Brooklands Bulletin Issue 76 July/Aug 2022

The Brooklands Battleship90 years since breaking the Outer Lap Record

Welcome

If you ever need reminding of what a diverse, wonderful place Brooklands is, the past few weeks have provided ample evidence. Not long after sending the previous Bulletin to print, the Centenary of Speed brought together an amazing collection of historic machinery all with one purpose – to go as quickly as engineering and science at the time would permit.

Among the cars were an even more incredible mix of people at Brooklands. Where else in the world will you see Wing Commander Andy Green, the fastest human on Earth, chat with the grandson of Kenelm Lee Guinness, the last person to set the Land Speed Record at Brooklands? Alongside them were school children competing to build the fastest remote-controlled model cars, showing that innovative, curious minds are alive and well.

The magnetism of the Museum, thanks to its staff, volunteers and Members has been a huge draw for visitors. Despite the challenges faced by Brooklands over the past two years, visitor numbers at half-term were up by 8.5% compared to 2021. That might seem understandable given the continuing recovery from the pandemic, but this year’s figure is up by a huge 13% compared to the same period in 2019. Congratulations to everyone for this success, and here’s to Brooklands continuing to bring people together in an inspiring environment.

Alisdair Suttie Editor Brooklands Bulletin

Become a Member

Brooklands Members is the official support organisation for Brooklands Museum and is dedicated to raising funds for the preservation of the historic Brooklands site.

Members receive the Bulletin six times per year and enjoy free admission to the Museum, except when major events are taking place, in which case additional charges may apply. Club Level Members have access to the Clubhouse Bar on Thursday, Friday and Sunday lunchtimes.

For full details of membership benefits, contact the Members Administrator, Sarah Dover 01932 857381 ext 226; or wwwbrooklandsmembers.co.uk where you can find the latest news on Brooklands.

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Front Cover photo: Brooklands Museum Collection

Relived roars in

Brooklands Years Relived is coming to the Museum on Saturday 9 July. This day incorporates the popular Relived and Vintage Festival events, celebrating the best of Brooklands motorsport, aviation, and the social history of the site.

There will be a variety of classic vehicle demonstrations during the day, live music, and a dance tent for everyone who wants to strut their stuff. Plenty of food and drinks stands will be available, and there will be traders selling vintage items. The Paddock will be hosting a display of vehicles from the Brooklands era, spanning 1907 to 1939, many of which will be shown off during demonstrations and Test Hill ascents. There is the opportunity to bring along your pre- and post-war (up to 1988) vehicles, which will be on display around the site and can take on the challenge of Test Hill ascents.

Don’t forget to dress to impress! Raid your wardrobes for your best vintage outfits as there will prizes up for grabs. Brooklands Years Relived begins at 10am on 9 July and will stay open till 8pm. More information can be found on the Museum website at: www.brooklandsmuseum.com/whats-on/brooklands-years-relived

Jaguar Le Mans Winners celebrate at Brooklands

Le Mans-winning cars from 1955 and 1988, and drivers Jan Lammers and Andy Wallace together with former CEO Sir John Egan, were at Brooklands for the 100th anniversary celebrations of Jaguar Cars.

William Lyons and William Walmsey founded Swallow Sidecars in Blackpool in 1922 and there was one of those early sidecars attached to a Brough Superior on display. From the 1920s Austin 7 Swallows through the SS cars of the 1930s, as well as D-types, E-types, XJ, XJS, Ford-era X-Types up to the current i-Pace, virtually every model from the marque’s history was represented. More than 2000 visitors were treated to a fabulous display.

Notable competition cars were a 1984 European Touring Car Championship TWR XJS and XK120 ‘NUB 120’ used by Ian Appleyard to win the 1950 and ’51 Alpine Rallies. Jaguar estates are less common, but a conversion of an XJ40 model was one of two made and was an indication of what might have been.

It wasn’t all cars. During the Second World War, the SS factory (not Jaguar at that stage) manufactured around 46,000 trailers for the military and a 10cwt example was displayed - not quite ‘Grace, space, and pace.

Jaguar Cars is currently developing a range of electric vehicles scheduled to arrive from 2025. My mole tells me this new generation will be very distinctive. If the designers needed inspiration, they should have been at Brooklands where they would have marvelled at the wonderful history on show.

Gareth Tarr

receives two Outstanding ratings in Ofsted report

The Heritage Skills Academy has received its first Ofsted Report and was awarded two Outstanding scores and two Good, with an Overall Effectiveness of Good. It was given Outstanding marks for Behaviour and Attitude, and Personal Development. It was also deemed Good in the quality of its education, and Leadership and Management category.

In its report, Ofsted noted: ‘Apprentices are exceptionally motivated and display very positive attitudes to both their training and their job roles. Leaders and managers have a clear and purposeful rationale for the apprenticeship they offer, which is to provide high quality training to replace the ageing workforce in the classic, vintage and heritage vehicle industry. They have established strong links with employers and organisations in the industry to plan and teach a curriculum which is relevant to their needs.’

There are 141 apprentices currently being trained at the HSA’s two sites at Brooklands Museum and Bicester Heritage.

Four local schools competed to see which could build the fastest remote-controlled car as part of the launch of the Brooklands Innovation Academy. The event took place during the Centenary of Speed day on 17 May, and the students met Land Speed Record holder Andy Green, Don Wales, grandson of Malcolm Campbell, and McLaren Automotive’s Programme Manager for Future Projects, Jonny Swinhoe.

HSA

Winter Draw goes live

Enclosed with this edition of the Bulletin are your raffle tickets for our annual Brooklands Members draw. This year the raffle proceeds will help fund an important new exhibition to tell the story of and celebrate Barnes Wallis, a famous inventor and engineer who spent most of his working life at Brooklands.  2023 marks 80 years since the famous Dambusters raid, which used the Bouncing Bomb that Barnes Wallis developed. The Museum intends to commemorate this poignant anniversary by exploring Barnes Wallis’ life, the wide range of projects and inventions to which he was integral, and the legacy and impact these had.

With cash prizes of £1000, £500 and £250 to be won, we hope you will be able to buy a ticket to help fund this vital exhibition. Tickets are only £2 each and we have enclosed one book of tickets with this issue of the Bulletin. More books are available on request from the Members Office, the Museum Shop, or from the Outreach stand at events.

Tickets can be returned with payment to the Members Office, reception, the shop, or Outreach stand at the Museum. Should you wish to pay securely online, please visit the link to the Winter Draw on the Brooklands Members webpage: www.brooklandsmuseum. com/brooklands-members

Ticket numbers will be allocated and communicated to you on payment is you use the website. Thank you for your support in funding this exhibition, and good luck!

Jeni Larwood

Message from Members’ Chairman

Over the last few weeks, it has been pleasing to see Brooklands continue to emerge from enforced hibernation, and to see crowds flocking back to enjoy events in ever increasing numbers. The recent Centenary of Speed event, reported elsewhere, was a case in point. It was a superbly well organised event, with blue skies in abundance, and photo opportunities at every turn. I know that there were many Members who were unable to attend because the centenary fell on a weekday, but hopefully you will have seen some of the extensive coverage across digital platforms.

Martin Gegg has reinvigorated the newsletter over the last few months and it now includes a comprehensive listing of forthcoming events that you may wish to attend, so please ensure that it is landing in your inbox and not your email junk or spam folders. We are reviewing the delivery of all our information to Members to ensure that it is accurate and timely, and we appreciate we must be responsive to the needs of all our Members, ensuring they receive the information that they want, when they want it. That particularly applies to areas like the Talks programme, where Harry Sherrard and Jeni Larwood have worked hard to ensure that tickets to talks are available online, via Eventbrite, and I am pleased to report the system appears to work well and the feedback from Members is positive.

Blessed bikers

On 8 May, a service was held at Westminster Abbey to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the formation of 59 Club Motorcycle Section. The club started as a church-based youth club in Hackney Wick in April 1959. In 1962, after a visit by Father Bill to the Ace Café, a motorcycle section was established which soon outgrew the youth club.

Today, the club retains close links with the Ace Café and is also in regular attendance at the Museum’s motorcycle events. Representatives of the Museum and Member’s Committee were invited to the Abbey as guests of the 59 Club and witnessed the loud arrival of members on bikes into Deans Yard complete with police escort.

The moving service, presided over by the Dean of Westminster, the Very Reverend Dr David Hoyle MBE, included readings by the club’s chairman Reverend Sergiy Diduk, and members of the 59 Club. The service culminated with a blessing of the bikes to commemorate Father William Shergold’s first blessing in 1962.

Martin Gegg

Brooklands Museum receives grant from Surrey Educational Trust

Brooklands Museum has been generously awarded a grant of £25,000 from the Surrey Educational Trust to support Brooklands Innovation Academy, which is a programme that inspires and supports young people to become the next generation of scientists and engineers.

Brooklands Innovation Academy brings together secondary school students with STEM (science, technology, engineering and maths) industry expertise to develop much needed talented scientists and engineers for the future.

The grant will support an exciting and inspirational year-end event to be held at the Museum. Surrey students will attend and experience STEM learning and aspiration towards STEM careers, with workshops and talks run and hosted by STEM industry experts.

Rachel Higgins

Our role on the Committee is to ensure that you are aware of the benefits of membership, are able to access them and benefit from them easily, and from my many conversations with individual Members at events, I think we are on the right path.

I promised to keep you informed about our Annual Dinner and I’m pleased to inform you that we have now booked a date of Friday 25 November. By the time you are reading this, nominations for Committee will have closed, but I can already report that we have received sufficient applications to cover the vacancies arising. Full details, together with my Annual Report, will appear in the next edition of the Bulletin.

Gareth Tarr has completed his review of the accounts and these will be posted online in advance of the AGM so that you may vote on them, as well as for candidates for election. Our decision to reimburse Members fully for events that had to be cancelled was absolutely the right one, and I would like to place on record my grateful thanks to Angela Hume for dealing with the bureaucratic nightmare that resulted, and ensuring that refunds were processed and events rescheduled whenever possible.

I look forward to meeting more of you over the coming months at what promises to be an exciting programme of events.

Neil Bailey

Tony Brooks, the Racing Dentist

Since his death on 5 May, 2022, much has been written about Charles Antony Standish Brooks. However, what follows is Tony Brooks’ brief biography in his own words, written by him and given to me on the eve of the Tribute to Stirling Moss held in September 2021 at Brooklands, at which Tony was our guest of honour. The event may well have been his last public appearance and without doubt his last trackside interview with Simon Taylor. I was honoured to be given this unique document:

BROOKS (Tony) Charles Antony, Born Dukinfield, Cheshire 25.02.32. Attended Mount St Mary’s College and Manchester University gaining a dental degree (BDSLDS) in in 1956.

Married (1958) Pina Resegotti (International Basket Ball Player) Five children. Started club motor in 1952 in the mother’s Healey Silverstone. Competing at a time when foreign car manufacturers and drivers dominated motor racing, he made a significant contribution to the initial breakthrough and the eventual establishment of Britain as a leading motor racing force in the world with a number of ‘firsts’.

1955. Syracuse Grand Prix (Sicily) - the first British car (Connaught) and driver to win a Formula 1 Grand Prix for 31 years. This was his first drive in a Formula 1 car.

1957. British Grand Prix (Aintree) - the first British car (Vanwall) and driver (with Moss) to win a World Championship Grand Prix.

1957. ADAC 1000 Kilometre Race (Nürburgring) - the first British sports car (Aston Martin) and driver (with CunninghamReid) to win this classic event.

1958. Belgian Grand Prix (Spa) - the first British car (Vanwall) and driver to win this classic event.

1958. German Grand Prix. (Nürburgring) -the first British car (Vanwall) and driver to win this classic event.

1958. A member of the Vanwall team which won the first Formula 1 World Manufacturers Championship for Britain, winning three of the team’s six Grands Prix.

1959. A hat-trick of European Grand Prix with the British, Belgian and French Grands Prix in 1957/58/59, a unique achievement.

He participated in Formula 1, Formula 2, sports, Grand Turismo and saloon car categories over 10 competitive years with his wins including 7 Grand Prix with 6 Formula 1 World Championship victories in the British, Belgium, German (twice), Italian and French Grand Prix.

Driving for Aston Martin in 1957, he won the Spa Grand Prix, the Belgian Grand Prix and the ADAC 1000 Kilometre Race (Nürburgring) and in 1958 the Tourist Trophy (with Moss), the last two being World Sports Car Championship events. He also won many non-championship formula, sports Grand Turismo and saloon car races in the course of his career.

Vanwall retired after winning the first World Manufacturers Championship in 1958, leaving him without a British car to drive. Enzo Ferrari invited him to join the Formula 1 and Sports Car teams in 1959, and he was second in the Formula 1 World Drivers Championship, five points short. He left Ferrari to purchase and run a motor business in the UK, giving the future priority over his best motoring racing interests. He had two restricted seasons in uncompetitive cars, retiring in October 1961 to devote more time to his family and business.

