The Ladies
Jennifer Tudor-Owen Anthea Castell Sheila Kemp Elsie Gadd
Lucette Pointet
Rosemary Smith
The Daily Telegraph Ladies Team
Jenny Gates, Marion MacDonald, Eileen Westley
Jenny and Nick Brittan
Charge your glass for the ladies.
IT IS THE LONGEST and toughest motor rally ever held - yet a surprising number of ladies have entered.
There are three mixed crews - including the sole husband and wife team, Nick and Jenny Brittan - and thirteen other ladies. And all are prepared for the greatest adventure of their lives.
The husband and wife team spell out the international theme of the rally and of its sponsorship.
Nick Brittan, ex-car and saloon-car racing champion and now a journalist, is a Londoner. His wife is pretty ex-Australian model Jenny Furney from Sydney. They'll be in car 50, a works sponsored Ford Cortina.
For them the whole trip is packed with what they refer to as the best of omens. Car 50 is how Jenny feels about the trip - a 50/50 adventure of husband and wife.
They started not knowing a thing about rallying, so they had to learn. And they've taken it all very seriously. Jenny went off first to have advanced driving lessons at a special high performance course. Then the pair did three and four-day stints at the wheel - to get an idea what it was like trying to rest in a rocking, rolling chair.
And to top it off, the army pushed them through a three-day survival course. "Having survived that," says Jenny, "I reckon I can survive anything." This will be her first trip back home for eight years, and she is looking forward to it, though not leaving behind her baby son, Alexander.
They are part of the giant Ford effort (that team has the favourites, Eric Jackson and Ken Chambers) and Jenny has a hand in the designing the clothes presented by the International Wool Secretariat.
These wool driving suits were designed by Tom Gilbert, one of Britain's newest flock of fashion designers.
Jean Denton, racing driver, journalist and economist at the University of Sydney, who took up racing and rallying just five years ago, will drive an MGB with another researcher, Tom Boyce. Jean was British women's champion last year and she is backed by the magazine "Nova" and secretarial agency chief, Mrs Marjory Hurst, of the well-known Brook Street Bureau. She has been given knockout clothes to wear on the trip. Hyland Booker, a bright young designer, chose for her black terylene and cotton trousers with soft vyella tunic blouses in yellow and orange. Her cap and trousers are embroidered with the word "Nova".
But the mixed crew girls will have tough competition with the favourite among the all-women's teams - Rosemary Smith already a well-known identity in Australia and world rallying. Rosemary is driving a Cortina for Henry Ford of Ireland. As an official member of the Ford team, she plans wearing most of the clothes designed for them by Tom Gilbert.
Rosemary's co-driver is the Belgian Lucette Pointet, who doesn't speak very much English and Rosemary's French is also almost negligible. But as Rosemary says: " I don't like driving with someone who natters at me I don't find this a handicap. Anyway, we've sufficent vocabulary to get along."
Rosemary will stick to the food packs originally thought up by Horlicks for Ford rally crews four years ago. Each year these special packs have been improved. The newest one called the FMC-4 (after the Ford Motor Company), had to be changed again to suit Australian health department food import regulations.
Another great driver and married woman and mother taking part is France's Madame Janine Berjou of Bordeaux, who will drive a Simca. She has as co-driver, Marie-Theres Patouc, who has shared many International rally successes with her. Marie-Theres has possibly the greatest endurance experience of any of the ladies and rivals the favourites, Rosemary Smith and Lucette Pointet in accomplishments.
On her own, Marie-Theres has raced from Paris to Calcutta, Bombay and back to Paris. Together the pair won the Dames Sud-Quest Aquaitaine. Despite an accident that put Janine in hospital for a year (Marie-Theres escaped with only a scratch), they're as keen as mustard. Madame Berjou leaves behind her two sons and her husband, who has backed her entry.
Getting to bed in time has been the biggest problem for Elsie Gadd, who will be driving a Volvo station wagon with her team of three other drivers - Jennifer Tudor-Owen, Anthea Castell and Sheila Kemp. "All working girls," Elsie explains. "We've had to get to bed by half past eight in the evening. We are unlikely to be the dressiest of the girls. Just good workmanlike overalls for us."
But don't take this four too lightly. Though they carry one of the biggest (in numbers) crews in the whole rally, their choice of vehicle and the preparation they have put behind it will make them formidable in the women's section. They've got great determination and that old wholesome thing known as guts.
Sylvia Kay, a secretary working in the Channel Islands, is driving a Peugeot with two Irishmen, Paddy McClintock and J.E.E Cotton. One time secretary to the Governor of Free Town, she started her rally career in West Africa. And she has no special ideas on rations or food. "Just bully beef - which luckily the boys like as well - and cans of soup that can be heated with a cigarette lighter," she says.
And of course there are our own three wonderful Australian girls in their fondly named BMC 1100, 'The Galloping Tortoise'. At first it was only Eileen Westley and her co-journalist friend Marion MacDonald who were to attempt the Marathon as the number four car in the Daily Telegraph team.
But later the pair decided to add another to their number to share the driving, so Jenny Gates was recruited. The trio, may be inexperienced, so far as European rallying is concerned, but do not lack enthusiasm. They've done tough outback trips to try themselves out for tough endurance driving and they've gone on diets to keep their weight down for the tiny 1100.
story - Harold Dvoretsky
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Home I A Tale Of Two Cities I How It All Began I The Entrants I The Rules I Timetable I The Route I Their Story I Photo Albums
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The Ladies I How They Finished I BMC I Ford I Holden I Other Marques I Site Map I Memorabilia I Credits/About Us I Links
