A full life in the fast lane

Rosemary Smith

A life in the fast lane

In an inspiring new interview with Gary Cooke rally driver, Rosemary Smith, speaks about her life, career and her ongoing passion for life. Smith, such a glamour figure of the 1960s, remains an indomitable spirit, continuing to race in rally events and recently becoming the oldest person to drive a Formula One car – performing notably better than one Jeremy Clarkson.

So how are you dealing with the current situation?

I have the newspapers, I have television, I can go for walks, I can have a little glass of wine now and again and you know you've got to think positively and just think and like most other people we're now in spring. My little snowdrops and daffodils are popping their heads up. I think I hope this year is going to be better but it's going to take a long , long time but you just gotta put up with it or you just go, I can’t take this and lie down and get totally depressed and do nothing. I can't do that and I was never like that anyway but you know it's just one of these awful things that happened to so many people unfortunately so many of them have passed away but you know at the moment but really I feel I have too much living to do so I am totally optimistic. I'm very lucky because I don't mind being on my own I mean some people just can't bear it they literally they go off their rocker but I don't mind. My dad was exactly the same - he could sit and read a book or something by himself, he never needed people around him and I think I'm exactly the same because even when we we're rallying all the time there's only you ,the car and your co driver - you don't talk to your co driver, she will say you know left, right, straight or whatever but there's no sort of chit chat.

the Circuit of Ireland, you won in Scotland, the RAC Rally, the Alpine Rally, you weren’t just a woman driver in a man’s world you were a champion woman’s driver?

Monte Carlo or bust! Rosemary Smith poses on her celebrated Hillman Imp having made it to the Principality

Rosemary Smith with the iconic Hillman Imp with which enjoyed so much rally success, and in action in an Imp in the 1967 Circuit of Ireland Rally

My interest in racing and cars came from my dad who had a small garage in Rathmines and he used to take me up to a field we had in Oldbawn to teach me to drive from the age of

With Tour De France winner Stephen Roche

13. And it was he who taught me things like use your ears and try not to use your brakes which is essential to motor racing.

I was working as a dress designer for Irene Gilbert in South Anne Street and across the road from our shop was the Coffee Inn which was owned by Delphine Biggar who’s husband was Frank Biggar who used to do the Monte Carlo Rally’s with a Jaguar and it was from knowing her and her asking me to be her co driver in races around Ireland that I got into motor racing. And for a period of time we swapped seats in the middle of races as she realised I was the faster driver and changed back at the end of the race - but we were soon caught. It was from there that I started rallying myself across Ireland, then England, then places like Monte Carlo as a privateer. But my father was always the one pushing me, encouraging me.

What reaction did you get from men and what did your husband think of you racing?

Initially I found men’s attitude towards a woman driver very stereotypical - it’s like the old saying which I find myself saying sometimes when you see someone driving badly – they must be a woman driver and all the ridiculous photo’s they made me do on the bonnet of car didn’t help the old ‘dolly bird’ image of women drivers. My husband didn't appreciate it at all. I was driving when I met him initially and he thought it was great going out with somebody who people knew. He was unfortunately terribly jealous and I was away an awful lot because we did the reconnaissance trips and then we come back and then we go out and do the rallies and I just I knew I should never have married him - it's not that I’m a women ranting, but he was just the wrong person for me and if I had somebody who would supported me and backed me up like my dad did it would have been grand. But my heart goes out here for having to deal with all of that stuff and dealing with that in any marriage is incredibly, incredibly difficult.

The London Sydney Rally was very eventful for you when you broke down in India and ran into some locals - you ended up going up the Khyber pass backwards?

Yes well another thing that my dad told me that if it won't go forward it'll always go backwards! London Sydney was 12,500 miles and it started in London and we went down to Dover and across into Europe and then we went right across Europe and down to Istanbul right down through Afghanistan, Pakistan, India. But it was when we got into the desert in Afghanistan and the car had been running particularly badly and one of the pistons had gone and then another piston had gone and then it suddenly decided it wasn't going to go any further and we were sitting there and this girl with me and the next thing I heard a rush out of the sand dunes and 20 men appeared on camels and I thought Oh my God what’s going to happen next!

They circled the car and camels are big things when you're sitting down in a low car and so they came around and took my bracelets and my earrings. So I gave them some cans of oil which we had in the boot of the car and they began drinking them, thinking they were Coca Cola which of course made them very sick and very angry with us and it was only when a couple of English men came along and chased them off that we were able to get to the end of the stage.

So the next day anyway we started off and they did a bit of a running repair so the car would move and we started off up the Khyber pass and of course it went chuck, chuck, chuck and stopped and we only had got about a mile so free wheeled it back down to the start,

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‘My interest in racing and cars came from my dad who had a small garage in Rathmines and he used to take me up to a field to teach me to drive from the age of 13’.

Rosemary Smith’s fear of failure and her determination to succeed continues to this day and is evident in the success that she describes when driving the Formula One car as an ambassador for Renault.

turned it around put it into reverse and we reversed I think it was something like 73 K right over the Khyber Pass!

What I find quite extraordinary is that you became the oldest woman to drive a Formula One car at the age of 79 – do you like danger?

Gary the oldest person, man or woman to drive a Formula One car!

It's a hair raising experience because I like to see where I'm going and with a Formula One car as you know you've got to get in and go down and down and down and also I'm very tall and they kept it down further I said might also be out the front of the car if I get any further down but they said well if you see the tops of the front tires then you can see where you're going. But it was exiliarating and I didn’t stall it which is more than can be said for Jeremy Clarkson!

I see racing as something I really love doing and if you are going to do something, just go and do it. You can't think of the danger, you can be apprehensive. Before an event – don’t talk to me. The only thing I was worried about when driving the Formula 1 car was not making a fool out of myself, crashing never crossed my mind.

Are you disappointed that more female drivers haven’t come through the ranks and challenged the male dominance in motor racing and rallying? As far as rallying is concerned there are a few drivers out there who are very good but there are no Irish, there are a number of Irish co -drivers. You have to remember to go rallying or racing you have to have money. A sponsor who is a relation of yours – everything is money now in motor sport. Even to go into Formula 1 you have to bring with you something like 1 million pounds - no matter how good you are.

This is an edited version of the Rosemary Smith Senior Times podcast interview with Gary Cooke.

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