9 replies to this topic

[Haine Kane]

Hello dear friends,

I've got a problem with these pics :

In the first, the inscription say : BIRKIN, CHASSAGNE and KENSINGTON MOIR (LE MANS 1930)


In this one : left to right CLEMENT, KIDSTON, KENSINGTON MOIR, BARNATO, WERNER, WATNEY and Mrs & Rudolf CARACCIOLA also in LE MANS 1930


Who is the "good" Herbert KENSINGTON MOIR ?

Thanks for your answer and Happy New Year at ALL .

[David McKinney]

You can probably work it out for yourself from the fact that he was born in 1901
That's a very worn-looking 29-year-old in the second photo

[elansprint72]

The first photo shows Kensington-Moir, in the second one it is Dudley Benjafield between Kidston and Barnato.

[Adam F]

According to the death notice in the Times, he died on 11th March 1961 at home in Epsom, Surrey.

[markpde]

Hello Haine - happy New Year!

Originally posted by elansprint72
The first photo shows Kensington-Moir, in the second one it is Dudley Benjafield between Kidston and Barnato.

'Doctor Benjafield', I presume... I've known these names for years but couldn't put faces to some of them - same goes for Chassagne and Werner - although there's a photo of Chassagne in Tim Birkin's autobiography 'Full Throttle', wearing a back-to-front cap with goggles pushed up, and with the evocative caption, "Maintenant, c'est à moi..."

'When finally I tumbled in exhausted, there was only one man with all his wits about him. Observing quietly, "Maintenant, c'est à moi," old Chassagne picked up a couple of jacks in his arms and set off at a run. He was, as I have said, 47 years of age; he ran the whole way; he jacked up the car; he changed the wheel; and when he came into the pits to put on a new spare, the whole crowd cheered him to the echo. He was, however, quite unperturbed.'

Also from 'Full Throttle', an anecdote about team manager Kensington-Moir, or 'Bertie Moir', as Birkin refers to him:

'At Le Mans, the year I passed Carraciola with the treads of a tyre flying [1930], we had fitted 1¼ inch steel mudguard stays which were enormously strong. But when the tread began to fly, they were bent like little pieces of wire. In the morning Chassagne was about to hand over the car to me, the sun was very hot, and I put on a white piqué racing helmet instead of a crash helmet. Bertie Moir said I was not going to drive in that, with the mudguards hardly covering the wheels and every chance of a piece of tread flying up and hitting me on the back of the head. I said that I was going to wear it, and had no intention of changing. Chassagne was due in less than a minute. Bertie Moir said that I was going to put on the crash helmet. I said that Bertie Moir could go to a hotter place than Le Mans. Chassagne was approaching the pits. Bertie Moir replied that he would go there, after I had put on the crash helmet. We were both tired, but managed to fling a few expressive insults. We then suddenly found that there was something ludicrous in the situation, and as Chassagne drew in I put on the crash helmet and took my place. The more we recall that incident, the more we laugh at it; no suspicion of ill-will ever rankled over it. I do not believe Bertie Moir could harbour any ill-will if he tried for a week.'

[RStock]

Ah , I drew a blank until I saw 'Bertie Moir' .

http://www.brookland...dwood/g9876.htm

Always loved the paint job and pipes on this Straker Squire .

http://i183.photobuc...h/PW/Cdc178.jpg


Photo from Brooklands Society .

[bradbury west]

He was Nick Syrett's uncle, IIRC
Roger Lund

[Ray Bell]

There was another Moir involved in the sport here... Ted or Teddy Moir...

He was a founding member of the group that put the Pound Hill circuit together, raced there in an air cooled Special, was a scrutineer at Bathurst and Catalina Park right up until his untimely demise about 1971. He came from a large family of Moirs, nine children, yet he had just one son. Oddly enough, his son was the only boy to carry on the family name... but he died, unmarried, in a car accident while on holidays in the Northern Territory.

When the son, John, was young and had outgrown his cot, a workmate of Teddy's enquired if he wanted to sell it. He had learned his wife could have no more children so he drawled out the response, "Well, for a bag of chick wheat I suppose I could let you have it!"

This little story I heard when I was passing through Dunedoo just a few years ago.

Sure, it's a long way beneath the Bentley works team and a long way from Le Mans, but I'm sure the passion was just the same. Teddy did some flying just before the war and enjoyed gliding, but he was down to earth enough to realise that four wheels on the bitumen (or oil, in the case of Pound Hill) was the essential home for a panel beater such as himself.

He had sage advice for safe driving too... "If it's a good road, get off it (as in keep up the speed)... if it's not a good road, drive within the limits of your vision."

[dkmlondon]

The first photo shows Kensington-Moir, in the second one it is Dudley Benjafield between Kidston and Barnato.

I don't think it is either Bertie or Benjafield! If anything, Benjy is far right in the plus 4's.

Bertie I know lived life to the full (he was my great-uncle), but even he didn't look that raddled at that age!

Will post a photo of the two of them for comparison purposes soon.

[Allan Lupton]

Good to have a relative's knowledge and welcome to TNF!

 

I presume we who think Bertie is the chap identified the first photo, have it right.

I agree with your identification of Benjy as the head shape of the chap between Barnato and Kidston is wrong.