Fay Taylour

[Herbie the Hammer]

saw a wonderful piece by to the estimable Mr John Hyam in the 'South London Press' regarding the recent publication of a book about Fay Taylour - Mr Hyam to be a doyen of the midget car, and as such I for one can fully understand his lack of interest in the Fay Taylour’s life on the speedways of the world and why he would think speedway enthusiasts like myself should be taken with her car racing career rather than her pioneering efforts on the dirt-track. However, I must beg to revisit some of his, I do not doubt, highly considered utterances.

 

Firstly I must implore Mr Hyam to reconsider his dismissal of Ms Taylour’s fellow female riders as ‘gimmicks’. Several of these marvellous women were accomplished riders in their own right and as the book details, one or two did, at points, got the better of Ms Taylour in track duels. I can quote names and records at length, but I would not wish to undermine Mr Hyam is such a way. But I would ask that Mr Hyam at least find it in his good and insightful heart to give these women just a little credit for what they achieved. They fought to make careers in a very unsympathetic, male dominated environment that was all too ready to pass them off as mere appendages. We hopefully live in times when we can see beyond sexist labels (usually deployed by men) that effectively dismiss women’s place in history. I’m sure Mr Hyam would go with me on that one.

 

Now I must turn to Mr Hyam’s insistence that West Ham was not Phil Bishop’s final club (a fact citec in a footnote in the book). I, along with my family, have been associated with West Ham speedway for three generations. However, I am always glad to be put on the right track by superior knowledge such as that I know Mr Hyam to have, else why would an admirable publication like the 'South London Press' use him to review the humble efforts to record some of the history of speedway? They would not employ some nit-picking, half informed malcontent for such work!

 

However, I do feel obliged to point out that Phil Bishop actually died, in Lokeren, Belgium, holding the post of the West Ham manager on 14th of July 1970 along with Peter Bradshaw, Martyn Piddock, Gary Everett and Malcolm Carmichael and driver Henrikus Rommoes. It was the worst disaster in the history of speedway and has been compared to the tragic fate of the Busby Babes in the context of the dirt track. West Ham, sadly, was most certainly Phil Bishop’s last club – I have no doubt that Mr Hyam would be the first to understand that to claim anything else would be an insult to the many West Ham fans who remember Phil with a affection and reverence, his family and speedway as a sport.

 

Now to the thorny question about which days New Cross raced just after World War Two. I followed this up and was indeed perplexed to see two newspaper reports and a piece from the speedway press of the time claiming Ms Taylour’s presence at New Cross outside the club’s conventional race days. However, these reports were circa 1947, around 20 months after the end to global hostilities and the return of speedway after its wartime hibernation. Yes, the noble and wise Mr Hyam is perfectly correct that Ms Taylour had turned up on an ‘unusual’ day. But the mid-to late 1940s were unusual days for speedway and much else in Britain. For all this, the reports were probably wrong, and Mr Hyam with his huge knowledge of speedway and its ‘usual’ regularities, is no doubt right to disparage the writer; playfully hitting him on the noggin with his pig’s bladder of astuteness, cocking a snoot at his ignorance of the encyclopaedic and all encompassing awareness of the uniformity of events regardless of circumstance that My Hyam has.

 

It is insane to reiterate reports of the time rather than assume that the ‘usual’ patterns of events remained in place regardless of the pressures on blitz ravaged, food and energy rationed London. The writer should know, like him that deviation from normal schedules would be in no way whatsoever possible or conceivable.

 

Lastly, I must agree with Mr Hyam about the writer seeking to respect the shape and pattern of Ms Taylour’s own writing and reflect on her life beyond the track. It was mad of the writer to think that anyone in their right mind might be interested in anything other than the bare facts/stats relating to Ms Taylour’s racing career. Mr Hyam is quite right to point out the lack of curiosity about such things when it comes to celebrating the contribution of sporting personalities. We have only to look at the recorded lives of the likes of George Best, Amy Johnson, Amelia Earhart, Paul Gascoigne and many others to see that the reading public has no inclination to read anything other than the basic records of the sporting elements of such people’s lives.

 

In conclusion I must again express my gratitude to Mr Hyam for his toil in seeking to find flaws in this work. The book contained in the region of 15,000 facts about Ms Taylour’s life and times; that he found so much to correct and pour scorn on says much for his keen eye, motivation and generosity of spirit.