Although he never won the Formula 1 World Drivers Championship, there have been seven World Champions who scored fewer or no more Grand Prix victories in the course of their careers, despite the annual number of Grands Prix doubling after his era, and who had much lower wins/starts ratios. During the 1950s decade, only Ascari, Fangio, and Moss won more Grands Prix. Connaught, Vanwall, and Ferrari were the

Motorcycle Team at Montlhéry

Members of the Motorcycle Team travelled to Montlhéry, a replica track of Brooklands just south-west of Paris, in May to take part in the Vintage Revival. The event is a celebration of all pre-war vehicles and the organisers have an eye for the most quirky and unique vehicles.

With a very welcome travel contribution from the Museum, the Team was able to run some of the bikes featured in The Secrets of the Transport Museum, including the Freddy Clarke Triumph T80, Margethe BSA lockdown project, and the Triumph L2/1. Also on track was the Veteran Peugeot.

Team Member Tony Baxter rode his 1940s Ariel from Woking to Montlhéry after problems with his more modern bike. Tony explained: ‘This is a bike I usually worry about taking out for more than 10 miles, but after some running repairs and getting used to very dim lights, I made it!’

Martin Gegg

only truly competitive Formula 1 cars he drove, winning half of the Grands Prix he finished. His seven victories represented a wins/start ratio of 29%.

He was a motoring journalist for 10 years, contributing to various national publications, including a weekly column for the Observer. He did regular television work, including motor race commentaries, and produced a biography, Poetry in Motion Interests: tennis, swimming, skiing, and listening to music.

Tony Brooks was a gentleman, elegant and dignified. Initial correspondence with him would always be by formal letter, to which he always replied, followed up by the occasional surprise telephone call. I had two opportunities to spend time in his company, firstly in June 2017 when he appeared with Simon Taylor for a Motor Sport Legends evening at Brooklands. Secondly, last September at the Stirling Moss Tribute, where as our guest of honour he was reunited with his Vanwall car.

Not only does his sad death reflects a great loss, it also marks the end era of men like Fangio, Moss, and Ascari, the like of which we will never see again. As a Weybridge lad, the Shell filling station on the Brooklands Road, will always be ‘Tony Brooks Garage’. Thank you Mr Brooks.

Steve Clarke

R OLLS -R OYCE P HANTOM III 1937

H.J.M

ULLINER S EDANCA C OUPÉ

An exceptionally attractive Phantom III. One of very few Sedanca Coupés made. Recent total restoration to the highest standards, this car would be suitable for all of the worlds major concours competitions.

The Rolls-Royce Phantom III was the absolute ultimate in high performance luxury travel and, until today, no car has ever been produced to such high quality on a production basis.

It is the most complicated Rolls-Royce ever built and to call this a car seems almost an inadequate description as today it is more like an engineering masterpiece on wheels.

Its mechanical specification is incredible, a V12 engine of 7.3 litres capacity and dual ignition systems with 24 sparking plugs. It has independent front suspension with springs horizontal in oil filled boxes and ride control which is automatically varied by the speed of the car and is adjustable from the steering column.

A central lubrication system lubricates the entire car at the push of a pedal. The radiator shutters are thermostatically controlled and a remote jacking system allows it to be jacked up either on the front, rear or all four wheels by somebody whilst still sitting inside.

MUSEUM updates

Director’s Message

The summer is in full swing now and Brooklands Museum has never been busier. We had one of our best summer half terms ever at the beginning of June, when we joined the nation in celebrating the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee. There’s even more to look forward to during the summer holidays, when we’ll be introducing costumed characters around the site on certain days to bring the stories of Brooklands’ pioneers to life for visitors. Make sure you speak to them when you visit – they will be delighted to answer your questions about their character’s Brooklands achievements.

Everyone’s favourite Brooklands events are returning this year, along with some new ones. There are so many opportunities to make use of your membership, whether you are looking forward to celebrating all things motorcycle-related on 3 July, dressing up in vintage finery for Brooklands Years Relived that takes place on 9 July, or the Members’ Summer Classic Gathering and Auto Jumble on 24 July. A little later on, we have the Aston Martin Heritage Festival on 14 August, or you can celebrate American cars and culture on 4 September, or come along to honour our emergency services, past and present on 11 September, so there is something for everyone. Check out the full listings on the website or in the Bulletin.

Alongside all the plans for this summer, we’re also investing in Brooklands’ future. The project to renovate key areas of the Clubhouse will be starting in July, thanks to nearly £500,000 of funding from the government. A grant from Elmbridge Borough Council means that at the same time we will be installing a lift so everyone can easily access the first floor.

I’m also really delighted in the development of our support for young people to take up STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) careers. The countless, inspiring stories of innovators at Brooklands underpin the launch of the Brooklands Innovation Academy described in page 20 of this issue. We are delighted to be working with high profile partners to support hundreds of young people through this programme, which will be extremely successful if the event at the Land Speed Record Centenary celebration is anything to go by. Teams from four education establishments competed to design and build the best remote-controlled car, with their entries judged by Don Wales, grandson of Malcolm Campbell, and Johnny Swinhoe of McLaren

MoT update

You may remember from a previous issue of the Bulletin that the Motoring Team has been searching for a suitable replacement for Duncans, our original MoT Test Centre. It was used for the majority of the Museum’s vehicles, but it was forced to close a few years ago due to ill health.

Now, some of you may be thinking why do these pre-war vehicles need an MoT when the law does not require it? Well,

Automotive. They talked about their experiences of breaking new ground in speed in an excellent panel session, alongside Wing Commander Andy Green, holder of the current World Land Speed Record, and Dave Turton of McMurtry, a young team building an electrically powered supercar. All of them embody the Brooklands spirit. If you missed the panel presentation you can still watch it thanks to a recording made by Brooklands Members TV and available on the BM.tv channel.

We all hope that the weather will be kind to us this year, as the country is due a great British summer, but rain or shine, there’ll be lots to do at Brooklands Museum and we look forward to seeing you.

Tamalie Newbery

given the cars move around the site and are sometimes used on the public road, we feel it’s our duty to keep everyone as safe as possible by ensuring all of the vital parts, steering, suspension, brakes and more are kept in good working order.

After a few false starts where sympathy for older vehicles was missing or the testing was not sufficiently robust, we happened upon a new business that had set up in the old premises of Duncans. They are a young team with bags of experience and eye for detail. Just as importantly, they have the equipment to allow our narrow-tracked vehicles to be lifted high for inspection, which is something we don’t have at the Museum.

We have already taken a number of the collection for testing where leaking seals, worn bushes, issues with springs, and rubbing cables have been highlighted. Needless to say, our list of work is quite extensive and we intend to tackle it over the coming months.

Debbie Crawt

Clubhouse restoration begins

Work to restore parts of the Clubhouse and install a new lift start on 4 July. Preliminary works began in June with the appointment of a main contractor.

Funds of almost £500,000 were received from a government grant, along with a grant from Elmbridge Council, and the generous £25,000 donation from the

Members raffles and other Brooklands Members’ activities. This was one of the largest contributions from the Members to any project that has been undertaken at the Museum.

The work will restore the Clubhouse Tower and bring a new reading room to the downstairs of the Clubhouse. Upstairs,

Brooklands launches on TikTok

Brooklands has now added a TikTok channel to its social media outlets. With TikTok becoming such a big platform, we relished the chance to connect with fans of Brooklands new and old to explore different aspects of the Museum and its wonderful stories.

To celebrate the Centenary of Speed on the 17 of May, we created a video series about Kenelm Lee Guinness and his recordbreaking story. The second part of this series, focusing on the KLG Spark Plug Company, has gained nearly 40,000 views. It certainly ‘sparked’ a lot of interest.

In the short time we have been uploading videos, we have gained more than 800 followers and hope to hit 1000 by the end of June. If you aren’t already following us, make sure to check out our account, and we appreciate the support. Over the next few months, we will be posting lots more exciting content, including looking at collection items, exploring stories of drivers and pilots, and generally looking at all the amazing aspects of Brooklands.

To follow us on TikTok and see our videos so far, visit the TikTok website and our username is: @brooklandsmuseum1

the South Balcony will be restored, plus repair and replacement of several windows and other works to keep the building watertight. The new lift will make the upstairs area fully accessible to all Members and visitors, and a new accessible toilet is also part of the plan.

Collections

The ERA Shed is getting a new loan vehicle for at least the next six months. It is the Leyland Thomas No. 1, which is on loan from David Haywood. It will replace the Talbot, which has now returned to its owner, and sits directly behind the NapierRailton. The Leyland Thomas was designed and built by JG Parry-Thomas and went on to become one of the most successful and famous Brooklands racing cars of the era, so it is really special to have it back on display here.

With its distinctive livery, the Leyland Thomas No 1 was one of the most effective Outer Circuit racing cars at Brooklands. Parry Thomas lived at the Track and devoted his life to developing his competition and Land Speed Record machines.

Beatrice Meecham, Interpretation and Programme Officer

Terraplane memories

Concorde coincidence

Dear Sir,

The article on the refurbishment of the Railton’s back axle and brakes brought back some happy memories. As an eight-year old in our small Scottish village after the Second World War, someone owned a Railton Terraplane identical to the one in the picture except it was painted Royal Blue, they also owned a Morris open tourer painted in the exact same colour.

Might I add that the thread on the bolt holes would not have been originally UNF, but ANF. UNF was introduced during the war to be interchangeable with ANF. The difference between the thread forms was that British UNF had a radiused top while the American ANF had a flat top. The pitches were the same.

Best regards,

James

Gibb

Dear Sir, I work part-time for a firm of insurance brokers in the City of London office, and in a past issue of my firm’s in-house

Dear Sir, Back in the 1970s, my late wife and I use to have long weekends away with her married school friends in the south of France. Ian and I would often enjoy a few rounds of golf while there. One day, we played at Estérel. A small queue had formed on the first tee, so we had to wait. After a few minutes, a tall Frenchman asked if he could join us. I ended up marking the Frenchman’s card. After a few holes, I asked how he spoke such perfect English and he told me that he was a Concorde pilot.

After the game, he had to rush off, so we didn’t get the chance to ask him more about his job. Then, a few weeks ago a friend lent me Brian Trubshaw’s book Test Pilot and in it he talks about the French test pilot, André Turcat, who flew the first Concorde 001. That was the name on the golf score card at Estérel, so I can say that I have played a round of golf with the first man to fly Concorde, but it has taken all this time to find out.

Best regards,

John Burch

newsletter, I read last year of a colleague in our Bristol office whose ancestors ‘invented the spark plug and held the Land speed Record.’ This was part of a regular

feature on individual staff, to a standard formula which asked each contributing employee for any ‘claims to fame’, hence this astonishing (to me) revelation!

Intrigued, of course, for self-evident reasons, I duly wrote to her to find out more. It turns out that my colleague’s Great Uncle was indeed ‘KLG’ and her Great Grandfather was ‘Algy’ mentioned in the article. Can you believe it? And had I not read what was, in fact, a back copy of the company magazine, all this connection would have just passed me by.

I have sent my colleague some extracts from the latest Bulletin, but I was wondering if an extra copy could be sent to me, please, in order to pass on to her, via our MD who regularly covers both offices.

At the recent Centenary of Speed event at Brooklands, I met Sir Kenelm Lee Guinness and Lady Melissa Guinness, so again I was very lucky to be in the right place at the right time.

Regards,

John Bath

LETTERS

Lord Dowding remembered

Dear Sir,

Please send letters to the Bulletin on any topic connected with Brooklands to Alisdair Suttie on: brooklandsbulletineditor@gmail.com

Your splendid article on Sir Thomas Sopwith in the May-June Bulletin put me in mind of another famous Brooklands flyer who achieved great things for this country: Air Chief Marshal Hugh Dowding, Leader of the Few in the Battle of Britain. Dowding’s training at Brooklands was a couple of years later and his Aviator’s Certificate is dated 30 December, 1913 and was number 711. He learnt at the Vickers School.

