ sleep I tried to get up, but I couldn’t: I had totally stiffened up. The cabin was tiny and I just managed to get the door open and shout for help. A passer-by came in and helped me get out of the bed. I was just about able to get off the boat and drive to the Saab training headquarters where we were to stay, and it was there that another of the many strange episodes I have had with a woman occurred.
I arrived at the headquarters in a state of collapse and was immediately taken under the wing of a very large Swedish lady, who appeared to be in charge and who could see I was in distress. She was most concerned about my injuries and helped me undress and ran a hot bath for me. All the fuss and attention she gave me was just what I needed, but at the same time I sensed something wasn’t quite right. After dinner that evening, in my bedroom I found a red rose on the pillow. I locked my door and when she came knocking I pretended to be asleep. Next morning I thought I was ready for anything.
The ice race was held on a frozen lake in the grounds of the Saab training school and the temperature was below freezing. I was driving the Imp and all the cars were fitted with special studded tyres to provide better traction and increased speed. Ice racing featured in one of the James Bond films, On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, with 007 (George Lazenby) trying to escape his pursuers.
Determined to do well, I started off in great style with the BBC cameras all around. I was catching the car ahead when suddenly I started to slip and slide. Completely out of control, I went towards the stand where the BBC cameramen were filming. The impact of the car toppled the stand, and cameras, cameramen and all their equipment ended up in deep, powdery snow. Enthusiasm had overcome my better judgement and of course anyone with a bit of sense would know that I should never have gone to Sweden in that condition at all. Not one of my better decisions, I’m afraid. I went home and spent two weeks in bed, waiting for my body to return to normal.
Racing you do alone, but rallying is a two- or three-person job. Navigators and co-drivers can make a big difference to how things turn out in rallies. Valerie Domleo was not the only navigator whom I have called upon to go beyond the call of duty. Pauline Gullick, still my good friend after all our ups and downs, was navigating for me in a Lotus Sunbeam on the Donegal rally one time. I could feel there was something wrong with the throttle cable going through the bulkhead, and when we went into the control I told the mechanic, an ex-driver who didn’t like me, and the feeling was mutual. I explained that the cable was catching going through the bulkhead and every time I pressed down on the accelerator I had to put my foot in under the pedal to yank it back up again. He tut-tutted away, as if I was talking rubbish, looked inside at the engine, did some banging around with a spanner and said it was fixed.
The minute I started up the road I knew it wasn’t right, but then, of course, we had to keep going. Eventually, the cable frayed and snapped and I was left with no acceleration. There was nothing for it: Pauline clambered on to the wing and pressed the accelerator down with her thumb. She sat under the bonnet with her legs dangling over the wing. The bonnet was up so it was very difficult for me to steer as I could hardly see where I was going. We were doing 60 mph and she was hanging on when we hit a bump and then another. The bonnet hit the windscreen, and the next I saw of Pauline she was rolling behind me down the road. She was knocked unconscious and it was a good thing she was wearing a helmet because without it she would have been killed. The side of her head was badly grazed, her thumb had been ripped right back and was hanging off.
A few cars passed us and didn’t stop because it was a special stage, timed to the last second. Eventually, someone stopped, put her in their car and drove to an ambulance, which took her straight to hospital. All I felt at the time was annoyance that we were out of the event because we had been doing so well: you go out to win and I have been told many times that I took rallying too seriously. How else are you supposed to take it?
Pauline was personal assistant to the governor of the prison in Bristol, and months later she bent down in the office to pick something up and couldn’t move. Her back had been broken in that accident and she was on the broad of her back and unable to work for months. Pauline still rallies with Jimmy McRae in historic events and, despite everything, we remain very good friends. She tells me that she met that mechanic recently, when he apologised to her and admitted it had been his fault.
I have been very lucky to have survived my career without serious injury. However, there are occasions when no amount of skill or determination will get you through because things happen over which you have no control. The mechanic who didn’t listen to me when I told him the cable was catching in Donegal was at fault and I was also nearly killed in the Monaghan Rally because of the stupidity of another man.
On that overnight rally I was driving a front engine Lotus Sunbeam with Peter Scott as my co-driver. Peter is a very experienced navigator and determined, like myself. It was in the early hours of the morning, pitch-black, and we were doing really well and flying along. Peter was encouraging me to pick up speed as we were on a long, straight stretch of road. It was one of those places that you come across in some parts of Ireland, where there is nothing on either side of the road and it is difficult to see where the road ends and the bogland begins. We were flat out and whipping along when suddenly every light in the car went out. Blackness descended, and before we knew it we were upon a sharp right-hand turn, which in the darkness I couldn’t see, and the car just went straight on. The Lotus flew into the air off the road, rolled over and over, and eventually landed on its wheels. All I could hear was Peter roaring and howling – he must have thought we were dead.
It was a notorious bend on that particular rally and soon there were hordes of people around to help us. Some of the lads went back up the road to slow the cars in case they missed the turn and landed straight on top of us. Peter had calmed down by this stage when he realised we weren’t hurt. We left the car, got a lift down to a townland called Newbliss and went into the Garda station to let them know what had happened. I told the guard we had left the car up there and we would see to it in the morning, and he replied, ‘Oh missus, if I were you I’d go back up there right away, because there’ll be nothing left of it by the morning.’
He was right. When it got light we went back to the car and, apart from the engine, everything else was gone: seats, tyres, lights and my precious Halda. To me, the worst thing was the loss of the Halda as it is an expensive instrument which computes time and distance and is invaluable when rallying. After the London to Sydney Marathon in 1968, which I did for Ford, they gave me that Halda and it held great sentimental value.
The mechanics came down and fitted new tyres, but without a seat I was obliged to sit on two spare tyres to drive the car back to Dublin. I gave out hell when I found out afterwards that a man who worked in the car showroom where my car was garaged had taken my car to enter an event the night before the Monaghan Rally. During his drive the alternator had gone. He brought it back to try and repair it, and after fiddling around he thought it was fixed. I was furious, but that was what I was up against a lot of the time. Some men didn’t have as much respect or pay attention as they should, because I was a woman!