Barbara Cartland’s 1931 Brooklands race was more staged than society admitted

YIn 1931 Barbara Cartland organised an all-female motoring event at Brooklands. British Movietone News had been there in November 1931 to capture the action of the Society Ladies’ Private Handicap; or perhaps, more accurately, to convey the impression that it had happened at all.

It was Barbara’s first time in front of a movie camera; her first experience of hearing her recorded voice, and it shows. “At a party at my house,” she says, shifting her weight from one leg to another, “a man suggested that women could not drive as well as men. I replied that on the contrary, I could find nine amateurs who could drive extremely well. The whole idea has developed into a race and I believe and hope there is a good prize.”

She does not name the man, but the true driving force behind the event was Edward Russell, Lord de Clifford, road safety campaigner and ardent British fascist, who had gained notoriety for marrying Dorothy Meyrick, the daughter of a notorious nightclub hostess. Lady Dorothy was in one of the cars, as was her sister, Mary, wife of the Earl of Kinnoull. (Their mother, Kate Meyrick, did not attend the race, as she was serving a sentence in Holloway Prison for running a Soho drinking and gambling joint without a licence.)

Barbara found it hard to gather sufficient drivers for the event, but one of her pageant stalwarts obliged. Princess George Imeretinsky, who had personified the Golden Arrow boat train in Barbara’s railway-themed pageant, and Green at her Superstitions ball, climbed into an MG and put her foot on the pedal. Footage shows the event being declared in her favour: she then reflects on the outcome, giving the strong impression that she is addressing a crowd.

They were not there. Nothing that could be termed a genuine race took place. The press, however, reported otherwise, explaining that the only experienced driver among them, Joan Chetwynd, “made a gallant effort to overtake the leader, and only failed to win by a few feet”.

It was Chetwynd, stung by this report, who gave Barbara’s game away. The Motor magazine published an exposé denouncing the event as fraudulent and chaotic.

“When the starter’s flag fell,” it reported, “all the cars, with the exception of one, which stalled because its handbrake was still on, tore down the finishing straight and began cutting each other up in a most alarming fashion for the benefit of the cameras.”

Lord de Clifford gave up racing four years later, after being acquitted of the manslaughter of a motorist with whom he was in a head-on collision while driving on the wrong side of the road. The verdict was controversial: he was the last member of the House of Lords to be tried by his peers. He later sold dog food door-to-door.

The Great Dictator: A Life of Barbara Cartland by Matthew Sweet is out now (Hodder & Stoughton, £25).