Founded in the year nineteen twenty-four February 1980

It was nice to see that Brooklands was not neglected
at the “Thirties” Exhibition which the Arts Council of Great
Britain put on in London and which closed last month. As
one entered the Hayward Gallery, over which presided
the TV mock-up of Campbell’s 1935 LSR “Bluebird”,
there was a big picture of the Members’ banking, with
spectators watching the racing from a punt and a car,
was it Follett’s Alvis?, in full-cry above them. Other
Brooklands photographs included Charles Brackenbury
in a GP Bugatti chasing a Monza Alfa Romeo on the
banking, both cars with all wheels well off the concrete,
an MG Magnette bearing No. 11 running clockwise down
the Finishing-straight, as if in a long-distance race, with
the camera getting the old Judge’s box in the background
at a drunken angle, a big picture of the Napier-Railton
outside the Parry Thomas bungalow (before it was fully
completed, as there was no windscreen and the drivingseat
projected higher than the tail) with Cobb and Railton
in attendance, and there was even one of the Paddock
showing a lady in a backless dress (and, of course,
wearing a hat) in the fashion of that period but without
a car in sight. Other motor-racing pictures on view were
of LSR cars, including several of Cobb’s Railton, with
shots of the decidedly brave Cobb in the claustrophobic
closed cockpit out ahead of the front wheels. Among the
models were proprietary toy-miniatures of the Sunbeam
“Silver Bullet”, Campbell’s “Bluebird” with detachable
body, and Cobb’s 400 m.p.h. Railton, and two plastic,
quite large models of Austin and Singer sun-roof saloons
by Automobiles (Geographical) Ltd. of Halifax which
we don’t recall seeing previously. There were also fine
scale-models of “Bluebird” in two of its forms and the
all-enveloping MG record-car, unfortunately displayed
one above the other, for they were of vastly different
scales. Reverting to pictures, quite the most interesting
to us was that showing Jack Field “taking delivery” of
a rather-battered Sunbeam “Silver Bullet” in what looks
like London(?), with a disgruntled policeman looking
on and Morris vans and Minors outnumbering a lone
Austin in the background.
G. B. Woolley, the enthusiast for Vale Specials,
tells us rumour suggests that some 25 of these still exist,
of which he has located eleven, five runners, and one
complete and original but derelict. Two are coming
along well, apparently, but three are incomplete and
vandalised in respect of missing parts. He wonders if
anyone knows of others of this sporting make? It seems
that one of the newest Motor Museums may be that being
planned at the l.5-mile two-foot-gauge Alford Valley
Light Railway near Aberdeen. We apologise to Mr. A.
G. A. Cole for saying his 1904 Vulcan was a non-finisher
in the Veteran Car Run last year — in fact, his car got in
without incident by 1.15 p.m.— W.B.
THE WARTIME DIARIES
OF AN RFC OFFICER
(Continued from the January issue)
BEFORE I resume these diaries of “Flying-Officer X” (as
I shall call the young aristocrat who so painstakingly
compiled them all those years ago, although, in fact,
there was apparently no such rank among pilots, until
the RAF was formed), we must not be too hard on him
for the quantity of petrol he used motoring about during
the dark days of war, because there was no rationing of
fuel, even for civilians, until the middle of 1916, although
certain types of users were given priority, although even
this was left to the garages to observe. So, with the price
of a gallon at from 2/- (10p) to 2/10d (14p) there need not
have been much curb on “X”, who was in uniform, had
his “wings up”, and worked for the War Office.
We left him, although on sick leave from the RFC,
trying to borrow a BE2c in which to fly up to Newmarket,
where his fiancee lived, from London. In the event an
entry says: “Too bad a day to fly . . . raining, etc., so went
to WO as usual. ...” After which X went to the garage
and fixed up the Adler, and later took out the Itala and
did odd jobs on that car. The weather that Spring of 1916
had been mostly glorious but on a Sunday in May when
Tollerton — X’s barman perhaps? — took out a Rolls-
Royce and X went to Box Hill in it with Ronnie Wilson
(to whom the car belonged) and Connie Guy, it was “a
horribly rainy day”. But this did not prevent them from
lunching, before returning home for tea at X’s London
flat. There was then dinner at Giro’s, where X was joined
by other friends, and eventually he drove one of them to
Caterham (perhaps to the Guards’ Depot?) in the Adler.
X got to bed at 4.30 a.m.
The social-round continued unabated, with an
Austin used for some of the London commuting. When
it was necessary to take a young lady back to school a
Daimler was hired, on a Tuesday when X lunched his
father and friends at the Ritz, had dinner with this
gentleman and Lady Mainwaring at the Carlton, after tea
at his flat, after which X went on to the Gaiety Theatre
and the Bachelors Club. Food, as well as petrol, was
plentiful. ... Ignoring all the details of this fascinating and
incessant social life, X used the Itala again, and chose for
himself a room at “the new WO”. Indeed, the Itala was
proving useful, as Tollerton would “bring it round” and
it was used to motor down to Harrow one Saturday with
Betty Pigott, for the purpose of collecting a school-girl
and taking her back to London. On the way back the
Itala was run into by a van and its radiator burst. But this
did not prevent X from seeing “Half Past Eight” at the
Comedy Theatre with two girl friends (“rotten show”),
seeing his doctor at the RFC hospital, having a singsong
in the drawing room of the family’s town-house
after dinner, and then changing into evening-clothes for
Ronnie Wilson’s dance at the Grafton Galleries, to which
X took Mary Dodson — “Great show, and thoroughly
enjoyed it. Got home 5.30 and went to bed”....
Ignoring some of the high-pressure dining and
wining, we find X taking the school-girl back to Harrow
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