As an Army officer, Dowding had become convinced that aircraft were going to be key in future warfare and determined to learn to fly when he was at Staff College at Camberley. In autobiographical notes written in the 1950s, Lord Dowding as he was by then, records ‘Vickers had a training school at Brooklands, and I made a covenant with them that I would pay them after I got my ticket, so I didn’t have to put up the £75. In those days, one only flew in the calm of the early morning before the sun had generated the thermal currents which gave rise to “bumps”. The chief instructor was a man named Barnwell, a first class pilot but not a good getter-up in the morning; so most of my instruction was given me by one of their ordinary mechanics - a splendid fellow called Knight. By the last day of my stay in Camberley, I was ready for my flying test, but there was a final passing-out inspection on this last day, so I arranged with Barnwell that a machine should be ready at crack of dawn and that the Royal Aero Club official who acted as judge should be on the spot. But when I arrived the next morning there was no Barnwell, no machine and no judge. However, I found my friend Knight and he knew where the judge lived in Weybridge, so we got into the car, drove to Weybridge and fetched the judge with a greatcoat over his pyjamas. The three of us then opened the shed, wheeled out the machine and started it up. I then flew the prescribed number of figure-of-eights and landed within 50 feet of a mark on the ground, drove the judge back to bed and went into the Blue Bird restaurant to pay my bill. While I was there, Barnwell sauntered in and said “Hullo Dowding, are you going for your ticket this morning?” I said ‘’No”. He said “Why, have you changed your mind?” I said ‘’No. I’ve got it.” In due course I received my ticket entitling me to fly and carry passengers. I had been exactly one hour and 40 minutes in the air altogether - passenger, dual and solo.’

This quotation comes from a personal memoir of Dowding. A number of books have been published over the years on the subject of the Battle of Britain and the involvement of Air Chief Marshal Lord Dowding. Additionally, the Air Ministry published a Record of the Battle in 1941 and a Pamphlet in 1943. However, Dowding himself never wrote an autobiography, but he did prepare a lengthy set of notes, initially to assist John Basil Collier who wrote the authorised biography Leader of the Few, which was published in 1957. Several other copies of Dowding’s notes became available and were used by other biographers. A copy of the notes was also given to a Canadian benefactor in 2005 by the Heritage Secretary of the then RAF Bentley Priory which had been HQ Fighter Command. The loose-leaf typed

Double Jappic

Dear Sir,

I was interested to read about Adrian Ward’s Jappic project and wondered if he was aware of a virtually identical car in New Zealand.

In 2016, we were in NZ for an International Veteran, Vintage and Classic Car Rally. I attended a race meeting and while in the main circuit building saw virtually everything I see in your article with the chassis built and some information sheets. I have no idea who built it, but the reasoning for the build was the same.

Regards,

Dale Hicks

manuscript was found in one of the drawers of Lord Dowding’s desk when the site was to be redeveloped. In the event, the headquarters building was saved and now hosts the excellent Bentley Priory Museum. The papers were apparently put away and forgotten until they resurfaced in early 2020 and were sent to Sir Donald Spiers TD, FRAeS (a Past President of the Royal Aeronautical Society and former Controller Aircraft for the RAF). Sir Donald decided to publish these hitherto unseen papers and I worked with him to produce a book called The Dowding Papers using a print-on-demand service.

Interestingly the notes say nothing about the Battle of Britain itself, but simply refer to the official Despatch, which was written by Dowding and published in the London Gazette. Dowding’s notes do however contain fascinating details of his life at school, in the Army, in the Royal Flying Corps, in the Royal Air Force and, following his retirement, his great interest in Spiritualism. In particular his account of his life as a young Army officer in the early 20th century is told with great humour, completely belying the nickname of ‘Stuffy’ that he acquired in later life.

The first copies were donated to Battle of Britain museums to be sold to raise funds and later supplied at cost. Indeed, you can buy a copy in the bookshop at Brooklands! It’s also now available on Amazon as a paperback and Kindle book.

I should also add that there’s a further Brooklands connection. In early 1915, Dowding records that he was sent to Brooklands to start a wireless experimental establishment and writes enthusiastically about a civilian called Prince who had worked for Marconi: ‘We decided to experiment with air-to-ground telephony, and, thanks to Prince’s knowledge and ingenuity we soon had a telephone transmitter fitted up in our Maurice Farman, and I was the first person, certainly in England if not in the world, to listen to a wireless telephone message from the air. We could have fixed up two-way communication too if we had not received a directive from the War Office that radio-telephonic communication between air and ground was not considered to be practical.’

Best regards,

Jim Buckley

Adrian Ward replies: The NZ car was built by Garth Thomas. He got in touch with me after I had been building my car for a couple of years and asked if I would mind if he built one. As he was in NZ, the cars would never be at the same event. Garth is a much quicker builder than me and he also had a company make his bodywork, so in 2019 I was rushing to get my car done for Vintage Revival in Montlhéry. Garth emailed me and said he was bringing his to the same event

It was great to meet in person and after 90 odd years of no Jappic, suddenly there were two. I managed one lap of the track in the weekend, while Garth did more. I was at the Brooklands Centenary of Speed event with my Jappic and while I was having lunch, Garth just appeared at the table. He was in the UK visiting his son, who works for Red Bull F1. We had a short chat and it was very nice to see him.

forthcoming events

2022 Museum Events

The Events List is subject to change, so please check the website: www.brooklandsmuseum.com. Email events@brooklandsmuseum.com or telephone the Museum on: 01932 857381 for information. Test Hill, car rides and engine runs are subject to operational conditions.

24 July

The Brooklands Motorcycle Show. From superbikes to the super rare, all sorts of motorcycles will be at this event, and many will be demonstrated by the Motorcycle Team. This is also a chance to see many of the motorcycles and people who feature in Secrets of the Transport Museum. The Test Hill will be in action as pre-war machines are pitted against their modern-day equivalents, and you can book to ride your own motorcycle up the hill.

July

3 The Brooklands Motorcycle Show. Celebrating motorcyles of yesterday, today, and tomorrow.

3 July 9 July

9 Brooklands Years Relived. Step back to the heyday of Brooklands with this all-new event.

23 July - 31 August Brooklands Summer Fete. Get your summer school holidays sorted with Brooklands as the Summer Fete swings into action.

24 Summer Classic Gathering and Auto Jumble. From classic cars to classic clothes, it’s all welcome at this event.

4 September

Brooklands Years Relived. Step back to the heyday of Brooklands and celebrate the social and engineering history of the venue alongside its motorsport and aviation past. There will be vehicle demonstrations, characters in period costume, a vintage dance tent with live music, and a best dressed competition! We’ll also have plenty of food and drink stalls on what promises to be one of the highlights of the year at Brooklands.

Summer Classic Gathering and Auto Jumble. From classic cars to classic clothes, it’s all welcome at this event, which has a wide range of stalls to help you find that essential item. Anyone driving a classic car is welcome and there will be prizes for the best Modern, Pre-war, Baby Boomer, and Vintage Motorcycle. With around 100 stalls selling all types of vintage and retro gear, you’re sure to find that elusive item for your car or wardrobe. There’s also live music and plenty of food stalls.

August

14 Aston Martin Heritage Festival. All things Aston Martin descend on Brooklands for this celebration to mark 75 years since David Brown bought the company.

September

4 American Day. A celebration of chrome, fins and motoring muscle.

11 Emergency Services Day. One of the most popular events of the year pays tribute to all those who keep us safe and save lives.

American Day. Classic metal in all shapes, sizes and power outputs come to Brooklands for this celebration of chrome, fins and motoring muscle. There’s live Rock ‘n’ Roll music and you can treat yourself to a hot dog or burger from the food stalls.

23 Scouts, Guides and Cadets: Twilight Opening. A chance to get hands-on with activities and demonstrations to find out what happens in a factory at night.

October

9 Autumn Motorsport Day. Racing fans can thrill at the sight of everything from Group B rally cars to Formula 1 machines.

6 November

forthcoming events

23 London Bus Museum Transportfest. Buses, taxis, military and emergency vehicles make up this amazingly varied day for all the family.

November

6 Military Vehicles Day. More than 100 vehicles across the decades tell the story of machinery used in armed conflict.

Military Vehicles Day. More than 100 vehicles across the decades will be on hand to tell the story of machinery used in armed conflict. The Paddock and Motoring Village will be busy with displays, and you can see plenty of these military vehicles put through their paces in the Mercedes-Benz World 4x4 coarse. Test Hill will also be in full swing to show the climbing abilities of many of the hard-working classics.

2022 Members’ Events

For Members’ Tours and Trips information, please contact Angela Hume on: angelahume@brooklandsmembers.co.uk Events at the National Motor Museum should be booked directly with Beaulieu. Brooklands Members are charged the Friends of the National Motor Museum rate for entry.

August

14 Cranleigh Classic Car Show and Autojumble. Brooklands Outreach Team will be attending and the show’s organisers have also asked if Brooklands Members would like to parade 20 cars and motorcycles. This is a great classic vehicle show and anyone interested in taking part in the parade should contact David Norfolk on: david.norfolk@outlook.com

September

4 Shere Hill Climb. Come and join us in the Brooklands Paddock. If you want your car in our Paddock, please contact Angela Hume.

Brooklands Members Talks: update

The Talks programme is now in full swing and our next talk will be on 21 July when we have a talk about the de Havilland Mosquito project that was covered in the July-August 2021 issue of the Bulletin. Nicknamed the ‘Wooden Wonder’, the Mosquito was the fastest operational aircraft in the world at the time. The talk will cover the manufacture and operational role of the Mosquito, as well as the current project to bring the aircraft back to the skies.

Following on from this, the next talk is on 18 August when Steve Parrish will be in conversation with motorcycle adventurer Charley Boorman. The actor turned travel explorer has plenty of tales to tell, and he always has a few lively asides to make. Steve Parrish is well known to Brooklands Members and is the perfect host for what promises to be a very lively evening.

On 22 September, we have a talk from Matt Jones, who along with his crew piloted the Silver Spitfire on a 120-day route through 24 countries and completed 22,130 nautical miles before

arriving back in the UK. This inspiring story will include lots about Matt’s adventures in and out of cockpit as he took the most iconic aircraft in the world on this incredible journey.

These Talks will all be on BM.tv Livestream for those who cannot attend in person. Previous talks can be viewed on our BM.tv channel. You can find a link on the BM.tv section of the Museum website. The Talks Booking email address is: talks@brooklandsmembers.co.uk Talks can also be booked online at: www. brooklandsmuseum.com/brooklandsmembers/Members-Area/member-events Harry Sherrard and The Talks Team

24-25 Kop Hill. Brooklands Members put on a great display at this wonderful event. This year marks the 110th anniversary of competition at Kop Hill. Any car or motorcycle registered between 1900 and 1982 is being invited to enter and there will be timed and untimed runs in front a 16,000-strong crowd.

October

7-10 Llanerchindda Farm. This tour is always very popular and books up quickly, so get in early to make sure you have a place as entries are limited. Enjoy superb roads and great hospitality in the company of Brooklands Members.

MEMBERS AGM

The Annual General Meeting of the Brooklands Members will be held in September. Secretary Kevin Lee outlines the arrangements for this year’s AGM.

This year we will again use electronic voting in advance of the Annual General Meeting in September. This is your opportunity to vote on Members Committee posts which are up for renewal (see candidates’ biographies), plus the Minutes and the Accounts for 2020 and 2021.

To vote and see all information including the Minutes and Treasurers reports, please visit the AGM voting site with your membership number to hand at: www.mi-vote.com/secure/brooklands

The poll opens on 1 July, 2022 and closes at 5pm BST on 21 August, 2022. Please be sure to have your say before the poll closes as we value every Member’s input and comments.

The AGM and annual Director’s presentation with Q&A session will be on 21 September in the Clubhouse and by Zoom-style virtual

David Warr

I had a successful career in International Management Consultancy, during which my ability to quickly identify issues, find appropriate solutions, put people at ease, and get things done were beneficial.

My interest in all things mechanical began aged 10, encouraged by my father. I was lucky to be included in a visit to the aircraft factory at Brooklands in the 1960s furthering my interest. I reworked an A30 and MGA to pristine condition.

As a regular member of Outreach, I enjoy meeting new and established Members. I have assisted with ideas to help reduce the costs of the membership raffle and, together with another Outreach member, started the renovations of the Scoreboard by stripping and painting two of the sides.

Prior to volunteering at Brooklands, I was asked to help form a committee for a new cycling group for a private members club, which I did successfully.

I believe differing backgrounds and a diverse team make for a strong committee.

Harry Sherrard

I have been involved in motorsport for more than 30 years, a highlight being racing in the Goodwood Revival in 2012.

When in 2014 I published a book about my motorsport career, I was asked by the Brooklands Talks team to deliver a talk based on the book. That led to me delivering other talks, such as the Goodwood Story. I also have a passion for aerospace and, on the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing in July 2019, I delivered a talk at Brooklands about the Space Race.

I joined the Brooklands committee in 2019 and was asked to run the Talks programme. I have since arranged for Derek Bell, Paddy Hopkirk, and Tiff Needell among others to speak at Brooklands. For 2022, a full programme of motoring, motorsport, and aviation speakers is lined up.

I am a lawyer, now working part-time, and I compete in historic rallies in a 1983 Audi.

attendance.

