Joan Richmond: From Melbourne to Monte Carlo and Beyond by Joan Richmond and David Price

The first thing I like about this book is that Joan Richmond acknowledges the ghost writer. Most autobiographies don’t do this, which sometimes makes it difficult to gauge the quality of an autobiography.

This autobiography is about the pre-war racing driver Joan Richmond and I have been trying to track down a copy for a couple of years, which has been immensely frustrating. Thankfully, knowing it was a vanity project rather than a commercial book tamped down my expectations about the book.

Regular readers of this blog will know that I usually find autobiographies frustrating, in that the stories are usually sanitised, and difficult bits glossed over. There is an element of that in this autobiography but enough detail to be able to read between the lines. And Richmond’s life as a driver is interesting enough without necessarily learning much about her as a person outside the racing.

Richmond’s life was certainly interesting! Born in 1905, she grew up as the daughter of two well to do families. I imagine that she was expected to be, and behave as, a nicely brought up young lady. Instead she rode and competed with horses, eventually moving on to cars and motor racing.

She set off from Melbourne as part of an Australian contingent to compete on the 1932 Monte Carlo Rally. The description of their journey shows just how naïve the group were.

Once Joan arrived in Europe she stayed and raced as much as she could, racing for a number of different marques and privateers.

During World War II, she worked for the De Haviland factory. Post-war her mother insisted that Joan return to Australia. Although she competed at a low level in Australia her racing career essentially fizzled out and she threw her considerable energy into animal welfare issues.

Whilst I think Richmond lead and exciting life, particularly whilst racing, I think she also had a sad life. She was unlucky with her personal relationships, her beloved Lancia Lambda went missing during or after the war and she didn’t get the chance to resume her racing.

Whilst this isn’t a particularly brilliant or well written book, I’m pleased I managed to get hold of a copy and it adds considerably to my knowledge of women racing drivers.

Atalanta: Women as Racing Drivers -S.C.H. Davis

I’m not quite sure how to describe this book, or more specifically the author and his writing style.

SCH Davis was a racing driver, motor racing journalist, an advocate of women racing, co-founder of the Veteran Car Club and, clearly a man of taste, he owned a Frogeye. On the downside he shows himself to be very much a man of his era when he describes the women he is writing about as “attractive, little bundles of fun” and the like! It grates on my 21st century sensibilities to read this sort of sentence that patronises these incredibly determined, fiercesome women.

That said, it is an interesting book written by someone who actually knew some of the drivers he is writing about, which means there are a number of anecdotes that bring the characters of the drivers alive. It was nice to read about the drivers human side rather than just about their racing skills.

Most of the chapters are about drivers I already know something about. The best of these was about Margaret Allan, a member of the 1935 MG Le Mans team, Bletchley Park code-breaker and Vogue motoring correspondent.

The best of the chapters about people who were new to me are Madam Juneck, a Czech driver who came 5th in  the Targa Florio, and Sheila Van Damm, a driver in the 1950s.

Overall, I would describe this book as an interesting period piece written by an interesting period piece!

Fast Ladies: female racing drivers 1888-1970 – Jean-Francois Bouzanquet

I knew I was going to enjoy this book from the first section when it talks about Bertha Benz, wife of Karl, packing the two children into the car early one morning, in 1888,  and driving from Mannheim to Pforzheim (111 miles) to visit her  mother, without telling Karl!  Legend has it that Karl was verging on hysterics from worry when he received a telegram telling him where his family were and that they were all safe.

This is another of the “coffee table” books from my pile.  There are lots of great photos of women racing drivers through the decades and potted histories of the various women drivers.  The histories are of varying lengths depending on how much is know about them.  I have said before, and am going to repeat myself, that the motor racing fraternity seems to be doing its best to write women drivers out of the history books.  There is a scandalous lack of information about some of the drivers.

I really liked the fact that unlike my previous books about women drivers this one covered post-WWII and I found out about more drivers that I didn’t know about.  I think for me by the time it gets to the 1950s the dangerous glamour has gone out of motor racing.  Yes, it’s still dangerous.  Yes, there is still an element of glamour. But it just doesn’t seem to have the raw energy, the sense of an elemental fight between human, machine and the track.

From a practical point of view this is a great reference book.  it is written in chronological order of when people were competing and their year of birth.  There is also an alphabetical list at the back so if I’m reading another book that references someone and I want to check back I can easily find them.  I suspect this book will come in very useful for that reason.

The book has also prompted me to widen my reading about motor racing in the inter-war years.  It tells lots of stories about women who raced in partnership with their husbands and, sometimes, other, male, racing drivers.  I’d like to find out more about these partnerships and the levels of equality that existed.

As a book to read it has its limitations.  If you like pictures of motor racing you’ll like this book.  As a book to dip in and out of, filled with anecdotes it’s an enjoyable browse.

Fast Women; the drivers who changed the face of motor racing – John Bullock

I started reading about women racing drivers years ago when I was bought a book called The Woman and the Car by Dorothy Levitt, originally published in 1909 and designed to help women maintain their cars.  I was fascinated by the fact that in the early part of 20th century a woman had been a successful works team driver for the Napier team.  Dorothy Levitt has been one of my role models since reading her book.  The picture at the top of this article is of her.

Then, last year, a friend bought a pre-war MG and asked me to research it and the history of the previous owners, trying to find a racing pedigree for the car.  We haven’t quite managed to do that yet but my research has led me to find out about other women racing drivers of the early 20th century, many of whom are in this book.

The book is an odd mish-mash of fact and chatty reminiscences.  It doesn’t cover the lives of all, or even most, of the women drivers I have come across.  It doesn’t give all the drivers equal space. And, I think, the author has his favourites amongst the drivers; possibly those he knew.  In a lot of ways this reflects my experience of trying to find out about the women who raced MGs; they have disappeared into the mists of time, written out of history by the disappearance of the marques they drove for and the increasing, post-WWII of sexism in motor sport.

Anyway, soap-box moment over!

The book is an interesting read.  It starts with Camille du Gast, the French adrenaline-junkie who was the first woman to complete a parachute jump (in 1895) as well as racing cars and boats.

Much to my delight there is a chapter on Dorothy Levitt, giving me more information about her away from the race track.  I didn’t know she got into racing because she was a temporary secretary at Napier when Selwyn Edge was looking for a British woman to rival Camille du Gast!

I was also pleased to find part of a chapter covering the life of Margaret Allan; she was a member of the all-women MG Le Mans team of 1935.  She also worked at Bletchley Park during WWII, which provides a nice link to something else I’m interested in.

Another gripe about the book is that although it is supposed to a book about women racing drivers there are far too many diversions into what their menfolk were doing in the racing world.  If I was being charitable I would say these parts were to fill gaps where there is little or no information about the women.  I could also say that it is indicative of the chauvinist world of motor racing!

To summarise, you will probably have guessed that I like this book because it gives me more information about a subject I am really interested in.  I dislike it because it shows how little the racing world cares about a group of drivers who were remarkable for their achievements regardless of their gender.  As a work of literature it is poor, yet it kept me interested and engaged throughout.

Click here for an interesting article on early motoring from Sunday Times