CHAPTER 10
The London to Sydney Marathon was a success in as much as I finished, when 42 other competitors had fallen by the wayside. It was well known in the industry that I had overcome many obstacles along the way on that rally and no doubt it was because of this that British Leyland got the notion that I was a good bet for the mammoth 1970 World Cup London to Mexico Rally. The sun was shining when Sir Alf Ramsey and Bobby Moore, captain of the England team, were at the Wembley Stadium, waving a Union Jack to see everyone on their way. As we posed for photographs, Lord Stokes, head of British Leyland, said to us, ‘Girls, if you get as far as Dover, I will be very happy.’ It was just as if he was patting a little girl on the head with this patronising remark.
Yet again I was being used for publicity purposes – British Leyland needed all the exposure it could manage because the Austin Maxi was a new car on the market. I don’t think they really cared if I got there or not, as long as I flashed my legs and looked pretty. We posed before the orange and white candy striped Austin in full-length white coats and white leather boots. The outfits were amazing but totally impractical for rallying. Our rally outfits were a blue jacket and red trousers. Alice Watson and Ginette de Rolland were my co-drivers, and before we left we had inoculations for yellow fever, typhoid, cholera and smallpox.
The British Leyland team had done everything they could to make the car, which was a new and untried model, ready for the long trip. A huge rubber bag fuel tank was installed and other modifications made. Nobody could know how the Maxi would respond to the long drive or whether it would get beyond Lisbon.
The Daily Mirror was quick to take up sponsorship when approached by Paddy Hopkirk and Wylton Dickson, an expatriate Australian and one of the promoters of the London to Sydney. The story goes that Paddy and Wylton were at a drinks party and dreamt up the idea of a rally from Wembley to the Estadio Azteca, Mexico City, visiting the capitals of all the countries that played in the 1966 FIFA World Cup. The Daily Mirror was one of Britain’s largest daily newspapers and their readers were avid football fans. The Daily Express had achieved great success from the London to Sydney sponsorship so the proprietors of the Daily Mirror immediately saw the potential of combining both football and motorsport. England had won the World Cup in 1966 at Wembley and the next final was to be held in Mexico in 1970. It was fantastic publicity for cars to drive through football-mad South America just before the beginning of the 1970 FIFA World Cup to be held in the Estadio Aztec, especially with Jimmy Greaves as one of the competitors. Jimmy had recently retired from international football after a very successful career with England. The Daily Mirror stumped up £250,000 (£3.7 million today) to stage the event. Dean Dalamount of the RAC was consulted and he asked rally legend John Sprinzel to plan the route.
(Daily Mirror)
Alice, Ginette and I climbed into our orange and white striped Austin Maxi on 19 April 1970, knowing that the epic drive to Mexico would end on 22 May, if we managed to get that far. Our Maxi was 1475cc, which was much smaller than the rest of the team, who had cars with 1800cc engines. British Leyland had assembled celebrated company for the trip. The other Austin Maxis were driven by the Red Arrows, the Royal Air Force Aerobatic Team and HRH Prince Michael of Kent, then a young army officer, with the Royal Hussars team. On the long drive, Alice and I would have imaginary conversations about being asked to tea at the palace: ‘Cucumber sandwiches, anybody?’ – anything to keep us awake.
Ninety-eight cars, from 22 countries, started out from Wembley. There were Minis and Fords from Britain, Moskviches from Russia, a Toyota from Japan, a Beach Buggy, a Wagoneer Jeep from the US and even two Rolls-Royces. The course covered over 16,000 miles (25,700 km), 5,000 miles through Europe and the rest through South and Central America. The London to Sydney was a marathon, but nothing compared to this.