Debbie Crawt

I began volunteering in 2009 with the Motoring Team, feeding a passion for motorsport that I’ve had since childhood. Later, I joined the Outreach Team, a small group promoting the Museum and membership at home and around Surrey, and I also regularly help Car Rides, a part-time role during school holidays.

If you’ve visited Brooklands on a Thursday or attended one of the many events at the Museum, you’ve probably seen me, head in a car, bottom in the air, or running around the Paddock waving a flag, or on the Outreach stand promoting membership and selling our wares.

In 2019, I joined the Members Committee, and my regular contact with volunteers, and prospective or existing Members, brings benefits to the group. The decisions made on your behalf have kept the Museum on a positive and growing path, something I would love to continue if you feel you can vote for me.

Nadine Coben-Porter

I have been involved with Brooklands for more than 25 years, first as a visitor, then a Member, and now as volunteer. I remember the first time I visited and how it sparked an interest that has been with me ever since.

I have held a number of charity roles, including fundraising, advertising, as well as managing a team of more than 40 volunteers. More recently, I have enjoyed volunteering with the Brooklands Car Rides Team for six years and the Outreach Team for four years where I enjoy talking to current and potential Members.

I come from a diverse multicultural background and have a disability that I think will offer the Committee a different perspective regarding Members’ needs and wants.

Full details will be published in the September-October Bulletin and the Newsletter. Please note there will be no in-person voting at the meeting in September.

THE FUTURE OF INNOVATION

It is entirely fitting the new Brooklands Innovation Academy was launched at the Centenary of Speed event at the Museum in May. While celebrating the engineering and technical achievements required to push the boundaries necessary to set a Land Speed Record, the new Academy’s aim is to inspire a whole new generation to do exactly the same and tackle many of the issues facing the world in the 21st century.

The Brooklands Innovation Academy will provide 400 secondary school students

with seminars, talks, discussions, and hands-on workshops led by leading scientists and engineers. Among those giving their time and knowledge to the Academy is Professor Brian Cox CBE FRS, who is a professor in particle physics at the School of Physics at the University of Manchester. He’s also well-known for his television programmes that explain how physics has shaped the world.

All of those leading the learning for the students bring the best of STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths),

and students will also have the chance to learn with workplace experience, which demonstrates this is not a typical teaching environment. It’s an unrivalled opportunity for the students to learn from those who are leading the way in all of these areas, and Professor Cox is set to host the key event at Brooklands later in 2022.

Brooklands is very excited that the Innovation Academy will be part of the Science Summer Schools programme, which was co-founded by Professor Cox and Lord Andrew Mawson OBE and Well North Enterprises. Lord Mawson is a social entrepreneur who is determined to encourage young people to become the next generation of science and technology leaders in the UK. He believes the Science Summer Schools and Brooklands

The Brooklands Innovation Academy will inspire the next generation of engineers and scientists, just as Brooklands has throughout its history.

The Brooklands Innovation Academy has been established to nurture future talent in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics.

Innovation Academy offer a unique route for supporting more young people into STEM careers.

The Brooklands Innovation Academy is being presented in partnership with Bourne Education Trust and is supported by GlaxoSmithKline, McLaren, Cargill, Federation Skills Trust, North West Surrey Alliance of health organisations, and other leading businesses and donors. Anyone interested in helping to support the Brooklands Innovation Academy across its year-long series of events is very welcome.

As part of the programme, the Brooklands Innovation Academy is also looking at ways to encourage and inspire diverse groups of young people into STEM subjects, as well as helping the parents and carers of all students to understand what career routes are available.

Tamalie Newbery, Director and CEO of Brooklands Museum, said: ‘One hundred years ago, the Land Speed Record was set right here at Brooklands by a 350-horsepower Sunbeam. While celebrating history and the achievements of those

Brooklands inspiring greats

Sir Barnes Wallis

An avid aircraft designer, Sir Barnes Wallis worked with Vickers, later Vickers-Armstrongs and finally the British Aircraft Corporation. During his working life, he went from designing the R100 airship to the revolutionary geodetic method of construction for the Wellington, which was built at Brooklands. This strong, light build system also made the Wellington very easy to repair. Wallis moved on to work on supersonic aircraft later in his life, coming up with the ‘swing-wing’ design that went on to be used for the Panavia Tornado and influenced the shape of Concorde’s wings.

Fay Taylour

By the age of 12, Fay Taylour could drive her father’s car and it set her on a path to become a racing driver and motorcyclist. She started on two wheels, competing in trial and grass-track events and regularly beating all other entrants whether they were men or women. Taylour’s Brooklands career got off to a storming start in 1932 when she won the Ladies Handicap prize at a speed of 107.80mph in a Talbot 105. Her next race at the track in 1934 saw her lap at 113.97mph, finishing second but then completing a further three laps just for the enjoyment of driving.

Sir Henry Segrave

A regular competitor at Brooklands, Sir Henry Segrave set new speed records on land and water. He recorded his first Land Speed Record in 1926 at 152.33mph in a 4.0-litre Sunbeam, and followed that when he became the first person to travel at more than 200mph on land when he set a new record of 203.79mph at Daytona in the US. He then improved this to 231.45mph in 1929. On water, he was the first past 100mph and pushed the two-way average record to 98.76mph, demonstrating his versatility and willingness to adopt new technology in his pursuit of breaking records.

Concorde

Brooklands was central to the whole Concorde project, not least because it’s where the British and French partners first came together to get the project started. When production of the world’s first supersonic passenger aircraft began, a third of its components were assembled at Brooklands before they were sent on to the factory in Filton in the UK or Toulouse in France. The Concorde in the Brooklands Museum is Delta Golf and was delivered in June 2004, having previously been used to test new routes for the aircraft and present to potential customers. This Concorde completed 374 supersonic flights.

innovators is what Brooklands Museum is all about, we are also looking towards the future and the young people of today.

‘Sharing these impressive feats with school students is special and it is fascinating to see how something like record breaking has had an impact on the vehicles we drive today, those we will drive – or be driven by – in the future, and how the same ethos of entrepreneurship, innovation and endeavour epitomised by Brooklands is enabling these advances.’

As a hot house that has helped to develop so many new and exciting technologies, Brooklands Museum and the Brooklands Innovation Academy are the ideal places for young people to further their ambitions in science and technology. The history of Brooklands is founded on pushing new ideas and engineering skill and expertise to their limits, and the Brooklands Innovation Academy will do just this for a whole new crop of young people seeking to work in engineering and science.

Brooklands Innovation Academy is part of the Science Summer School programme that was co-founded by Professor Brian Cox.

A BUS JOURNEY THROUGH HISTORY

The London Bus Museum is celebrating its 50th anniversary since its founding. Its current chair, Leon Daniels OBE, guides us through 150 years of bus history and a recent major refresh.

In 1972, a small group of London bus enthusiasts managed to raise enough money to purchase an old Vickers building on Redhill Road, Cobham to establish Cobham Bus Museum. These were the first private individuals to contemplate preserving old buses, and they mortgaged their houses and tipped in their savings to do so. Very soon, the building was full of numerous vehicles which were rescued from farms, hedgerows and scrapyards, and each weekend groups of volunteers worked to restore the vehicles, maintain the ones they had, and look after the building. The latter took rather more work than envisaged as its temporary wartime construction had long been life-expired, but nevertheless it provided covered storage for an increasingly valuable group of vehicles.

The London Bus Preservation Group (and latterly Trust) thrived and supported

Words Leon Daniels OBE Photos: London Bus Museum, Gareth Tarr

The refreshed London Bus Museum has improved audio-visual displays, vehicles that are open to see inside, and there’s also a bus simulator you can drive.

London Transport itself when it celebrated the centenary of its buses in 1979, as well as providing buses for film and television assignments. With the limitation of the Redhill Road building, it was not possible to welcome the public other than on an annual open day. The ‘Museum’ was a garage and locked inside it was a treasure trove of interesting vehicles, signs, machines and equipment. Expansion was not possible as development on the site was severely restricted by planning regulations. The traffic management arrangements were awkward and the building itself did not lend itself to much change.

By the turn of the millennium, an opportunity was seized. In parallel, a willing developer was found to provide a turnkey solution which would redevelop the site into a retirement home while building a new museum nearby. Negotiations were concluded with Brooklands Museum Trust to occupy a site inside theirs. It would provide a much larger, covered and modern building which would enhance this famous visitor attraction.

The transformation of a private collection into a public museum began. Demolition of the old site was hardly difficult, so frail was the old building it easily gave way to the developer’s machines. In 2011, the brandnew building opened its doors to visitors as the London Bus Museum.

The transformation was huge. Opening daily on 363 days per year required significant volunteer staffing and even today it is one of very few to do so in UK without paid staff. A

much higher level of compliance was needed for public access in every area of safety and amenities. New skills were needed for interpretation, curatorial, displays and retail. Fortunately, volunteers were found and the museum is now a properly constituted charity and is fully accredited.

Those who founded the museum 50 years ago could not possibly have imagined what they had started. After 10 years of successful operation, there was always a plan

The iconic Routemaster is the most famous bus in the world and started in service in 1956. This 1959 example retains all of its original features.

for a complete refresh. The shutdown that was forced by COVID-19 actually allowed the plan to be delivered. With the Brooklands site generally closed to visitors for significant periods of time, and after the earliest extreme lockdown measures were eased, a wholesale upgrade was delivered.

Our original ‘IKEA’-style one-way flow through time was removed and instead the whole building is open to the public to enjoy in any order they choose. An enhanced kids’ area is hugely popular, bringing with it the chance to drive a bus simulator once used by London Transport in the 1960s. There are new audio-visual displays, vehicles open to see inside, a real restoration project taking place, and an atmospheric War Hall complete with wrecked bus, sirens, searchlights, and noise. At weekends and during school holidays you can ride on a real old London Bus. For £2 (£1 children) you can ride for 20 minutes outside the Brooklands site around local roads.

The passage of time means that our collection only ever grows. We receive boxes of books, papers, photographs, and other material from those who are downsizing or from the relatives of those who have

passed away. Each year, a few well-preserved London buses come on to the market as their owners are no longer able to look after them. Fortunately, we have off-site storage facilities and today at least half the collection is safely stored in this way and rotated with the public display. We also exchange vehicles with other organisations so all of our displays are fresh to the regular visitor.

New displays in the past year include a Mk1 Ford Cortina Radio Car used by London Transport in the 1960s, a 1951 sightseeing

coach used by London Transport for the Coronation, a special Routemaster Green Line coach, and the first electric bus used by Transport for London, which was the forerunner of a fleet of some 500 today.

Fresh from restoration, we have the very last Routemaster bus ever built dating from 1967. There’s one of the first of 700 standard single-decker buses from the early 1950s, and away now for painting after a huge amount of work is a 1925 Dennis open-top bus that was once one of the ‘pirate’ buses running in London. In the workshop, a 1930s Green Line coach is well underway and should be finished in 2023, while outside the workshop a solid-tyred NS bus from the 1920s is also progressing and should be properly finished the following year.

There are continued improvements to all of our offerings, more working models for children to explore, display cabinets for ticket machines, uniforms, badges, and models. The museum thrives on its volunteers and every range of skill is welcomed. Craftsmen and engineers are essential for the workshop, stewards to work with visitors and deal with security are needed every day, and our curatorial team catalogues and safely stores maps, drawings, and photographs to create interesting displays for the main museum. We also need general handyfolk to maintain the building and its services. Whatever your interest is in buses, you are all very welcome.

www.londonbusmuseum.com

A 1929 AEC Regent being put through its paces on Test Hill, which would replicate real-world conditions that a bus could encounter in its working life.

MXX 248 is a 1952 AEC Regent III low-height bus that is one of the type developed to safely pass through low railway bridges.

The 1951 AEC Regal IV Sightseeing Coach has additional windows set into the roof to let passengers get a full view on tours.

An AEC Regent on the Banking at Brooklands in 1929 during long distance testing. It shows that Brooklands was a proving ground for the whole automotive industry.

The museum covers the 150-year history of buses, including this circa-1875 ‘Knifeboard’ Horse-Bus that was donated by the John Andrews Charitable Trust in 2007.

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A DAY FOR THE RECORD

Words: Gareth Tarr Photos: Marc Bow, Julian Nowell, Gareth Tarr, Mike Venables

Sir Kenelm Lee Guinness takes the wheel of his grandfather’s 350hp Sunbeam to recreate the famous Gordon Crosby painting at Brooklands.

On the 17 May, the Museum celebrated the centenary of Kenelm Lee Guinness breaking the Land Speed Record at 133.75mph. The full day of events wasn’t just a nostalgic look back at a significant moment in Brooklands’ past, some of the features of the day looked to the future, using the circuit’s history to inspire the next generation of engineers and scientists. The day started with a recreation of Gordon Crosby’s painting of KLG’s achievement. Sir Kenelm Lee Guinness, grandson of the recordbreaker, sat in the 350hp Sunbeam used for the record on the Railway Straight as the steam locomotive Mayflower passed by on the banking behind. Several members of the Guinness family were present, including KLG’s nonagenarian daughter, Geraldine Essayan.

