173 replies to this topic

[john winfield]

Quote:
Originally posted by Richard Neville.

"I don't know a whole lot about what the spectators got up to. There was an entrance near the Hall; and I think some of the drivers and teams stayed (or at least dined) at the Hall. There's some interesting footage at MovieTone which amongst other things shows spectators (including the King) arriving at the track although I don't know which of the entrances are shown (note you'll need to search for "Donnington" to find the footage... ) "

I'll work out how to use the proper quote facility soon! Thanks for the movietone prompt, Richard. As I've only just gone broadband, I was still marvelling at the wonders of Youtube, not realising that the Movietone archive was sitting there, free to view. It is free to view isn't it? If not, I've got a massive bill coming!

Great Donington footage. It's just terrific to see drivers like Seaman and Lang trying to harness all that power! I noticed Kautz' Auto Union buried in the bank at the loop - nice to think my relation was just the other side snapping towards us. And I always like to think that somewhere in the crowd is Tom Wheatcroft, in short trousers (?), inspired by the sights and sounds, ready to come forward thirty years later to do what he did for British motor sport.

The footage of the spectators arriving should provide a useful template for Donington in 2010. I certainly think all celebs and royalty should either come by car or camp overnight in a muddy field to enter into the spirit of things. None of this private helicopter nonsense.

Back to movietone for a second. Wonderful to see these short clips, intended for a general audience in the cinema. Having found some footage of races that I know well (British GPs 1970-75, Crystal Palace F2 etc.) it's fascinating / infuriating to note how cleverly the short films are made and how endearingly 'inaccurate' they are. The clips are often out of sequence and the voice overs incorrect and key moments, having taken place out of sight of the movietone cameramen, are skated over. But the films were there to entertain, more than inform and it's just wonderful to be able to see them at will. Perhaps there's a thread somewhere here in which ex-Movietone employees explain the pressures and processes involved in setting up coverage, filming, editing and distributing. Quite different, I expect, to the studio co-ordinated, global transmissions of modern television.
I'll stop rambling now......I need some coffee.
John

[taylov]

2 more snapshots from the 1938 Donington Grand Prix, both of Lang's Mercedes #7.

These and all of the Donington photos that I have posted recently have turned up at postcard fairs in the UK. It was commonplace for private photos to be printed with postcard backs in the 1930s. Once again, we have no idea who took these historic photographs.

Tony

[BonzoDog]

Gentlemen (and ladies)

As you can see, this is my first post on the forum so apologies if I'm unfamiliar with etiquette.

I wonder if I can ask a favour of those with records of Donington races 1933-34. I'll explain my motives....

I'm trying desperately to find any trace of the race(s) that my father-in-law, Philip Charles Adams, competed in for the Derby & District Motor Club.

I'll detail what I know (he wrote it down a few years before his death).

His father was Leopold Adams, sales director of Alvis Cars of Coventry. He was a great friend of Eddie Hall and Cecil Kimber of MG. After Leopold died in 1933, his wife contacted Eddie to see if there might be a car available that her son might race. She was told that there was a K3 that they (MG) were trying to sell. It had been the practice car for the Ulster TT.

Phil remembers that he (or the club) entered it firstly in the September 1933 meeting at Donington after it had been 'worked on' by the club and Eddie Hall had driven and approved it.

He says that it was entered in two races, the first having Fred Dixon's Riley Sprite as a fellow entrant. Phil says he came in 3rd.

The second race was 2 days later (he says) and was over 10 laps. After some laps, Phil was in 5th or 6th position when the car in front of his blew up and Phil skidded, hit a large oak tree and finished up 'with the engine on my left-hand side'. He was taken to hospital from where he later remembers three days later reading a report of the race/crash in the paper. The car was written off.

On Saturday we looked in vain at all the reports in the Derby Evening Telegraph for that year.

I have no idea how accurate Phil's recollections are (I guess even the year could be wrong - there is a suggestion that it was in fact 1934) but would really appreciate some confirmation of the race(s) or of the incident.

Or maybe there's an archivist of the Derby and District Motor Club?

Any help would be truly marvellous.

Thank you.

[taylov]

I checked my programmes for 1933 and 1934 Donington Park races and found an entry by a P.C.Adams in the "International Car Races" held on Saturday 6th October, 1934.

He raced a MG Midget of 847cc, car number 34, in the first event of the day - a 10 lap handicap race for cars up to 1500cc. He does not seem to have finished in the first three places in that race. The programme listed his AIACR licence number as E1931.

I regret that I cannot find his name in other Donington events - however my collection is still missing a few programmes. Might be worth checking Bill Boddy's book on the history of Donington Park which lists the 1-2-3 results for races up to 1939. However even this is not 100% as many of the minor "clubbies" are not included.

Hope this helps,

Tony

[BonzoDog]

Tony,

What can I say! that's absolutely brilliant - thank you very much indeed.

