Rex Judd's Brooklands' re-union

On the evening of April 27th another of Rex Judd’s re-unions of Brooklands’ motorcycle riders took place, appropriately, at the “Hand and Spear,” Weybridge, close to the Track that is now out-of-bounds to those who wrote its history. It was at this hotel that Robert Louis Stevenson stayed while writing “Treasure Island,” inspiration coming to him as he walked on Weybridge Heath and over the Locke-King bridge that connected Brooklands Track in later years with the near-by estate of its creator. It was here that wild men from the Outer-Circuit and the Paddock came to quench their thirst after “hot” spells of riding. It was here last April that Noel Pope, Jarman, Jack Clapham, Bert Denly and his “pusher-off-er,” V. N. Hood, Douglas Earle, Totey of New Imperial memory, Charles Mortimer, Pickford, Fruin and many others assembled to quaff ale and recall the nostalgic past, re-united by Rex Judd who looked far more substantial and benevolent than he did in the long-ago when “Pa” Norton discovered him and set him riding the race-winning and record-breaking belt-drive Nortons.

The Editor of Motor Sport wore a 1927 B.A.R.C. lapel badge to remind him of the first Brooklands Meeting he attended, at which Cobb’s streamlined T.T. Vauxhall and Purdy’s “flat-iron” Thomas-Special fought so fine a duel in the Sporting Life 100-Mile Handicap. He was accompanied by arch-Brooklands enthusiast Dudley Gahagan and Mrs. Naylor who, as Miss Shilling, took her B.M.C.R.C. Gold Star on a Norton in 1936—she was driving racing cars up to last year, to the time of her nasty Goodwood accident in an Elva. The Dicker brothers, who remember the Track being built (for years one of the Dickers was official sign-writer to the B.A.R.C., painting the racing numbers on cars and motorcycles), were there, too. When a discussion broke out as to the engine used in H.R.H. The Duke of York’s entry of a 1922 Trump ridden by Wood, someone called “An Anzani—I should know; I cut the engine plates for it.” It was that sort of party. They talked of fine people like Emerson and Parry Thomas, the high-jinks of Miller and Le Champion, the bravery of Judd, Le Vack, Riddoch and all the boys who went so far with so little in the way of metal and rubber beneath them. For ten bob there was one of the best buffet suppers I’ve ever helped to eat. A pleasant, sad evening!—W. B.