Driven: A pioneer for women in motorsport – an autobiography

Little things would upset me, like the Christmas when Dad bought my mother a beautiful Christian Dior necklace with two little diamonds; it is beautiful, I still have it. She took it from him with a very offhand thank you, but when Dad’s friend came in with a handbag, pure leather, from Brown Thomas, she thanked him profusely and raved about it for weeks. She told me in later years that Dad’s friend had asked her to go away with him, but she refused because of us. I often wished she had taken him up on his offer because life at home would have been happier for everyone. I used to pull my jumper over my ears so as not to hear her when she was screaming at Dad; Pamela just stuck her nose in a book and Roger would go out to get away from it all.

I once asked my father why he didn’t leave her and he told me that he had tried. He went up to Belfast to join the army but his eyesight wasn’t good enough and he was turned down and came back home. As he got older, his life was miserable. He suffered from Bell’s palsy and had a series of mini strokes. My mother’s behaviour didn’t help his condition and I never really understood why she was so unkind to him.

When my brother got married in Middlesbrough, in England, we all went over for the wedding. My mother, my Aunt Lily and a family friend sat in the car during the long drive back through the Pennines, taking delight in talking about my father and his many shortcomings as if he wasn’t there. I sat beside him, holding his hand, as the tears ran down his face. A trusting, loving man, he was abused by my mother and betrayed by his best friend.

My father died when he was 73 and the wife of his friend went the year after, so my mother was finally free to marry. She bought a beautiful, long, brown velvet coat and she looked absolutely gorgeous. My father’s friend had two daughters and they were there in the church with their husbands on the day of the marriage. At the altar, my mother was asked by Roger, the son-in-law of the man she was about to marry, to sign a pre-nuptial agreement waiving all rights to his fortune. She did as she was asked without any fuss or question. It amazed me that the family could possibly have thought she was after his money; surely they must have known that this affair had been going on for over 40 years?

I loved my father and we had a great relationship – he was always my biggest supporter. He was a wonderful husband; he never looked at another woman, never drank alcohol or smoked. Everything was for my mother, but she didn’t appreciate any of that and made life a misery with her constant yelling, slamming doors and generally behaving like a spoilt child. Her animosity towards my father seemed to spill over on to me. Nothing I ever did was quite right in her eyes, from how I did my hair to choosing a husband. Mother–daughter relationships are often troubled, but ours was particularly so. She did nothing to help my confidence; it was Dad who did his best to encourage me, yet she knew I had talent. But my mother endeavoured to fulfil some of her own ambitions and aspirations through me, especially after I left school.

CHAPTER 2

Special stages (#u44828260-38fc-5484-81c8-008bd15eeebf)

I went to Beaufort High School in Rathfarnham, run by the Loreto nuns. The nuns wore hard white wimples covering their foreheads so not a wisp of hair could be seen, a black veil over the top, a long black habit, and they smelt of carbolic soap. Our uniform was no better. We were made to wear a chocolate brown pinafore dress, with a square neck with pleats at the front, which made the girls who had a bit of a bosom look huge, and the sash belts tied around our middles didn’t help. A yellow and brown striped tie, a beige jumper and brown knickers with elastic around our knees completed the hideous outfit. I hated every bit of it and I’ve never worn brown since.

I was popular with some of my classmates because I was always ready for a bit of devilment. I loved playing hockey but the nun in charge always put me in goal because she didn’t like me. She would referee running around the pitch with her habit tucked into the cord at her waist. One rainy morning when we were playing, she ran towards the goal, calling out to the girls to shoot. I put out my hockey stick and deliberately tripped her up. Sister went down with a bang, and when she got up she was covered in mud from head to foot. My friends loved that because she was a particularly nasty woman, whom we all detested. I had a lot of friends at school, some of whom I still see. Doris Joyce was one of the best and the last person in the world you would think would become a nun. My cousin Noelle was in my class and very kindly says today that she doesn’t remember what a disastrous student I was.

I disliked most everything about school but I developed other passions to make up for it. I loved driving and I adored my riding classes at Iris Kellett’s school in Mespil Road. It was seven shillings and sixpence a lesson and it was a good thing that Pamela and Roger weren’t interested, as my father complained about the cost and certainly wouldn’t have stretched the budget to allow all three of us to attend. Iris Kellett was the only child of a veterinary surgeon who had left the British Army to help start up Kellett’s, a drapery business in Georges Street. He also acquired the British Army cavalry stables in Mespil Road and Iris helped him run it as a riding school. Iris was a brilliant equestrian and during her lifetime she became known and respected internationally.

Iris took us down to Sandymount Strand very early in the morning and I had a little pony, Penny, who was very docile and sweet until she got on the beach and then she ran and ran, leaving me hanging on for dear life. I competed in gymkhanas and eventually in the RDS in Ballsbridge, when I rode a pony called Lauralie. This was a great achievement for me and I was thrilled with myself. I cantered around and then, when I got to the first jump, Lauralie stopped dead. You are allowed two refusals, and next time she approached the fence she was over it in a flash. We cantered around, taking all the jumps after that, and were doing well until the fence at the top of the arena when the pony stopped dead, and this time I went flying over. The pony looked at me and seemed to laugh as I picked myself up to do the walk of shame back down past the big stand, where all the children were sniggering at my downfall.