I was beginning to dispair that we'd ever find anything to support his recollections.

...and my wife is very happy about this news of her father (well, she must be happy, she's having a little cry!)

Many many thanks,

Cliff

[fines]

The TNF experience...

All inclusive, and within half an hour! Well done, Tony!

[Vitesse2]

Originally posted by taylov
I checked my programmes for 1933 and 1934 Donington Park races and found an entry by a P.C.Adams in the "International Car Races" held on Saturday 6th October, 1934.

He raced a MG Midget of 847cc, car number 34, in the first event of the day - a 10 lap handicap race for cars up to 1500cc. He does not seem to have finished in the first three places in that race. The programme listed his AIACR licence number as E1931.

The brief report of this race in The Motor doesn't mention a driver called Adams. The result only gives the first three - Richardson (Riley), Allen (MG) and Porter-Hargreaves (Frazer-Nash).

Mention of Dixon, Hall and 1933 would indicate the October 7th meeting, where Eddie took two wins in what was described by MG Magazine as a "TT practice" K3.

Now, if I could just find my copies of "K3 Register" and "The Motor Sport Book of Donington" in this organised chaos

Maybe tomorrow ....;)

[Gregor Marshall]

I didn't know the British Empire Trophy race was a Donington race when I posted about it recently but in case you missed the thread here is a link http://forums.autosp...&threadid=62847 about a trophy plaque I have and now know to be from a Donington Pre-War race.

[Vitesse2]

Hmm ... having unearthed my copy of K3 Register, it looks like the Magnette in question was probably K3002, one of the works team which ran in the 1933 Mille Miglia, driven by Tim Birkin and Bernard Rubin. In May, Eddie Hall used it to win the 1100cc class at Shelsley Walsh and Kaye Don drove it in the Mannin Beg in July. It's possible Rubin drove it at Pescara, but I think that was more likely K3003.

Eddie Hall also used K3002 to win the 1100cc and 1500cc classes at Craigantlet, the week before the TT. Then on September 20th, MG tuning wizard Robin Jackson won the same categories with it at the Brighton Speed Trials, plus taking second place in the unlimited sports car class.

As I posted above, Hall took two wins at Donington on October 7th. However, I was wrong in associating that with K3002: this was in his more usual car K3006. K3002 would therefore have been available and the association with both Hall and Jackson would seem to tie in with the late Mr Adams' memories, especially since Freddie Dixon was also at that meeting and took part in two events.

The "two days later" bit is mystifying - Donington meetings were always one-day affairs, held on Saturdays - so he may have mixed that bit up.

I don't have a detailed report of this meeting, so can't confirm if there were any accidents which tie in with his memories. The Motor, Autocar and Light Car would all have reported it though. As you live in Coventry, you're right on top of the Coventry Transport Museum and no distance from the Motoring Heritage Centre at Gaydon. Gaydon certainly have those magazines, but when I was at the museum last year their archive was closed for reorganisation, so I can't tell you if they have them. Coventry Central Library also have a good collection, but they were also in a state of flux when I visited. Gaydon are very helpful and you don't even have to pay to get in if you want to use the archives! (Just don't take advantage!)

A K3 would have been a fearsome car for a novice driver - perhaps, given that Tony found him in a Midget the following year, he realised that he wasn't quite good enough for the bigger model?

One more thought: it might be worth contacting The Triple-M Register

[Just to square the circle, K3002 was sold to Australia over the winter of 1933/4. It was second in the 1934 Australian GP (Thompson) and won the Australian TT in 1936 (Fagan). Post-war, it was run by Ken Tubman with great success. But that's O/T ....;) ]

[BonzoDog]

Can't thank everyone enough....

In view of the replies, I've re-read the few notes made by my father-in-law and I'm sure we're talking about 1934 here and not 1933.

He says the car was a 21st birthday present - and that makes it Jan 1934 - although negotiations on purchase took place earlier. The car was delivered to his home (in Beddgelert N.Wales) in time for his birthday. He towed it for testing at nearby Black Rock Sands and it was transported (by Pickfords as it wasn't road registered) to Derby & District Motor Club in September.

He was over 90 years of age when he wrote about it so I'll forgive the error of one year!

Perhaps we'll never know about the Midget/Magnette discrepancies - but it seems he was an experienced driver and had raced Austin 7s previously (but I don't know where or when)

Nice birthday present though....

[Vitesse2]

Well, not wishing to quibble ;), but if he was correct about Dixon being in the same race then he can't be talking about October 1934, because Freddie wasn't there!

Dixon raced only four times at Donington: March 25th 1933, October 7th 1933, July 7th 1934 and July 13th 1935. The 1934 and 1935 dates were the Nuffield Trophy meetings: 1935 can be discounted as Freddie only ran in the feature race. In 1934, he competed in four.

If he raced an Austin 7, that would almost certainly have been sand racing - Southport perhaps?