There were also descendants of Malcolm Campbell, who in 1925 used the 350hp Sunbeam in revised form to go through 150mph, Louis Coatalen, Sunbeam’s chief engineer and team manager, and John Marston who founded Sunbeam.

The Vickers Suite played host to a talk from Oliver Heal, author of the Louis Coatalen biography, together with Andrea Bishop and Doug Hill from the National Motor Museum at Beaulieu where the 350hp Sunbeam is permanently displayed. The talk covered the history of Sunbeam and it was noted the 350hp Sunbeam first raced at Brooklands in June 1920, when it was crashed by Harry Hawker. The same year, Sunbeam merged with Talbot and Darracq to form the Sunbeam Talbot Darracq Group and many members of the STD Register brought along their vehicles, including several historic race cars.

At midday, the Finish Straight was used for the Centenary of Speed STEM Schools Competition, in which four local schools competed with model cars of their own design, part of the Museum’s initiative to inspire young people to become the next generation of scientists and engineers.

The winners were Jubilee High School of Addlestone. It was also announced that Professor Brian Cox will be visiting the Museum later in the year, where he will talk to 400 young people.

There followed a demonstration on the Finishing Straight of historic racing cars celebrating speed records. Among them were the 350hp Sunbeam and the Napier-Railton driven by Allan Winn, but

100 years to the day since Kenelm Lee Guinness set a new Land Speed Record at Brooklands, the Museum marked the occasion with a splendid day of events.

also several historic Sunbeams including the 1914 car used by KLG to win the TT race, and a 1916 Indianapolis entrant. Algernon Lee Guinness was KLG’s elder brother and his distinctive 1905 Darracq was part of the display that also included the stupendously long Fiat Isotta Fraschini, its driver and co-driver perched on the end of a chassis that was mostly 16.5 litres of aero engine.

After lunch, it was back to the Vickers Suite for a panel discussion entitled What is the Future of Record Breaking? The Museum had been fortunate to obtain the presence of two speed record holders: Wing Commander Andy Green, who holds the current Land Speed Record at

714.144mph, and Don Wales, grandson of Sir Malcolm Campbell and holder of the World Record for a steam car. Completing the panel were Johnny Swinhoe from McLaren Automotive, and David Turton of McMurtry, specialists in electric car design. The panel discussed the design of the model cars with the four schools that competed earlier and what they could learn from the experience. During the discussion, Andy Green commented that Brooklands was the first motor industry centre of excellence, which is a key factor in why Britain is today the world’s centre for the motor racing industry. David Turton made the wry observation that, while Brooklands record cars used aero engines,

the opposite is true today with electric cars inspiring similarly powered aircraft for the future. When asked why one should get into speed record breaking, Andy Green’s advice was ‘Absolutely do not take up such a venture, and if you were the right kind of person to undertake record breaking, you would completely ignore that advice!’

The day finished with further demonstrations on the Finishing Straight and photo opportunities with the 350hp Sunbeam. It was a memorable day for all who attended. Thanks must go to Tamalie Newbery and her team at Brooklands, the National Motor Museum, the National Transport Trust, Steam Dreams, the Standard Talbot Darracq Register, The London Bus Museum, and special guests together with all others who helped create such a wonderful event.

Don Wales, grandson of Sir Malcolm Campbell, and Wing Commander Andy Green, current Land Speed Record holder, take part in a discussion with school children.

The Brooklands Scoreboard sums up KLG’s record-setting achievement perfectly. This was the last Land Speed Record set at the Track.

Four schools took part in a competition to see which had designed the fastest model car. This was also part of the launch of the Brooklands Innovation Academy.

Nicknamed the ‘Battleship’ after catching fire in a race, Tim Birkin’s Bentley Blower went on to set a Brooklands Outer Circuit lap record 90 years ago.

BENTLEY’S BATTLESHIP

On 24 March, 1932, Sir Henry ‘Tim’ Birkin, driving his singleseat Bentley 4½-litre ‘Blower’, set a new Brooklands Outer Circuit lap record of 137.96mph. Ninety years later, it is time to reflect on the importance of this record, of the man who set it, and the car with which he achieved it.

HRS Tim Birkin, the elder son of a Baronet and heir to a lace-making fortune, was born in 1896 and served in the First

World War, first with the 108th (Norfolk and Suffolk Yeomanry) Field Brigade in Palestine, and later with the Royal Flying Corps, attaining the rank of Captain. He began his racing career at Brooklands in 1921 in a DFP (Doriot, Flandrin et Parant), but achieved fame as one of the ‘Bentley Boys’ between 1927 and 1932: fittingly, perhaps, it was WO Bentley and his brother who had first achieved success with tuned DFPs before the war.

Birkin was of fairly diminutive stature and had a reputation as a press-on driver whose cars either broke or won. His first Bentley racing achievement was at Brooklands in 1927, coming third in the Essex 6-Hours race in a 3-Litre co-driven by his brother and works driver Frank Clement. The following year, he was again third in the Essex 6-Hours, this time driving a 4½-Litre, and in 1929 he shared the winning 4½-Litre with Wolf Barnato at Le

Words: Allan Winn Photos: Brooklands Museum Collection

Mans. By then, however, he had become fixated with the idea of getting more power from the 4½-Litre by supercharging it, against the wishes of WO Bentley who favoured gaining more performance by using a bigger engine in the six-cylinder 6½-Litre Speed Six. Birkin, however, persuaded Amherst Villiers to design a supercharger specially for the four-cylinder Bentley, and wealthy heiress and race-horse owner the Honourable Dorothy Paget to

fund his company Birkin & Couper to build a team of supercharged cars. Mike Couper would later achieve enormous success in the 1930s at Brooklands with the Talbot 105 BGH23.

The first Blower

The first prototype of these cars was a standard 10ft 10in-wheelbase 4½-Litre, chassis number HB3402, registered UU5871, and fitted with a tourer body.

The engine (SM3901) was substantially modified with a new heavy crankshaft with bigger-diameter bearing journals and much polishing of the internals and, of course, the Villiers supercharger. Birkin entered the car in the BARC (Brooklands Automobile Racing Club) Six-Hours race at Brooklands on 29 June, 1929, but it retired. Two weeks later, he and Bernard Rubin took it and its sister car, UU5872, to the Irish Grand Prix at Phoenix Park in Dublin, where they finished third and eighth. A month later, they were back in Ireland with the third car as well, driven by Beris Harcourt-Wood, for the Tourist Trophy. Rubin crashed out, Harcourt-Wood retired, but Birkin finished 11th, having persuaded WO Bentley to act as his riding mechanic.

By October, for the BRDC 500 Miles race, the car had been transformed. The four-seat body had been replaced by a narrow pointed-tail two-seater, with fabric covering over a spring-steel frame, and a louvred cowling over the supercharger and front dumb-irons. On the eve of this race, a fuel tank mounting broke and Birkin’s chief mechanic, Clive Gallop, famously drove the car back to the Welwyn works for repairs and back again the following morning, proving the car was tractable enough for public road use. In the race, Birkin lapped at 121mph before the car first suffered an oil leak and then the red-painted body fabric caught fire after a flexible section of exhaust pipe broke, leading to retirement.

Over the following winter, further development saw the front brakes discarded, the front axle beam covered in an aerodynamic fairing, and a totally new single-seater body fitted, designed by Reid Railton with cowled-in radiator and supercharger, and a faired-in headrest. The car was now painted blue, and the engine power had been raised to some 240bhp, running on methanol, and a higher rearaxle ratio fitted. This was now the Birkin Single Seater as we all know it.

Birkin continually developed the Bentley to make it faster and cope with the demands of the bumpy Brooklands track.

The size of the Bentley Blower can be judged from this image as the car passes a Bugatti on the outside of the Banking.

The narrow bodywork fitted to Birkin’s Bentley Blower made it more aerodynamic than the original tourer body, helping it achieve Outer Circuit lap records.

At the opening March meeting at Brooklands in 1930, Birkin recorded a fastest lap of 126.73mph in spite of the supercharger casing having cracked. The car was in better form at the Easter meeting on 21 April when he made a first official attempt at the Outer Circuit lap record.

The setting of this first lap record was quite an event, as Birkin recounts in his book Full Throttle, recently republished by Daredevil Books. He said: ‘Kaye Don

then held the lap record for Brooklands with a figure of 134.2mph, which I was determined to defeat. So, I arranged a match with Jack Dunfee in which he was to drive a Sunbeam and I the 4½-Litre Single-Seater. At the last moment, Jack had trouble with a connecting rod, and I raced alone. But I did not reach the course until an hour before the start. I was in Le Touquet with Babe Barnato, where he bet me a dinner at the Casino that I would not break the record.

“I flew to Brooklands, where there was a large crowd, and took the car round once to warm it up. After that I tried never to lift my foot from the accelerator; over the bumpy surface I was once in the air for 40ft and the car too, but it did two laps of 134.6 and 135.3, and so set up a new record. The car was running so beautifully that in a later race it did two more laps of 135, and the day was epitomised in a letter I received afterwards, extolling “the phenomenal way the car settled down on

Birkin, in racing overalls on the left, inspects the Bentley Blower, which earned its ‘Battleship’ nickname after it caught fire during a race.

The search for more and speed put a great deal of stress on the Bentley’s components and it could be fragile under racing conditions.

In 1931, the Bentley’s auxiliary fuel tank caught fire and burnt Birkin’s legs, yet he stood up in the cockpit to guide the car safely to a halt and deal with the flames.

the track, literally twice as steady as 90% of the others at 100mph.” I flew back to Le Touquet in the evening and had my dinner with Babe.’

Unfinished business

The new record was destined to last only a few weeks, Don regaining it at the Whitsun meeting on 9 June with a lap of 137.58mph. Birkin carried on racing the now-red car, including in the BRDC 500 in which it suffered mechanical trouble and

finished only ninth, and further developing it. In 1931, it was fitted with a much bigger supercharger and bigger SU carburettors, but it continued to be fragile. In that year’s 500-mile race it broke a valve, but at the August BARC meeting it had lapped at 136.45mph.

Birkin still had unfinished business, however: ‘More than anything, I was keen to beat Kaye Don’s record for the flying lap of 137.58mph. About four days before the 500-mile, I equalled him, and made up my mind to do better on the morrow. But on the morrow, when I was coming off the Byfleet Banking at about 130, the auxiliary petrol tank caught fire and flames began to lick the legs of my overalls. The cockpit certainly did become rather hot. So, I switched off the engine and put on the

brakes, but before the car stopped I had to climb out of the seat and, perched on the back of the car, steer as best I could from a crouching position. I jumped off once it was safe and put out the fire. But the cockpit and my hands were both burnt, though it was not long before they were all right again.’

It was not until practising for the Easter meeting in 1932 that he was at last able to realise his ambition, and raised the record to 137.96mph. Alas, we don’t have a record of that run in Birkin’s own words. Full Throttle was published early in 1932, before the record was broken, and Birkin was to be dead within the year, succumbing to septicaemia brought on from burning his arm on the exhaust pipe of his Maserati during the Tripoli Grand

Birkin and his supercharged Bentley were regulars at Brooklands, and Birkin was one of the ‘Bentley Boys’ who competed there and at Le Mans.

The Reid Railton body for the Bentley can be seen in this image with the faired-in headrest. The car was painted blue to begin with, then red.

Prix. Birkin had last raced the Bentley at the August 1932 BARC meeting, when he beat John Cobb’s V12 Delage in a three-lap invitation race, and finished second in the Hereford Lightning Long Handicap.

Although its outright record was taken two years later by John Cobb’s mighty

Napier-Railton at 140.93mph, later raised to the all-time record of 143.44mph, the Birkin Bentley retains one important distinction: it was, and is, the fastest ever car on a production road car chassis to lap the Brooklands Outer Circuit, and the fifthfastest overall.

After Birkin’s death, the car was kept by Dorothy Paget until it was eventually acquired by Peter Robertson-Roger, who wanted its engine to replace the one he had blown up in his own Blower. After the Second World War, he returned the engine to the single-seater, which he then had re-bodied as a two-seat sports car. When he died in 1958, the car and the old single-seat body were bequeathed to John Morley, who had worked on it.

Eventually, in 1964, it was bought by ‘Rusty’ Russ-Turner, who transferred the two-seat body to another Blower chassis, UU44, and restored the single-seat body to the Birkin car. He ran it in this form for many years until he suffered a heart attack and died while racing it at Silverstone during a Vintage Sports-Car Club meeting. The undamaged car was sold to the renowned watchmaker George Daniels, who kept it on the Isle of Man in full roadgoing form, complete with wings and lights, and it was raced by him and others.

