Carmarthenshire
1.Pendine Races
Pendine Races - Lynn Hughes
Photo album
Congratulations to Lynn Hughes, whose latest book "Pendine Races" was voted "Motoring Book of the Year" by Daily Telegraph Reviewer Andrew English (Daily Telegraph 16 December 2000).
"This is the styory of the Welsh TT races and record breaking attempts on the famous Pendine Sands. Before the Second World war, the Welsh TT followed the Isle of man TT and every rider wortth his salt would travel over to battle for the splendid Dragon TT Trophy. Names like George Dance, Freddie Dixon and Tommy Spann would bring their Sunbeams, Broughs and AJS machines to battle (not always successfully) against local heroes such as Handel Davies, LF Griffiths and Eddie Stephens.
Hughes is the achivist to the museum of speed at Pendine and first attended the Pendine races with his father, in 1946. He knows his stuff, but what's more he writes beautifully and has turned what could have been a rather perfunctory list of long forgotten names and results into a an elgaic study of heroic deeds and brave men and their machines. There are haunting black and white photgraphs of racing and the chapters that describe the record attempts of Parry Thomas in his Liberty engined car, Babs, are almost unbearably sad, yet dignifies and uplifting. For me this was book of the year
Also reviewed for Amazon Books, quote,
Customer Comments
Average Customer Rating:
glynnejones@hotmail.com from Wales , 28
August, 2000
An absolutely facinating book, and I'm not a biker.
This is basically a book of statistics, written in such a way as to make it riveting
reading. The book is written from the heart,It is mostly a first hand account with amazing
photos. It does actually transport you back to Pendine, you are there, you can hear
engines, hear voices, taste the air.
'The finest natural speedway imaginable' is how The Motor
Cycle describes Pendine Sands in 1920. Edwardian gentry
races 'motors' on the beach: cars driven by their
chauffeurs, motor bicycles jockeyed by hired men. After
the Great War, the motor cycle races grew into a major
sporting and social event in Wales, attracting, so it is said,
larger crowds than a rugby international. When Malcolm
Campbell and J. Godfrey Parry Thomas successively
broke the World Land Speed Record on its beach,
Pendine was, for a glorious while, world famous.
The Welsh TT, staged over the August Bank Holiday from
1922, was an exuberant, three-day event. It put the roar
into the Roaring Twenties for the thousands who made the
trek to this remote, south-western corner of
Carmarthenshire, Wales. They came to see Brooklands and
Isle of Man stars George Dance, HR Davies, Freddie
Dixon, Tommy Spann, Jack Carr and, latterly, Fred Rist.
These racing idols rode Sunbeam, Brough Superior, Scott,
Douglas, AJS, Norton and BSA 'works' racing machines
but met stern opposition from local heroes.
This book is full of wonderful stories, statistics reliving the
Glory Days and records an episode in our sporting and
social history in danger of being lost.
ISBN 0 86383 758 1
UK - £28.32; Europe - £29.84; Rest of the World -
£32.79
including postage
Gomer Press, Llandysul, SA44 4QL
Tel +44 (0) 1559 362 371. fax 363758
email: gwasg@gomer.co.uk
2. "Eddie Stephens - Motor Racer"
Lynn Hughes
Motor racing in South and Southwest Wales 1924 - 1970
Pendine sand racing, Epynt raod racing, grasstrack and scrambling
Monte Carlo and Tulip Rallies
68 pp 37 b&w photographs
£4.40 inc p&p (UK)
Published by Golden Grove
Danybont, Cwmawr, Drefach, Llanelli SA14 7AD, UK.
Telephone +44 (0) 01269 832007