[taylov]

We are assuming that the gentleman in question only raced as a driver. Boddy's book describes the early races at Donington in 1933 in which cars raced with passengers/mechanics as had been common in the 1920s. These brave individuals' names do not appear in the programmes.

Perhaps Mr Adams did race in 1933 but as a passenger, before entering as a driver in the MG Midget in 1934. That might explain his memory of racing against Freddie Dixon.

Tony

[Vitesse2]

I did consider that possibility Tony. But riding mechanics were banned at Donington after the fatality at the August meeting. So none in October and for him to have raced against Dixon we'd then have to go back to March 1933.

[taylov]

Does anyone have the complete results for the 5th International British Empire Trophy race held at Donington on 4th April 1936 ? Internet searching only reveals that Richard Seaman won the race in a Maserati.

I have the programme but no other information.

Any help most welcome. Thanks

Tony

[Vitesse2]

Brief report from The Times, April 6th:

[D-Type]

Brief report from The Times, April 6th:

Interesting - What would the £250 prize money be worth today? Probably about £10,000

Edited by D-Type, 15 April 2011 - 16:12.

[taylov]

Interesting - What would the £250 prize money be worth today? Probably about £10,000

Only a year to get round to replying.......£13,980 in 2012.

Tony

[Vitesse2]

Oddly enough, I was about to bump this thread!

Useful source for those researching - especially - Donington events is the British Newspaper Archive. It's a British Library project and very much a work in progress. At present, much of their database is pre-twentieth century newspapers and - as such - pretty much dupllicates the BL's earlier Nineteenth Century Newspapers project which is available via Cengage Learning. However, they are starting to add more recent papers, among them the Derby Daily Telegraph, which seems to cover every Donington meeting, often providing details which aren't in the national magazine reports.

Other local dailies include the Nottingham Evening Post, Western Morning News, Western Daily Press and Hull Daily Mail. No doubt others will follow.

I've also found some Shelsley and Prescott reports in the weekly Cheltenham Chronicle.

Searching is free, but to view the pages you have to buy credits. The price structure is a bit strange and you need to realise that anything under 107 years old (unless scanned from microfilm) will cost you 15 credits - which is why the 500 credit pack says "up to 100 pages". All pages can also be downloaded as full page PDFs at no extra cost.

http://www.britishne...rarchive.co.uk/

[cdrewett]

My son's mother-in-law was clearing out her attic recently and came across a pristine copy of the programme for the 1937 Donington TT. So I am now the resident expert on that meeting. There's a lovely advertisement in it for Shelsley Walsh: "Shelsey Walsh is a fine affair; it is more than that: it is an occasion"
Very true.
Chris

[john winfield]

Earlier German visitors at Donington Hall.  Sutton Bonington is a little east of Donington, now part of the University of Nottingham.

 

https://www.bbc.co.u...mshire-50168487

Edited by john winfield, 26 October 2019 - 16:16.

[Vitesse2]

Amongst the visitor attractions advertised between the wars at the Hall was the opportunity to see the remains of an escape tunnel dug by the prisoners. Donington Hall was also the inspiration for the officers’ prison camp at the fictional Hadleigh Hall, Derbyshire, in the 1943 Powell and Pressburger film The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp - a sequence actually filmed at Denton Hall in Wharfedale, Yorkshire, which also did duty in another part of the film as the home of one of Deborah Kerr's three characters.

 

On which subject, the officer in the fourth picture of John's link even actually bears a passing resemblance to Anton Walbrook's character Theo Kretschmar-Schuldorff!

 

[john winfield]

Although I think Anton has won the haughty sneer stakes hands down.

[Vitesse2]

Although I think Anton has won the haughty sneer stakes hands down.

He was an Uhlanoffizier. Haughty sneers are supplied with their rations!

[Tim Murray]

Earlier in this thread - over fifteen years ago - there was some confusion between RF Turner, RM Turner and Max Turner, and which of them had done what at the very first car race meeting at Donington. See this and subsequent posts.

I’m currently reading John Bolster’s book Motoring Is My Business where he appears to have resolved the confusion:

Among the drivers when the [Donington] course was first opened, one must certainly give pride of place to Rod Turner. Rod drove a little supercharged ‘Ulster’ Austin Seven, and he could see off anything because he was so fast round the corners. He was able to fly through the curving, wooded section of the circuit in a series of perfect four-wheel drifts, in fact I don’t think anyone approached his skill until Richard Seaman came on the scene. Subsequently, a much longer straight section was added, and a good deal of general widening took place. After that, larger and faster cars became the wear, and the little ‘Ulster’ was rather outclassed. I am sure, though, that anybody who remembers Rod Turner, ‘the Donington Wizard’, in full flight must often think of him when they see today’s most advanced practitioners in action. In the first few races, when riding mechanics were carried, Rod’s brother, Max, used to perform this duty for him, and that must have been quite an experience.