Yombars! - Yes, on my back roads!

Just to the left of here, I went to school - 50 years too late to see this motorsport event but better late than never

I found this wonderfully evocative picture the other day. It shows a speed trial taking place on a public road in Cornwall in the 1920s and I can’t help thinking that this is the way things should be today.

Here's a close up of the start - smell the fumes, hear the snatches of conversation

A group of people have got together to answer that eternal question posed by street urchins to motorists the world over, to wit “What’ll she do, mister?” In finding out, it looks like they’re having a lot of innocent fun. It appears organised but in a delightfully spontaneous way as if the above question has just been answered by a “Well, let’s find out shall we?”

Back then there were no nimbies. In Cornwall at any rate they were all yombars – yes, on my back roads! Except that this isn’t actually a back road. It’s the A3075 from Newquay to Redruth. The start line is just down the hill from the Methodist Chapel in Goonhavern, literally around the corner from where my silver-haired mother now lives. It’s not obvious how, or even if, each competitor is being timed or if there is a diversion in place to avoid inconveniencing other road users. Maybe there weren’t any. Maybe anyone travelling from Goonhavern to Newquay in those halcyon days, when presented with such an event as this, simply said, “What a wizard jape! Oh please – may I have a go?”

And fun was had.

Although I can’t be certain, I have the strongest feeling that teas and light refreshments were served to spectators and competitors in the chapel rooms adjacent.

This book has been an great inspiration to me

I found this picture in Old Cornwall in Camera – Road Vehicles by Fisher Barham, published by Glasney Press of Falmouth in 1978. It’s full of Vintage Things but this is my favourite picture. According to the caption, the car just about to set off is AF2766, a 10HP Calthorpe of 1920, owned by Mr W R Trounson of Redruth. I wonder if he was a relation of the late Jack Trounson, the great mining engineer and historian. The car has been stripped of mudguards and lightened by taking off its lights. The crew have prepared for their ascent of the hill opposite by donning a flying helmet or reversing the peak of their cap.

And just behind to the left of the cameraman is my old school. Now I know why I turned out the way I did. I couldn’t have grown up any other way after being educated right next to a race course. Mind you, it hasn’t affected my sister….

Nowadays, of course, nothing like this would ever be allowed.

In fact, I had another very strong feeling that motor racing on public roads had always been illegal in this country but it seems that in the early years it was allowed with “the connivance of the local police force.” That was when the fun police really were the fun police – if there wasn’t enough fun going on, those conniving policemen (what a wonderful concept!) helped make more of it!

Many hill-climbs were organised by local clubs and the names of some of them still have a splendid resonance even after all these years – Aston Clinton, which gave part of its name to Aston Martins, Holme Moss, which didn’t give any part of its name to Stirling Moss or Pat Moss, Harting, Spread Eagle and Caerphilly (now commemorated by a splendid castle and a very nice town, presumably featuring signs declaring that caerphil drivers are welcomed).

But all this came to an end on 28th March 1925 when an Oxford undergraduate, Francis Giveen, lost control of his ex-Raymond Mays Bugatti Cordon Bleu and knocked down some spectators on Kop Hill near Princes Risborough, at an event organised by the Essex Motor Club. Nobody was seriously hurt but after that there was a clamp down. Instead of improving crowd control, motor racing on public roads was no longer allowed, even with the connivance of the local rozzers.