I was carried away by the preparations for this enormous undertaking and completely oblivious to everything else. Momentous events were occurring which went completely over my head. In Ireland, the Arms Crisis was just erupting. Charles Haughey, Minister for Finance, and Neil Blaney, Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries, had been asked to resign by Jack Lynch, the Taoiseach. They were accused of the attempted illegal importation of arms for use by the Provisional IRA. The Troubles in Northern Ireland were escalating at a fierce rate. Meanwhile, the UK was on the brink of a general election, which would see the Conservative Edward Heath win a surprise victory over Labour Prime Minister Harold Wilson. But all these political disturbances meant nothing to me. My mind was focused on the project in hand and nothing was going to stop me doing my very best to get to Mexico in one piece.
The drive through Europe was not difficult, although the dust and roads in Yugoslavia were challenging, but 5,000 miles is a long way on any continent. During the seven days of the European leg there was only one scheduled overnight stop – in Monza, Italy – and we took it in turns to sleep. By the time we reached Lisbon, only 71 cars were left out of the 96 starters. Our Austin Maxi was loaded on to the SS Derwent, bound for a 12-day journey to Rio de Janeiro, across the South Atlantic, along with the rest of the remaining cars. The SS Derwent was a freight ship that didn’t take passengers so we had to fly from Lisbon Airport to Rio in a Boeing 707 to await the arrival of our car. We stayed in the Hotel Gloria, the rally headquarters in Rio de Janeiro, and this was a welcome rest before the next leg. The media were all over us when we got there. As I stepped into the hotel swimming pool in my white bikini the flashbulbs were popping. No doubt that’s what British Leyland was hoping for, and I didn’t let them down!
Alice, Ginette and I made good use of our time in Rio. We visited the beauty salons to get our nails and hair done, we went shopping and did the usual touristy things, which, of course, included a visit to the Christ the Redeemer Monument on Mount Corcovado. The beaches were beautiful and the famous Copacabana, two and a half miles of sand with the mountains in the background, was a delight. Terry Kingsley, one of the Red Arrow team, went down to the beach at Ipanema to go for a swim, and even though he thought he had carefully hidden his wallet it was gone when he came in from the water.
Paddy Hopkirk and some of the others flew out to Costa Rica and further afield to make recces but we just lay back and relaxed. One evening, Alan Zafer, who was the PR person for British Leyland, said we had all been invited to the British Embassy for a reception. We arrived at the beautiful, ranch-style house and were graciously received. After a few drinks, I asked, was the Ambassador at home and could I meet him? I was brought over to this man, who clicked his heels together and kissed my hand. I knew immediately something was not quite right. By mistake, we had gone to the Russian Embassy! We finished our drinks and left discreetly.
The Red Arrows team were good company and took great care of us. The evening before we left to start the drive to Mexico, we all went to the cinema to see a film that was just out: Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. Next day, like Paul Newman, I was back in the saddle and the fun and games were over for the time being; the real work was about to begin. On Friday, 8 May, we departed from outside the São Paulo Museum of Art in Rio de Janeiro to a flag-waving crowd, loud music and excited pressmen at the start of our journey through Brazil. BMC’s competition manager Stuart Turner was concerned about the floods forecast, and when the rain came we had to contend with hailstones the size of golf balls crashing down on us. Some of the drivers pulled over and took shelter under the trees but I saw no need for that and just kept going. Crossing the narrow wooden bridges, which appeared out of nowhere, was challenging. There was no other way round, so although they looked precarious we just had to keep going. No road signs were to be seen on the route to Uruguay, and at one point, where a road diverged, we had to stop and ask the way.
After 40 hours of non-stop driving we reached Montevideo on Sunday 10 May. We were one of only 52 cars that had got that far. After a much-needed night’s sleep, we boarded the ferry, along with our cars, for the three-hour journey across the River Plate to Buenos Aires. The cars were unloaded, and once through the crazy city traffic we set off through Argentina for Saladillo, our next time control, a journey of 125 miles. The tracks were dry, quite smooth but very dusty, and we made good time.