After George Daniels’ death, the car came up for auction with Bonhams in 2012 and was sold for £4.5 million plus commissions to German collector Jurgen Ernst. After an appeal to the Advisory Committee on the Export of Works of Art, a temporary stay on issuing an export licence was granted to give time for a British buyer to be found. That effort was unsuccessful and Mr Ernst took unchallenged ownership of the car, whereupon he consigned it to wellknown Bentley specialist Neil Davies for a major restoration. This included returning the cockpit to its original dimensions, it having been enlarged by Mr Russ-Turner to accommodate his taller-than-Birkin frame. The interior framework of the cockpit, however, still bears its original blue Birkin paint, even though the car remains in the dark red colour that it has borne for 90 years.

The road car chassis of the Bentley Blower can be clearly seen in this image. The car remains the fastest ever on a production chassis to lap Brooklands.

Birkin was known for his fast driving style, which is captured in this photograph. It won him many trophies, but also caused him to retire on occasion.

The faired-in radiator, supercharger, and front dumb irons are obvious in this image. It all contributed to the car’s impressive top speed.

MY FAMILY AND BROOKLANDS

My family connections with Brooklands go back a very long way. My paternal grandfather owned a cycle business in London around the time of the First World War. He numbered many of the early Brooklands stars among his friends, in particular the Collier brothers of Matchless motorcycle fame. He raced motorcycles, but whether my grandfather competed at Brooklands I’m not sure. At the time, there were very few other places he could have raced. My maternal grandfather ran a small engineering business in Walton-onThames and that company supplied parts to Vickers.

My father was the first family member to be employed at Brooklands. He was born in London and moved to Australia with his family as a very young boy. He returned alone to England in the 1930s seeking employment and found it, first at Dennis Brothers in Guildford and then Vickers. He worked in the Progress Department at Weybridge. His job was to chase suppliers and ensure that they met delivery dates and quality standards. He knew all the manufacturers of parts and there were many. Tell him the name of a company and he would tell you what they made and if it was any good. Even in very old age, if you said ‘Skoda’ he would say: ‘Excellent company, always delivered on-time and best quality.’ Skoda, of course, was a major supplier to Vickers before the Nazi invasion of Czechoslovakia ended the relationship. Two of my uncles also worked at Vickers before and during the Second World War, but I don’t know their stories. I do know that one of them left during the war to join the army.

On my mother’s side, her family lived in Walton-on-Thames and as a young girl she worked in a local shop. Sometime following the outbreak of war in 1939, she received a letter telling her to report

to Vickers for war work. Many single women were ‘conscripted’ to work in factories supporting the war effort. She had an administrative role in the Progress Department and that is where my parents met. My mother’s younger sister was also sent to work at Vickers on leaving school. She wanted to join the WRAAF (Women’s Royal Australian Air Force) because she ‘liked the uniform’, but was told she had to go into war work. As a result, she was employed in the Wages Department and was also to meet her future husband at Vickers.

Brooklands air raid

So, my mother and my aunt were working at Vickers on that fateful day in September 1940 when the factory was bombed. My father was on business in the Vickers building on the South Bank in London and was not at Brooklands that day. My mother told her story but not at all often. She said that it was a warm, sunny day and during the lunch break many workers were outside but she was still at her desk. She heard the sound of aircraft engines nearby but didn’t react because

In the first part of his memories of Brooklands, Keith Jennings tells of his parents working at the Vickers factory and the start of his career that coincided with the famous flood of 1968.

Words: Keith Jennings Photos: Jennings family archive

An article from the Surrey Herald in 1962 about a visit by Keith’s paternal grandparents from Australia. Keith is pictured on the right behind his grand- parents.

Hawker Hurricanes were often testing around the site and she thought it was them making the noise.

Suddenly, there were very loud explosions as the bombs began to fall. My mother ran from the building with bombs crashing all around and made it to the shelters in the sandpits over Brooklands Road. She stayed there until the allclear and said the sound that remained with her was of glass shattering. Her younger sister didn’t get to the shelters and was found later by a neighbour on one of the roads through the factory. She was safe but would admit to being near hysterical from fear. She was just 17-years old and must have been one of the youngest involved in the raid. On news of the bombing, my father returned to Brooklands to try to find my mother. He got as far as the top of the hill where the Campbell entrance is today. There, the police had closed the road and were not allowing anyone to go further. So, he went to my mother’s family home in Walton-on-Thames and found her there.

Mother recalled that had it not been lunchtime many more employees would have been inside the buildings during the raid and the casualty count would have been much higher. She also recalled that there seemed to be a problem with the barrage balloons which should have been protecting the site, though I’m not clear on the detail. Could it be that some were down for maintenance? Also, she told that one of the German pilots was later shotdown and taken to a nearby hospital. Local

papers reported him as saying they flew along the railway line looking for the oval track and that eventually they saw the sun glinting off the roofs of the cars parked in and around the factory, so they knew they had found their target.

After the bombing, my father suggested to my mother that she should join him in London for the weekend because ‘London is quiet.’ She did so and that weekend the Luftwaffe bombed the London Docks and began the blitz. Out of the frying pan, into the fire.

Moving on

The Vickers Works had a thriving sports and social section, and there were interdepartmental competitions for many sports. The Dunbar Cup was the annual football competition. Today, the actual Dunbar Cup is on display in the Museum along with many other sporting trophies from the time. My father’s family were a footballing fraternity and he played in the Dunbar Cup. In 1942, he won the Cup playing for the Brooklands House team. I believe he was relocated to Brooklands

Keith’s paternal grandparents. His grandfather was a keen motorcycle racer and knew the Collier brothers who competed on Matchless motorcycles.

Pictured on their wedding day in 1941, Keith’s mother was fortunate to survive the 1940 air raid on Brooklands. His father was in London with work on the day of the raid.

Keith’s father and the two sisters who were in the bombing, with Keith’s mother to the left of his father, and his aunt to his right.

House in the dispersal that followed the bombing.

Eventually, still in the war, my mother left to start a family and later her sister did the same. At the end of the war, my father reasoned that aircraft production would be scaled back and the future at Vickers would be in doubt. He said Vickers at Weybridge were producing nearly 20 Wellingtons a week at peak and cutbacks were inevitable. So, after the war he moved on and there

the family connection with Brooklands takes a break.

My elder brother was born in 1942 and I was born in 1946. Both of us attended Brooklands Technical College, which was based in and around Brooklands House, the former home of the Locke-King family. My brother was a student in the late 1950s and me in the early 1960s. So, the Brooklands connection resumes there.

I received a technical education first at

Kingston Technical School, which is longgone, then at Brooklands Technical College where I studied A Levels and eventually at the University of Surrey, where I studied Physics.

At Brooklands College, I saw Sir Barnes Wallis for the first time. Occasionally, he came to give lectures and I attended one. He kept young students spellbound with his stories and especially with tales of his work with swing-wing aircraft. The only prop

Another family occasion shows Keith’s aunt and mother in the foreground. Behind is Keith’s uncle, the husband of his aunt, who left Vickers to join the Army.

The two sisters, Keith’s mother and aunt, with their father. He ran a small engineering company in Walton-on-Thames.

The Brooklands House football team with the Dunbar Cup, the annual works football competition, dated 1942. Keith’s father is second from the left in the front row. The cup is now on display in the Museum.

he brought was the swing-wing model, often seen with him in photographs. Just standing and talking, he held our attention throughout. Later, I had the privilege of being presented with a form prize by Sir Barnes Wallis, a memorable moment for a young student. He was a strong supporter of Brooklands College.

Works starts

I finished my degree course in the summer of 1968 and began looking for employment. One afternoon, I returned home to find my mother had phoned Vickers (always Vickers to her, although it had become the British Aircraft Corporation many years earlier) at Weybridge enquiring about opportunities for graduates.

Such opportunities existed in the Acoustics Department and I duly turned up for interview. I was met by the Head of the Acoustics Department. During the interview, he said the department was beginning to computerise much of the noise analysis work. I had attended programming courses voluntarily at university and expressed an interest.

A job offer followed and on Monday 9t September, 1968, I started work in the BAC Acoustics Department at Brooklands. This was part of the Design Office (DO) and most staff were housed in the DO Annex. The department included the Acoustic Laboratory, which is now part of the Museum, and it also occupied space in the Clubhouse. There were four sections in the Acoustic

Department at that time. One section was concerned with air-to-ground noise and cabin noise. A second section was concerned with acoustic structural fatigue and vibration. The third section was responsible for computer support and research into new technology. The fourth was an instrumentation section providing maintenance and repair for the department’s equipment. Having expressed an interest in computing in my interview, I was allocated to the computing section. I didn’t it know it then but it was a defining moment in my life.

As fate would have it, my second Monday at work was 16 September, 1968. That was the day of the mightiest flood ever at Brooklands. Rain had fallen relentlessly over the preceding weekend. It had rained hard without easing for 48 hours. The Monday dawned bright and sunny and we turned up to work as normal. However, there was an amber warning from the Rivers Authority meaning that there was risk of flood and a number of us were asked to help out in the Clubhouse and laboratory. The task was to make equipment as safe as possible.

Very soon the amber warning was raised to red, meaning it will definitely flood. The water was flowing down from the hills into the Wey and the Mole and would not take long to arrive. Valuable equipment

including tape recorders, sound-level meters, microphones and hundreds of reels of magnetic tape was placed up on desks. Late morning there was little more we could do and we were told to stop. A few of us walked over to the Wellington Bridge to observe the water. It was already up to the road and, as we watched, we had to keep stepping backwards to keep our feet dry. It was like watching the tide coming in. Just downstream, the water was being dammed by the Hennebique Bridge which carried the Members Banking over the Wey. Later that day, the bridge fell in and a monument was lost. We were sent home mid-afternoon, but we were back at work at normal time on the Tuesday. I remember a couple of members of staff rowing into the Clubhouse in a small boat and I went to see the big hole in the Banking where the Hennebique Bridge used to be. The water level in the Clubhouse peaked at about chest height and much of the equipment we had tried to save went under.

After the water receded, the clearing up began. A lot of the valuable equipment was covered in slime and was deemed useless and a health hazard. We piled it high just outside the McEvoy shed and hosed it down ready for disposal. Foam wedges that lined the floor and walls of the anechoic chamber in the laboratory had soaked up water and we put those through a ‘mangle’ to squeeze the water out. However, it didn’t work very well and they were also deemed unusable. Both sides of the factory were really badly flooded but it was amazing how quickly production resumed. The war-time spirit lived on.

Read part two of Keith Jennings memories in the next issue of the Bulletin.

A flyer handed out to all employees after the big flood in September 1968.

A letter dated June 1969 informing Keith about an annual pay rise, which amounted to a massive £96.

members’ matters

MG and British Marques Day

More than 2000 visitors attended Brooklands for MG and British Marques Day in April. Among the rarities were representatives of the most famous Welsh car maker, Gilbern. Then ACs that weren’t Cobras, including an Aceca, an Italianate 428 designed by Pietro Frua, and a mid-engined 3000ME. Specials included a Rolls-Royce Silver Shadow with unusual cabriolet conversion that was once owned by Smokey Robinson’s manager, and the Guy Salmon ‘Jubilee’ Jaguar XJS with its somewhat incongruous chrome grille.

The support of several car clubs was key to the event’s success. Singer was well represented with around 30 examples including one of the very last of the marque, a 1968 Gazelle owned by Brooklands Members Committee stalwart David Norfolk. On a smaller scale were seven representatives of the Middlebridge Reliant Scimitar Club, which was the last version of the Scimitar.

Most prominent was MG with examples of almost every era of the near 100-year-old marque. Favourite MG is a personal choice, but I particularly liked the mid-1930s two-tone blue Airline

Track day jackpot

The now annual excursion for the Motorcycle Team and the Brooklands Members active motorcyclists finally hit the jackpot this year after a good number of years of trying. After two wet years, we managed a dry day with cool temperatures that provided perfect riding conditions.

The second milestone we achieved was a sell-out of all the places in our group, which was achieved with the help and support of the Brooklands Section of the Vintage Motorcycle Club (VMCC) and a few good friends who have ridden with us over the years.

We owe thanks to Darin and Rob of Classic Bike Trackdays, who have kept faith with us over the years in providing us with a track session of our own that gives us five 15-minute sessions during the day. They continue to enjoy the variety of bikes we bring to the track and an aspect I hadn’t really considered before: the atmosphere we create in the pits due to the adjusting and fettling necessary to keep some of the more mature machines on track.

What the day demonstrated is the race day experience that we used to put on at the Museum when the Team was first formed is still attractive. One unprovable Team myth is the event has put more mature motorcyclists on

coupe, and around 50 cars were made with this body style which was fashionable for a short period. The rare and beautiful Airline summed up the day, and no wonder so many cars and spectators were drawn to Brooklands.

