Tuesday, October 26, 2010

Another look at Brooklands....this time from 1974......and a few other pics from my time in the UK....

If you've extensively read my blog you'd know that I travelled overland from Australia to Europe in early 1974 and based myself in London for several years.
During this time I met up with Chas.Mortimer Snr, himself a former Brooklands car and motorcycle racer...a habutee of Brooklands as they were called prewar. His son Chas.Mortimer Jnr became a well known motorcycle racer on the GP circuits in the 1970's....
I had known Chas.snr due to earlier correspondence and I purchased used books from him. He gave me a copy of "One Man Caravan" which I did a blog on earlier and we arranged to visit Brooklands with him.
See.....
http://velobanjogent.blogspot.com/2009/04/one-man-caravanrobert-fulton-jnrs-epic.html
I also briefly touched on Brooklands in another earlier blog ........ 
http://velobanjogent.blogspot.com/2008/06/pictures-from-my-archive-frequent-dip_17.html
Brooklands built around 1906, closed to the public at the outbreak of WW2 when Vickers and others took it over for aircraft development and testing and remained closed following cessation of hostilities. 
Chas. "bluffed" his way in through the main gate to show us the starting area and clubhouse, we noted a mockup of the Concorde nose section beside a building and out of public scrutiny.
We then travelled around the side of the circuit through a housing estate to where part of the banking was , Chas took up through a known hole in the fence and lo we were standing on the top of the banking....
Following are photos I took at the time.....
As well them are some other photos from the same scanned negative collection.
Left click on the images to enlarge.....


 Chas. Mortimer Snr., with pipe....



A favourite spot I found and try to visit every time I return to the UK, was a flight of ten locks on a canal ...Foxton Locks...near Market Harborough in Leicestershire.










1 comment:

murderdromecycles said...

Brooklands gave me the virus for Trackracing. Tears in my eyes when waching the pics. of the Track...

thanx

Andreas