We arrived in Chile for an overnight in Santiago, where we slept but not for long because on Thursday, 14 May, we were up again at 5 a.m. to begin another 57 hours of driving. The drive from Santiago to La Paz in Bolivia was over the Andes, through tracks of extremely high altitude. Oxygen had been provided for everyone but we never used it. Some of the men got altitude sickness but it never seemed to affect us. We were climbing over 15,000 feet and the roads were made of loose, very dusty gravel. They were mostly tracks and when you did get on a proper road you wondered where the noise had gone. It was hard, but if the car kept going, so would I – I am always determined to finish! I drove a lot of the time. It wasn’t that I didn’t trust Ginette or Alice, but if anyone was going to put us off the road I preferred it to be me.
Ginette and Alice didn’t always hit it off. Alice would make some smart remark to Ginette and she would respond with a cutting reply. I was never sure about the pecking order between them. As far as I was concerned, they were both very capable women and I was happy to have them on my team.
We drove through the amazing landscape of Central America with barely time to register what was around us, although with my dress-designing hat on I couldn’t miss the women. Their clothes were like nothing I had ever seen before. Everywhere in the mountains you would see them in beautiful garments of vibrant red, orange, blue and green, and they always wore hats – wonderful, wide-brimmed hats. I had thoughts of importing those colourful outfits into Dublin, but it never happened. Like many of my bright ideas, it came to nothing.
With the words of British Leyland’s Lord Stokes still lingering in my mind, I couldn’t waste too much time admiring the natives or gazing at the landscape. Although we had come further than Dover, there were still many miles ahead of us and I wanted to show him how wrong he was. He obviously didn’t have much faith in his female team or in the Austin Maxi we were driving, but it never gave me much trouble. There were only two things that went wrong with that car: the cassette player and the fan belt. On a very bumpy road, the cassette player started of its own accord and suddenly Elvis was singing ‘All Shook Up’. I nearly jumped out of my skin; Alice managed to turn him off before I got too excited. But that was only a minor thing; the fan belt was a little more serious. Fan belts went quite often in cars in those days, and when I saw the temperature gauge going up and up I knew we were in trouble. We stopped at the top of the mountain and waited for someone to come along. As luck would have it, Tony Fall, who was driving a Ford Escort, came to our rescue. Jimmy Greaves was his co-driver and was really only there for publicity purposes, but as it turned out he was a very good driver as well as a footballer. His footballing days were nearly over, but his popularity remained – he was a charming man.
That wasn’t the first time that the fan belt snapped. It went on the first leg in Portugal and I didn’t have a spare to hand so I used my tights. It was headlines in the British newspapers: ‘Rosemary takes her tights off’ – more publicity for Lord Stokes. Tony Fall put the fan belt on and we were ready to go. We looked around for Alice, but she was nowhere to be seen. When we found her, she looked like a little green shrub as she was covered in cactus flies bigger than grasshoppers and they were sucking her arms, face and any bit of skin that was exposed. We tried to hit them off, but they must have liked her Scottish blood and wouldn’t move. The only thing I could think of was to take the fire extinguisher and spray her all over. I was told afterwards they could have given her awful burns, but it worked. The horrible insects fell off and we got her into the car and drove off.
As the day wore on, Alice blew up like a balloon and was covered in what looked like a very bad case of measles. When we got to the control stop, I had to cut off her clothes, her watch and everything. We fed her glucose drinks just to keep her going. When we arrived at La Paz I knew we had to get her to hospital because she was drifting in and out of consciousness. The stewards at the top of the mountain were insisting that I couldn’t go down as it was past 12 midnight. It was a very narrow pass, with cliffs on one side and a deep drop on the other. We were told that trucks were due to be coming up throughout the night. I crashed through a barrier that the stewards had put across the road; I was sure Alice would die if we didn’t get help for her. Halfway down the pass, we could see trucks approaching and Ginette put her foot on the horn and kept it there. Someone must have telephoned and said some mad women are coming down the mountain, keep out of their way. I didn’t care if the car was damaged, I just wanted to get Alice to the hospital. There was an ambulance in parc fermé waiting for us and we handed Alice over.