Lisbon-bound

track long after they ever thought it was possible.

After the event, I had a discussion with Darin and Rob about how we could build on the success of the day. We discussed a couple of ideas associated with other venues that could be looked at. We are also interested in seeing what could be worked out with the VMCC to complement their track events at Mallory and Cadwell Park. If we can come up with new options, we will need support as they have to be viable. Sadly, all things revolve around money these days.

I must thank and credit the attached team photograph provided by Jason Brown of www.renracing.com. Put April in your 2023 diary for the next Castle Combe track day, and I will see if I can hit the weather jackpot again.

John Bottomley

Brooklands was the start point for the HERO (Historic Endurance Rally Organisation) London to Lisbon rally in April. A total of 44 cars started the event with a run up Test Hill and a driving test on the Finishing Straight. Most vehicles were post-Second World War classics, but the oldest starter was a 1917 La France, while the youngest was a 1987 VW Golf. Overall winners were Dick and Harry Baines in a 1965 Mini Cooper S.

Gareth Tarr

Brooklands nearly wins University Challenge

In the middle of a closely fought 2022 University Challenge final between Imperial College, London and the University of Reading, the latter correctly answered a starter question about the Greek alphabet. This earned Reading three bonus questions about the aeronautical engineer Beatrice Shilling, the first being ‘In 1934, Shilling earned a Gold Star for lapping at over 100mph on which former racing circuit near Weybridge?’. The team correctly answered Brooklands, though Reading went on to be beaten by Imperial College by a narrow margin. I wonder if there will be a question about Hugh Locke King next year?

Gareth Tarr

Gareth Tarr

Japan Tobacco International

(JTI)

is a member of the Japan Tobacco Group of Companies, a leading international tobacco manufacturer.

As the UK’s number 1 tobacco company1 we are recognised by our globally renowned brands.

Behind our success is a company whose own corporate brand is lived everyday through the actions and behaviours of our employees. Our UK head office is based in Weybridge, Surrey.

Rodney Ramsey remembered

The Brooklands Motorcycle Team are sad to report the death of Mike Davison, another victim of cancer. He was a lifelong motorcyclist, starting out with an iconic BSA Gold Star and later with Velocettes and latterly a BMW flat-twin on which he with his wife Jane toured Europe.

Rodney Scott Ramsey passed away on 6 March, 2022. My father was a Club Level Member, having become a Member following the cessation of the Brooklands Historical Society. He was a close friend of the late Alan Burnard, who bequeathed the 1927 GP Delage to the Museum. Rodney worked with Alan to build up the straighteight 1.5-litre supercharged engine. Rodney was also asked to be onsite the day the engine was dismantled following the issue at the Goodwood Festival of Speed when a rod decided to come through the side of the block.

Rodney and Alan travelled all over France seeking parts for the car. On one occasion they took the car to an event in France as a static exhibit. Having recently completed the engine, they were keen to show it off. Arriving early for their ferry at Le Havre, they sat on the harbourside looking at the empty road in front of them. They both thought the same thing: ‘I wonder if the engine will run?’ They unloaded the car from its trailer, primed the carb, Alan climbed behind the wheel, Rodney pushed, and the car fired for the first time. Both men were so pleased they jumped up and down like excited school boys. What made it special for them both was the car ran with its straight-eight engine for the first time on French soil.

I will visit the car soon, pat the radiator grille, and remember both Rodney and Alan.

Graham Ramsey

Fernihough memorial park opened

Mike was one of the earliest members of the Team in 2005, playing an active part in commissioning the bikes in the collection that had simply been on static display and never used. His mechanical engineering background was invaluable to resolve the many challenges this task presented.

He took part in the first big ‘outreach’ event by what at that time was called The Brooklands Motorcycle Roadshow when the Team went to Rugby to showcase some of the Museum bikes in the Brooklands Paddock at The Barry Sheene Run. The machines were demonstrated around a one-mile circuit of Rugby city centre. Riding the fast but very difficult JAP-engined Grindlay Peerless that has no front brake for the three-lap demonstrations, Mike managed to lap some of the other Museum riders, and that was with a police motorcycle rider supposed to control the speeds! Mike was also one of the first Team members to master the odd and unwieldy Earle Cotton JAP before it was rebuilt and tamed.

As well as his work with the Motorcycle Team, Mike did a lot of regular work with the Brooklands Museum Library team where he catalogued all the motorcycle magazines. He also helped set up and maintain a database of all the publications in the library.

As his illness progressed, Mike’s contribution to the Team waned, but his enthusiasm and good humour remained. We miss him. He leaves one son who lives in Canada.

Michael Sands

Every year on 23 April, motorcyclists in Hungary commemorate the death of Brooklands rider Eric Fernihough while he was attempting to regain the absolute World Motorcycle Land Speed Record in 1938. his shattered Brough Superior stopped after it suffered an

In Memory of…

Sadly, each issue we do lose some of our members and we would like to pass on the condolences of the Brooklands Members, Chairman and Committee to the families of the following who we

uncontrollable wobble at full speed and crashed. The central feature is one of the original kilometre marker stones from the main road past the village of Gyón, south of Budapest. The road is otherwise largely unchanged.

Terry Wright

have been notified have recently passed away.

Mr Roy Ellis, an Individual Member with us for the last five years, who sadly passed away earlier this year.

Mr Mark Enticknap, who had been an Individual Member for a few months, who passed away in March.

Summer of Events

Sat 9th Jul Brooklands Years Relived Festival

Thurs 21st July Talk: The People's Mosquito

Sat 23rd Jul - Wed 31st Aug Summer Fete

Sun 24th Jul Summer Classic Gathering & Auto Jumble

Sun 14th Aug Aston Martin Heritage Festival

Thurs 18th Aug Talk: Charley Boorman in Conversation with Steve Parrish

Sun 21st Aug Japanese Day ft. Vintage Japanese Motorcycle Club

Sun 4th Sep American Day

Sun 11th Sep Emergency Services Day

For the full events list and more information visit

BROOKLANDSMUSEUM.COM

Captain John Eames 1931 to 2021

Concorde Captain John Eames sadly passed away on 2nd December, 2021, aged 90. John flew Concorde from 1975 until his retirement from British Airways in 1986 and then rekindled his long association with the aircraft by becoming one of the team who fly the Concorde Simulator at Brooklands for the benefit of a modern generation of enthusiasts. At the age of 87, he was still full of humour and use his extensive training experience to guide guests seated next to him under various bridges around the world in the simulator. He was the only one of that group who also flew the ‘Brooklands Concorde’, G-BBDG.

It was at a very early aged that John announced to his parents ‘I want to be a pilot.’ He confessed to lying about his age to join the Air Cadets at 14-years old and spoke of ‘almost’ getting airborne for the first time in a single-seat glider on a bungee launch using the early winch mechanisms used in the war for launching barrage balloons.

Aged 17, he went on a school trip to the countryside somewhere. Out walking one day, he noticed his chum was walking along with two girls, a blonde and a brunette. Thinking he’d ‘try and even things up’, he joined the group and got chatting to Anne, ‘the blonde’. She was only 15 but they were destined to be together for the rest of their lives.

John signed up for National Service in the RAF and was posted to Fighter Command. He was the top cadet on his course and awarded the Sword of Merit, but expressed a relevant query: ‘What’s a pilot supposed to do with a Sword? There’s nowhere to stow it in an aeroplane!’ During his military career, he flew the Gloster Meteor, the first British jet fighter.

Upon leaving the Air Force, John was offered a position as a Navigator and then a co-pilot on the Constellation fleet with BOAC. John explained a typical flight to Sydney would take seven or eight days, and said: ‘We’d leave Heathrow just after breakfast and fly to Zurich, arriving there just in time for lunch. Then we’d fly to Beirut getting there just in time for dinner.’ A far cry from his supersonic career which was yet to come.

While on the other side of the world, he learnt that Anne was shortly to give birth to their second son. He swapped with a pilot on the flight ahead of him so he could get home in time for the birth. After the blitz in London, this was another lucky escape for John. It was 13 March, 1954 and the flight that John was originally due to operate crashed on landing in Singapore, killing 33 of the passengers and crew on board. The pilots survived, but John

described how he would never have been able to live with himself had that not been the case. Anne knew John’s itinerary and despite him sending an urgent telegraph home declaring his well-being, the shock induced the birth early so he missed it anyway.

After four years flying Constellations, he transferred to the mighty Bristol Britannia and then the Trans Continental Boeing 707 for 14 years. As that fleet was coming to an end, John expressed reluctance to make the natural progression to the latest Jumbo jet. He’d been following the development of a new supersonic airliner that the British and French were developing, not knowing if it would ever end up in BOAC livery.

It was worth the wait and John was selected to be one of the first Training Captains on Concorde in 1975. He was one of seven Captains and seven Flight Engineers to form the ‘Nucleus Group’. They did their training at Filton and John’s first ever Concorde flight was base training, practicing circuits and bumps, on Brooklands’ very own G-BBDG. He flew with esteemed test pilots John Cochrane, Brian Trubshaw, and Peter Baker. An emotional event at Brooklands under ‘DG’ in July 2016 saw John reunited with Baker for the first time in many years.

John took great delight in operating the special charter flights that Concorde operated, taking 100 people round the Bay of Biscay at twice the speed of sound. A last-minute change to the plan one day saw him detour to take part in an air show, flying in formation with The Red Arrows. ‘I’m not sure if they ever knew they were part of an air show,’ he said of his passengers.

He took Concorde to Oshkosh where he, or rather Concorde, was the star of the show. Not wishing to disappoint the enormous crowd, John wound on 45-degrees of bank, a lot for a civilian airliner, as soon as he was airborne with full afterburner. An iconic photograph of this stunt sat proudly above the fireplace in his lounge.

On 17 April, 1985, one of the most iconic photographs in aviation history was captured by Concorde photographer Adrian Meredith. It’s the only picture ever taken of Concorde flying at Mach 2 because nobody could get anywhere near it with a camera! John Eames was the Captain of Concorde G-BOAG flying down the North Sea with 100 passengers on a charter flight from Prestwick. They rendezvoused with an RAF Tornado fighter jet. With Adrian’s camera ‘locked and loaded’, John told the Tornado pilot he was ready and was going to climb and accelerate through the sound barrier. The fighter pilot told John he could do one or the other. In fact, John ended up slowing down to Mach 1.35 so Adrian could get the shot. The window of opportunity was just eight minutes before the Tornado had to return to base with little fuel left. That unique photograph, clearly showing the curvature of the earth, is reproduced here with the kind permission of Adrian.

It was an honour to have known John and fly the simulator with him at Brooklands. His stories over lunch on the Gold events enthralled me as much as they did our guests. John is survived by his wife Anne (the blonde), four sons, seven grandchildren and three great grandchildren.

John Tye, former Concorde pilot

Members’ Talks

The Talks programme produced yet another memorable and entertaining evening in the company of Keith Futcher and his book Absurd . Keith told us how he and some friends decided to learn to ride motorcycles, pass tests, and organise to ride from Europe into the Sahara to see a desert sun rise. It was a fascinating and entertaining story of endeavour, intrigue, challenge, and disasters on route.

The publishers added their marketing capabilities to the Museum’s regular

BM.tv

promotion of the Members’ Talks to attract a different audience. Many new faces were attracted to the Museum and there was at least one publisher who wants to do some features about the Museum, which shows innovation at Brooklands can take many forms.

It also gave me the opportunity to be a talk show host, which was a first for me and one I thoroughly enjoyed. One lady afterwards asked if I was related to ‘Parky’. Sadly not…

John Bottomley. Image by Cliff Bolton

The hard-working Brooklands Members TV team has been out and about recently ahead of the Talk with Dick Bennetts, who runs West Surrey Racing. You can watch a privileged behind-thescenes tour of the team’s headquarters with Dick on the BM.tv YouTube channel, which can be found at: www.youtube.com/c/ BrooklandsMemberstv/featured

As well as learning how a successful modern British Touring Car Championship team operates, this is a chance to learn more about Dick, who has helped shape the careers of Ayrton Senna, Mika Häkkinen, Jonathan Palmer, and Eddie Irvine among many others. We’ll also bring you the full Talk with Dick Bennetts soon.

If you were unable to attend Keith Futcher’s excellent Talk about his Saharan adventures, you can catch the whole event on BM.tv. We recommend you do as this was a fascinating conversation with Keith, who is the author of Absurd, a book about his travels.

