Conspiracy of Secrets. Bobbie Neate
those early days. BRM was part of my mother’s family company and it was her hobby. He didn’t want anything to do with it.
It seemed incongruous that Stepfather did not drive – especially later, when he stealthily eased himself into becoming joint managing director of the BRM racing team with my mother. We knew he could drive, but he never did.
I hardly dare recall the terror of the afternoon when we, as children, had goaded him to prove to us he could drive. I was very small and he had driven like a maniac through the villages of Cambridgeshire. It was so terrifying we dared talk about it only once and that was in earnest whispers. We never teased him again about his rejection of the driving seat – we had learned our lesson. But this did not stop him repeatedly telling us stories of his adventures in fast-moving cars. His favourite tale was about driving his Bentley through the London backstreets, racing and betting with others as to who might reach the Dorchester first. His stories never made sense. Why did he have a Bentley? If he could drive, why demand that my mother do all the driving? He was a man who always liked to show off, so why did he ask his wife to drive in prestigious situations in front of Formula One world champions? I even remember sloping around in the back of Mum’s Isis with Jack Brabham. He was beside me and leant forward over the seatbacks earnestly listening to the conversation from the front. Mum drove while Louis took the front passenger seat. He would not allow even that year’s world champion to take his seat.
Could Stepfather have been banned from driving? It all added to the dark mystery of the man. But there were so many strange things about this stepfather of mine. He had huge amounts of energy and anybody who could not keep up with him was always referred to as ‘a wimp’. Nobody was allowed to say they were tired. He had no patience for anybody who might be frail or infirm and he could change in seconds from a jolly mood to a persistently black one.
My earliest memory of motor racing was the race for the Silver City Trophy at Snetterton. It was the poor relation to the more prestigious Brands Hatch, Silverstone and Goodwood, but it was the nearest of the five big circuits to Cambridge and we supported the track whenever the BRM was entered.
The day did not start well. Our tickets did not arrive in the early-morning post, so we had to wait for the late-morning delivery, hoping for our entry passes and parking discs. Tempers were frayed before we left the house. Once again Mum would be in the driving seat. As we sat in the traffic jam outside the track we heard the menacing machines leap away from the distant grid. We had missed the start and our automatic right to enter the Paddocks. This led to a most embarrassing altercation outside the main gates. Stepfather pointed his thick fingers in a menacing manner at a group of men and demanded that we be allowed to enter. But he was not well known at that time and they refused us entry.
‘If you won’t let the car in, get your snot-ridden youngster with his acne spots to run to the BRM pits to collect the tickets for us,’ he snapped, while Mum shuffled uncomfortably in the driver’s seat, leaning over the gearstick and trying to smile at the steward but to no avail. For once there was no option but for Mum and Stepfather to split up. My mother and I were directed to park in a desolate area on the furthest side of the track.
The route back to the paddock lay along a tufted grass path running alongside viewing banks, often so high they blocked my view of the racetrack. As a group of cars roared past I scrambled up one of the hillocks to see if I could spot the familiar green bonnet of the BRM. The noise was thunderous as they first braked and then accelerated around the corners. At the next bank Mum joined me, slithering unceremoniously in her heels. I steadied her, as a tightly packed group of cars roared past. In the bunch were two BRMs tussling with a Cooper. We squeezed each other’s hand.
The finish was perfect: the cars accelerated for the line and Ron Flockhart took the chequered flag. The P25 BRM had won the Silver City Trophy. Flockhart, a dashing Scotsman, grinned from ear to ear as he struggled to undo the chinstrap of his helmet. He wiped his hands on his sweat-stained cotton overalls and there were handshakes all round. To my delight he insisted on shaking my hand. Even Stepfather clapped everybody on the back and spoke in loud tones. I remember little else of the day, but winning had been intoxicating. The joy was infectious. Other drivers, their mechanics and team managers all made their way to congratulate the BRM team. I became entranced.
For one single hour at that racetrack, Stepfather was not by my mother’s side. I was her only companion and she enveloped me in her new world. Before my eyes, my mum became the impassioned supporter of a green single-seater racing car in which daredevil men, in battered helmets, drove around circular roads with tight bends at death-defying speeds. After all the disappointments of the past years I understood that BRM could win races!
As years went by, tickets became a source of fun for Louis. He always wanted get to more prestigious places on the grid where he would normally be barred. So he brazenly forged himself a counterfeit fancy arm-badge to deceive all the foreign authorities, and, when travelling abroad, he insisted on an opulent vehicle that would impress the many gatekeepers who had previously wanted to keep him at bay. Once Louis found a German chauffeur who was willing to use his huge hired Mercedes as a battering ram through the crowds and past the lines of irate marshals in his own country, he never let him go. Later, this chauffeur was driving him down a series of Alpine hairpin bends when they met a bus full of schoolchildren. The bulky Mercedes was unable to squeeze through the gap, and both drivers refused to move. After an altercation, Louis got out of the limousine and into the bus. He took the keys out of the ignition and threw them down the ravine, leaving a bus full of children stranded on a mountainside.
Most of the major races were held in the school holidays or on bank holidays. I never tired of watching the BRMs being unloaded from their transporters and pushed around the paddock and eagerly waited for them to roar into life. The cars had to be ‘push’ started so every time a motor needed to be fired up two strong mechanics stood behind the machine and shoved with all their might for ten or twenty yards until the momentum allowed the driver to ignite the sparks. The last minute trouble-strewn hasty scrambles to overcome mechanical gremlins were all part of the fun of racing.
I remember Silverstone circuit as little more than a windswept airfield with basic facilities. The paddock and pits were located on the island of land inside the circuit and so each year the organisers had to build a temporary access bridge to provide pedestrians access to each side of the track. This was the fifties and the bridge was just made out of scaffold poles and planks. As each car roared down the home straight the ill-equipped bridge shook terrifyingly.
Being allowed into the pits never lost its thrill. It was where everything happened. They were just narrow concrete bays with no facilities but once practice started they became full of life. From my corner I watched the race mechanics carry to and fro their metal toolboxes crammed full of essential implements. In the less important races the mechanics allowed me to find the metal number tiles that were slotted into the drivers’ message boards.
I probably enjoyed the thrill of being close to complicated engines more at Oulton Park circuit than anywhere else. It was not a championship course and everybody was more relaxed, as the races were treated as experimental outings. Because the circuit was in Cheshire, we usually stayed up North, in either Chester or Liverpool, the two cities Stepfather loved. In fact, looking back, I would say he changed character when we in the vicinity of the Wirral. He was more relaxed, took control of navigation and was always trying to tell Mum some story about the history of the towns.
The Adelphi Hotel in the heart of Liverpool was no treat for youngsters. It was built of large sludge-coloured stones and had grey-coated commissionaires who attended its revolving doors with a bored disposition. The hall gave me the impression that only the staid and serious were welcome. Stepfather tried his best to be on cordial terms with the local staff and he made it quite obvious he wanted to share his knowledge of the city with them. Sometimes while we were up there I recognised a hint of a Merseyside accent appear through his plummy voice. Even though he was secretive about his childhood, once up North, he loosened up and admitted that Cheshire was his home county and he loved the city of Liverpool because he was brought up in a small seaside town, Hoylake, on the other side of the Mersey. Liverpool Football Club was his passion and at every opportunity he anxiously looked for their results on news agency’s tickertape.