We had an overnight in La Paz, and when Ginette and I went back to the hotel we resigned ourselves to the fact that this was the end for us and the rally. If you started with a team of three, all of you had to finish – that was the rule. Later the next day there was a knock on the door and there she was, with her feet barely touching the ground, as two male nurses held her up. Alice knew if she didn’t come with us we were out of the running and she wouldn’t have that. She was a tiny little thing with a strong Scottish accent and she could drink a bottle of whisky and be up again the next morning, not a bother. Ginette and Alice were the best of friends after that episode.
Alice still wasn’t well, but at least we had medication for her and an assurance from the doctor that she would recover. And so we left La Paz on Sunday, 17 May, en route to Lima in Peru to cover another 1,150 miles in the target time of 25 hours. We strapped Alice into the back of the car and hoped for the best. The going was rough – nine of the 39 cars that left La Paz never made it to Lima. At this stage, apart from us, there were two other female crews still in the running: Claudine Trautmann in a Citroën and Jean Denton in an Austin 1800.
We left Lima from the Automobile Club of Peru on Tuesday evening, 19 May, after a sleep that didn’t feel long enough. The jungle-lined tracks to the Ecuadorian border in Macará kept us awake as we bumped along. It was a relief to cross the border and begin the journey to Saraguro on the smooth dirt roads. We crossed the border into Colombia and the drive from Cali to Buenaventura was all twisting narrow roads, mainly through jungle. There were trucks and overcrowded buses everywhere and the slipstreams of dust that came after them nearly choked us. The only consolation was that it was mostly downhill as we were approaching the coast. At this stage we were looking forward to the luxury of sailing up the Panama Canal and getting a good night’s sleep.
Twenty-six cars got as far as the port at Buenaventura to board the MS Verdi for the two-day trip to Central America. MS Verdi was a beautiful ship, with a swimming pool and well-appointed cabins. It was pure luxury after the overnight stop in Buenaventura, where the hotel was disgusting, with one antiquated refrigerator covered in insects. When we got on the ship, the first thing I did was to put on my now infamous white bikini and jump in the pool with some of the boys. In the evening, the captain decided we were going to have a fancy-dress party and we all got dressed up and danced into the night. The sensible ones went to bed because we still had miles to go – there were six more countries to drive through before we reached Mexico City.
The voyage took two and a half days. We sailed up the Pacific coast of Colombia and then through the Panama Canal on 23 May. The ship docked for the night in Cristóbal, and although we enjoyed the diversion we were all anxious to get on with it. Alice was doing well, and after the rest on the boat she was almost back to her old self. We had to wait overnight for the cars to be unloaded and on the following day the cars were released from the parc fermé.
The 350 miles from Panama City to San José in Costa Rica were on tarmacked roads and easier than anything we had driven on since we left Lisbon. Once we reached Costa Rica, however, we were in coffee plantation territory and into a mountainous region, where the roads changed from tarmac to dirt tracks and we were driving in the dark. We did well on that leg and all we had to do now was get through Nicaragua, Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala, on what turned out to be fairly good roads, before finally reaching Mexico.
At the border between Costa Rica and Nicaragua the national cleansing department sprayed all the cars with disinfectant. We were well and truly fumigated and the smell in the car was awful as we drove off, full of confidence that we would get to Mexico City in one piece. It was in the early hours of the morning and dark except for our headlights glaring when we came round a bend to find huge rocks blocking our way across the track. Half-joking, of course, I said to Alice and Ginette, ‘You had better get out and move them out of the way.’ That’s when we heard the sound of horses’ hooves and five men on horseback galloped towards us with big sombreros and handkerchiefs tied around their faces. When they realised we were women, they started to question us. ‘What are you doing?’ We explained we were on a rally. ‘Where are you going?’ Mexico City, we told them. ‘What have you got in the car?’ We told them nothing but a few clothes. Then they proceeded to lecture us, telling us that we shouldn’t be out in the middle of the night, how very dangerous it was and cautioned us to be careful. They acted like true gentlemen, rolled the rocks out of the way and left us to it.