Another recent event that you can enjoy all over again thanks to BM.tv are the discussions that were part of the fantastic Centenary of Speed day to mark 100 years since Kenelm Lee Guinness set a new World Land Speed Record at Brooklands. These talks are on BM.tv’s Apple Podcasts website and you

Halford albums

Many Members will know of Frank Halford as a racing driver with the Aston Martin Razor Blade, a competitor in the first British Grand Prix that was held at Brooklands, and for creating his own Halford Special. He was also a highly skilled aero engine designer and gained his pilot’s licence at the British and Colonial Flying School, also known as the Bristol School, in 1913.

can access them here: www.podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/ brooklands-members-talks/id1449720627

Also on BM.tv’s Apple Podcast channel, as well as our Vimeo channel, you can listen to Simon Taylor talking with the late Tony Brooks at the Motoring Legends event in 2017. Tony Brooks was the guest of honour at the Sir Stirling Moss Tribute at Brooklands in 2021, where he also spoke with Simon Taylor in possibly his last public interview.

Don’t forget that you can also catch up with what’s been happening at the Museum on BM.tv’s other channels on Facebook and Soundcloud. To find out what’s on offer, visit: www.facebook. com/BrooklandsMembers/videos/?ref=page_internal or: www. soundcloud.com/brooklandsmembers

With so many ways to enjoy BM.tv and the huge amount of coverage it provides, there’s no need to miss out on any of the great events that take place at the Museum and with the Members.

It’s this early period of flying at Brooklands that is now being more fully illuminated with the loan of his photo albums from 1913 and 1914 to Martin Shelley. Along with his brother, Martin wrote Two Wheels to War about First World War dispatch riders, and he has arranged for the two albums to be donated to the National Aeronautical Library at Farnborough. This would reunite the albums with Frank Halford’s diaries, which are already part of the NAL’s collection.

Martin says: ‘The family of the late Frank Halford loaned me the two family albums dating from his time at Brooklands in 1913 and ’14 when he learned to fly not with Tom Sopwith but F Warren Merriam and the Bristol School of Flying in a Boxkite. I’ve suggested we do the handover at Brooklands. Halford’s granddaughter is in Boston and his stepgrandson in Jersey, so Brooklands seems like the ideal location.’

The albums are a wonderful record of early flying at Brooklands and show many of the formative characters and machines at the site. Among the evocative images are ones of Adolphe Pegoud, who was the first pilot to loop the loop, and a triplane that has collapsed on the runway before it could get into the air. A full story on the two Halford albums will appear in the next issue of the Bulletin.

Member John Bath passed on this superb advert by AEC to celebrate its achievements at Brooklands with its diesel-powered car. The streamlined six-cylinder machine achieved a top speed of 106.63mph at the Circuit on 27 October, 1933 with George Eyston at the wheel. Eyston also designed the car and it went on to record a 120.335mph maximum speed at Montlhéry in 1934. It also set records for various distances and times.

If you are interested in selling your car or motorcycle and are looking for a prompt, hassle-free cash buyer! I am always very keen to add to my current stock, so please feel free to contact me for a no obligation discussion about your vehicle.

I am particularly interested in purchasing prestige, sports, classic, vintage, racing and competition cars and motorcycles, as well as any interesting or unusual models. Complete collections purchased and all conditions considered, from barn-finds to concours. I will travel any distance for the right vehicle/s, and discretion is always assured. I am a cash buyer not an agent.

If you are looking for a specific vehicle then please also get in contact as I may have or could source what you are looking for?

Castrol Classic Oils

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e-mail: info@cambrianway.com

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Explore some of

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best roads and scenery in the UK 2019 / 20 Club Tour Packages

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Looking for a venue for your club or friends in 2019 or 2020 contact us to discuss packages and dates

We already have 18 clubs booked in 2019 & 7 for 2020 Tours include dinner, bed & breakfast, drinks reception on 1st night, a welcome pack containing a memento of the weekend, rally plate, window sticker, Ordnance Survey Mid & South Wales road map, road books containing the route for each day & entry to a local attraction

Prices from £252 50 per person for 3 night tour

2019 ALL MAKE TOUR DATES

Open to any Make & Age of Car 5th to 8th July – 11 cars booked, 2 rooms left 5th to 8th August – 4 cars booked, 7 rooms left

Scandal and success

‘Oh, Gordon Bennett’ is an expression of disapproval we hear less often these days. Many believe it originates from the 1903 Gordon Bennett Trophy motor race held in Ireland where local businesses took advantage of the event to charge the public exorbitant prices. The actual story behind the phrase is far more scandalous, a tale that Patrick Lynch tells in his book At the Greatest Speed – Gordon Bennett, the father of International Motor Racing. The book is centred on those Gordon Bennett races of 1900 to 1905, especially the 1903 event in which the author has a special interest, having been raised in the part of Ireland where the race took place. The book also describes the early city to city motor races, and how the sport developed.

Who was Gordon Bennett? Well, there were two, Senior founded the New York Herald newspaper which massively undercut its rivals on price and published rather more exciting content than was traditional. It earned him a vast fortune, but left him snubbed by polite society and often subjected to violence such that his wife relocated the family to Paris. Gordon Bennett Junior became a playboy in adulthood. Aged 26, he had a $1 million annual allowance in 1866. However, when he took over the business from his father, he expanded it further and enabled adventures such as Stanley’s expedition to find Dr Livingstone, all covered by the Herald of course.

Bennett Junior was keen to support motor racing and his series of races were to have a lasting effect. National racing colours was one and British Racing Green comes from that 1903 race where this hue was chosen out of respect to the host nation. The race

Harley-Davidson in detail

Perhaps one of the most iconic motorcycle brands in the US, if not the world, The Harley-Davidson Motor Company has been in business for almost 120 years. This book charts the history of the marque from 1901 when William Harley and Arthur Davidson, both working for the Barth Manufacturing Company had drawn up plans for a small petrol engine based on a De Dion-Bouton.

Models are documented in detail, with specifications and stunning imagery year-byyear. As the title suggests this is, in essence, a technical appraisal of the evolution of the models. Brooklands gets a mention among the technical details of the 1920-29 J and JD Models with an image of a Harley-Davidson advertising poster proclaiming DH Davidson’s Harley-Davidson as the first motorcycle to reach 100mph in the United Kingdom at Brooklands in April 1921. Incidentally, John Warr told me during the centenary photoshoot that he walked past the poster in his office every day, but didn’t fully realise the significance until he was invited to the event. Malcolm Campbell, always happy to oblige a sponsor, is also pictured at Daytona Beach in 1935 astride a flathead Harley police bike.

The book moves into the 1950s and 60s via the Duo-Glides and legendary Electra Glide. Launched in 1965, the Electra Glide has become synonymous with the Harley-Davidson and an evolution

was also the first to be held on a circuit of closed public roads, only a month after the notorious Paris-Madrid event. Four years later the world’s first purpose-built racing circuit was opened, I guess you all know where that is.

At the Greatest Speed is a comprehensive read, covering not only the story of the six Gordon Bennett races in detail but also sets them in the context of the development of motor racing at the time, together with the background of the man behind them. The author says his next book Oh Gordon Bennett will delve deeper into the man’s character. The origins behind that phrase cannot be told here, but At the Greatest Speed is worth seeking out for so much more.

of the model is still in production today. The Sportster, another iconic model, was launched in 1957 and continues to the present day. We learn that the origin of Sportster’s ‘Peanut’ fuel tank is Harley-Davidson’s S-125 from 1948. The little 125cc bike, looking much the same as an early BSA D1 Bantam, was like the Bantam a copy of a German DKW developed as part of the Second World War reparations. Notably, the Harley version had girder forks which DKW only used on their smaller 98cc machines.

Author Mitch Bergeron reflects on the brand and suggests Harley-Davidson has always looked to its heritage to develop new models. For example, it even designed vibration into the new V-twin Milwaukee-Eight engines that power the 2021 Electra Glide Revival. However, even this iconic company recognises that electric vehicles are the future, and the book ends with an assessment of the LiveWire and where the future may lead this legendary US brand.

Martin Gegg

Gareth Tarr

AROUND THE COLLECTION

Brooklands Members

Members’ Administrator

Sarah Dover 01932 857381 ext 226 Mon-Fri members@brooklandsmuseum.com

Chairman

Neil Bailey 07970 206778 chairman@brooklandsmembers.co.uk

Secretary

Kevin Lee 01932 562246 kevin@abbeywalls.com

Tours and Trips

Angela Hume 07884 184882 Angelahume@brooklandsmembers.co.uk

Outreach

David Norfolk 01372 373929 david@davidnorfolk.wanadoo.co.uk

Talks

Harry Sherrard 07899 984535 harrysherrard@brooklandsmembers.co.uk

BM.tv

Mark Jarman 07710 783536 nonesuche@gmail.com

Bulletin Editor

Alisdair Suttie 07768 372440 brooklandsbulletineditor@gmail.com

Contributors

Rob Baxter, John Bath, Clifford Bolton, Marc Bow, John Burch, Debbie Crawt, Leon Daniels, Sarah Dover, Martin Gegg, Angela Hume, Keith Jennings, Andrew Lewis, Beatrice Meecham, Harry Sherrard, Gareth Tarr, Mike Venables, Allan Winn

Advertising, Design and Production:

Hine Marketing, Tel: 01452 730770

Hill Farm Studios, Wainlodes Lane, Bishops

Norton Gloucestershire GL2 9LN

E-mail: nick@hinemarketing.co.uk

Address change and Bulletin distribution

queries

01932 857381 ext 226 members@brooklandsmuseum.co.uk

Brooklands Museum, Brooklands Road, Weybridge, Surrey KT13 0QN

01932 857381 Fax: 01932 855465 www.brooklandsmuseum.com

Brooklands Museum

Chairman Sir Gerald Acher CBE LVO gerryacher@brooklandsmuseum.com

CEO Tamalie Newbery ext 243

Director of Collections, Interpretation and Heritage

Alex Patterson ext 247

Visitor Experience Manager

Jenny Pettit ext 302

Volunteer & HR Manager

Aimee Nelson ext 303

Learning Officer

Laura Barclay ext 257

Curatorial and Archive Enquiries

Andrew Lewis ext 246

Chief Operating Officer

Amanda Squires ext 255

Head of Track and Air Events

Steve Castle ext 244

Concorde Bookings ext 266

flyconcorde@brooklandsmuseum.com

Hospitality Sales Manager

Joanna Rodgers ext 251 hospitality@brooklandsmuseum.com

Marketing Director

Sam Hart ext 225

Email addresses are available on the Museum website www.brooklandsmuseum.com/about/ contact-us

Strange as it might sound, but keeping track of a racing engine’s coolant temperature is all thanks to the humble Guinea Pig. The first experiments with a calorimeter, which is the device you can see on top of the radiator on some of the cars in the Brooklands collection, were carried out using the small, cuddly rodents. French scientist Antoine Lavoisier measured the heat from the animal’s body by how quickly it could melt snow.

There are many different types of calorimeter, but those used on early racing cars like the Aston Martin Razor Blade and Vauxhall TT at Brooklands rely on heat flow. As the engine combusts fuel, it generates heat that must be controlled to avoid overheating. This is done by circulating water through the cooling system, which is then cooled by the radiator so it can be recirculated.

Monitoring the temperature of the coolant gives the driver a good indication of the health of the engine. During races, it let the driver decide if they could push the engine harder for more speed and performance. It’s also why many early

Parking arrangements

calorimeters were mounted directly above the radiator. Not only did this give a reading of the heat in the water, it put the gauge right in the driver’s line of sight, so no need to look down as they were racing. Today, calorimeters are more usually called the temperature gauge in a car, but they play no less an important role in pointing to the general health of the engine, as anyone who has been stranded at the side of the road in a cloud of steam can attest to.

Please note that for all events marked ‘Parking in The Heights’, designated vehicles only can enter via the Campbell Gate, off Brookland’s Road. All other Members including Club level and visitors please park in The Heights or main public car park unless otherwise specified.

Parking arrnagements for other weekend events are:

Club level Members: entry via Campbell Gate and parking outside the Paddock. Period and classic vehicles only inside the Paddock by invitation. Please abide by staff directions.

All other Members and visitors: entry via main public entrance off Brooklands Drive.

This issue of the Brooklands Bulletin (incorporating The Spirit) is published on behalf of Brooklands Members, supporters of Brooklands Museum Trust Ltd, by Hine Marketing, Hill Farm Studios, Wainlodes Lane, Bishops Norton, Gloucestershire GL2 9LN.

The statements and opinions expressed in the Bulletin are not necessarily those of the Brooklands Members’ Committee or Brooklands Museum Trust Ltd.

While every effort has been made by the Publishers to include correct information, they are unable to accept responsibility for errors or omissions. The Publishers, Brooklands Members and Brooklands Museum Trust Limited cannot accept responsibility in the event of misinformation or lack of source relating to images supplied by a third party by electronic or other means.

Charity number 296661. Please quote this if making donations or requesting them via a funeral director.

Performance is a division of Lockton Private Clients, both trading styles of Lockton Companies LLP. Lockton Companies LLP is authorised and regulated by the