We went on and the long hours of driving were starting to take their toll on me. ‘How much longer, Alice?’ I asked. ‘How much longer?’ ‘Not too long now,’ she said, trying to encourage me to keep going. ‘Soon, soon,’ she added, looking at the road book, and just then we came over the brow of the hill and all the lights were spread out below us. It was Fortín, a night halt 300 miles from Mexico City, and we had made it to the last checkpoint.
The day before we made our entrance to the Estadio Azteca we stayed in a beautiful hotel in Fortín. The owner was an Englishman who ran a sugar plantation, and he and the rest of the staff there made a great fuss of us. The magnificent swimming pool was covered in gardenias and there were flowers everywhere. But, somehow, it was a bit of an anticlimax after all those days of hard driving. I found it hard to relax and take in that we had actually made it to the finish. There were 98 contestants in all and only 23 arrived at the Estadio Azteca in Mexico. Five female crews left Wembley that day, two made it to the finish and we were one of them, gaining 10th place overall and beating 11 other all-male teams. The Red Arrows team came 22nd and Prince Michael of Kent went off the road 10 miles from Rio and withdrew. Tony Fall and Jimmy Greaves made it to 6th place.
The cars were washed and polished and we had a police escort into the stadium. Suddenly, the rain came down in torrents and all the spectators, who might have enjoyed the spectacle of 23 cars, in various states of disrepair, speeding along, disappeared. As we approached the Estadio Azteca the rain eased off and the cars got in line. The first three headed by Hannu Mikkola and Gunnar Palm, the winners, were to enter first, and because we had won the Ladies’ Section we were to go in after them. I was fuming when Jean Denton, driving a BMC 1800, otherwise known as a ‘land crab’, who had come 18th, nipped in front and drove into the stadium before me.
A telegram from Alec Issigonis, designer of the Maxi, congratulating us on winning the Ladies’ Prize (Author)
Jean was a Yorkshirewoman and later became Baroness Denton of Wakefield. She was a very clever and talented woman and I got on well with her, but at that moment I hated her. I didn’t hold a grudge, I rarely do that, and when Jean became a Minister in Stormont she invited me to Northern Ireland on several occasions and we had good times together. Sadly, she has since died.
It was pure determination that we finished that rally – well, that and my outstanding driving skills, of course! But there were things that happened on the event that really annoyed me. There was another women’s team and we passed them broken down on the side of the road. When we offered help, they waved us on. ‘Finito,’ they said, indicating that it was all over for them. When we got to the next control, there they were, driving in. In any case, it didn’t matter, because in the end they didn’t finish. We won £1,000 and shared it between us. That was a lot of money and the equivalent today would be over £14,000. We all went into Mexico City and bought stunning white lace dresses. I had mine for years after: it had a round neck and an A-line skirt, well above the knees. I also bought a beautiful ruby and diamond ring, which unfortunately, was stolen years later from my home, along with an emerald ring I owned.
The next month, June 1970, Alice and I drove together in the Scottish Rally, in another Austin Maxi. We had spent so much time together and were now great friends. I was to get married in August, and although I hadn’t planned to have a bridesmaid I decided to ask Alice and she accepted. She and her husband, Andy, came over from Scotland for the wedding and I was glad to have them by my side. On the day of the wedding, Andy drove me to the church. I was very quiet in the car and he knew something was wrong. ‘You don’t really want to do this, do you, Rosie?’ he said to me. ‘Stay in the car and we’ll just drive off somewhere. You can telephone and say you’ve changed your mind.’
How I wish I had taken him up on his offer. He was right: I didn’t want to get married, I didn’t want to be any man’s property, and in 1970s Ireland when you were married you belonged to your husband. I knew in my heart that it wouldn’t work and I should never have gone through with it, silly me!