I was more successful playing golf with my father in Rathfarnham. I was good at it, but hated all the rules and regulations, and the clothes that some of the women wore were horrendous. I had a handicap of 12 when I had to give it up because of a problem with my back and I have never played since.

I loved tennis and joined the Sandyford Tennis Club and soon became a team member. Going away to compete against other clubs was great fun. Anything to do with physical activity makes me happy but don’t ask me to sit still and concentrate. I’ll never understand how my sister and brother found studying so easy.

At school, there were no ponies, no golf, no cars or tennis, nothing that interested me. I was good at sport, sewing, geography and art, but that was about all. I really didn’t apply myself or care for that matter and I believe it might have been the Irish exam that brought the wrath of the head nun down on my head. I put my name at the top of the page, Rósmáire Ní Gowan, and then proceeded to draw lots of little horses jumping over fences. At the end of the exam, I just folded my paper and handed it in. I got 1 per cent – I think that must have been for writing my name in Irish!

The Mother Superior rang my father and asked him to come in to discuss my progress. When they met, the nun didn’t hold back. ‘Mr Smith,’ she said, ‘your daughter is stupid.’ To this day, I believe what Mother Superior meant was I had the brains but I was stupid because I wouldn’t use them; that’s what I like to think anyway. My father didn’t take it like that and he was furious. ‘No nun is going to tell me that my daughter is stupid,’ he said, his prejudice coming to the fore, and he removed me from the school straight away, even though I was only 15. I can’t remember being particularly upset by this decision and I spent a very happy summer, left to my own devices.

My mother wasn’t pleased at the prospect of having me hanging around the house. Roger was helping my father run the business, Pamela was studying in London, and so Mother made the decision to send me to the Grafton Academy of Fashion Design. She had taught me to sew and knew that I was good with a needle and thread. I always loved clothes and as a child made dresses for my dolls, which were much admired by my friends and relatives. I had one particular favourite doll that had a papier mâché head; the rest of her body was stuffed. Unfortunately, I left her outside one night and it spilled rain and the whole doll’s body and face were ruined, not to mention her taffeta dress. I was heartbroken.

The Grafton Academy was Ireland’s first fashion design school and was at the heart of the Irish fashion industry. It was run by a pioneering woman, Mrs Pauline Clotworthy, who opened the Academy in 1938. She had been trained at the British Institute of Dress Designing alongside Hardy Amies and Norman Hartnell, who was later to become Queen Elizabeth’s couturier. Pauline Clotworthy was determined to pass on her knowledge and expertise to young people in Ireland. Over the years, the Academy has trained many of the country’s leading designers and I hoped I could be one of them.

Sending me to the Academy was one of my mother’s better ideas and I started there in September 1953, a month after my 16th birthday. Mrs Clotworthy was a wonderful teacher with endless patience and she took a great interest in me and my work. I was happy there because I was well able to follow instruction outside of the dreaded school environment. I found the art of dressmaking came easily and all the teachers were very encouraging and complimentary about my efforts. I was meant to be undertaking a two-year course but in the following April, after only eight months, I asked if I could graduate with the students who had been studying for two years. At first Mrs Clotworthy said it couldn’t be done but when she saw some of my work she relented.

In order to graduate I had to make four outfits, which I modelled myself. When I wore the beachwear I’m sure I looked like a scarecrow. I was 5’10”, which I still am today, and a size 8, which I am no longer. I made the evening dress out of felt and no one had ever used that fabric before in dresses. I will never forget that bright pink, strapless dress; the front was knee-length and the back went right to the ground and I stuck big black felt circles around the end of the skirt and even had shoes dyed to match. On the day of the graduation I nearly collapsed when the results were announced: Rosemary Smith, Overall Student of the Year.

From the Academy, I went to the boutique of Irene Gilbert in South Frederick Street, Dublin, the street famed for fashion houses at the time. Irene Gilbert was a very shy woman but that didn’t stop her from being the first woman to run a successful fashion business in Ireland and becoming a famous couturier. She used tweed material to great effect and liaised with the mills to create the exact colours she wanted.

Some people preferred Sybil Connolly, another great Irish designer, because of her fabrics, especially the pleated linen, for which she was famous, but to my mind no one could touch Irene Gilbert. One of her most famous creations was a Carrickmacross lace evening dress commissioned by Princess Grace, and she also dressed many celebrities in Ireland, including Phyllis Ryan, the wife of President Seán T. O’Kelly. I was privileged to be working with her as an apprentice and she taught me a great deal. She had the most wonderful finish on her garments and taught me all linings must be hand sewn, hooks and eyes must not be seen. Now I was on my way to becoming a dress designer and, for many years, the press always hung that qualification on to the end of everything – Rosemary Smith, Dress Designer, wins whatever. What the dress designing had to do with the driving was beyond me but maybe it drew attention to the fact that I was a woman in a man’s world.

There was no real chance to show off my dress designing skills working for Irene Gilbert, as my position in her studio was such a modest one. I was ambitious and left to try my luck at designing for T. J. Cullen, a company situated along the quays, where Temple Bar is now. Old Mrs Cullen was a formidable woman who moved with the aid of a walking stick and managed the place with great authority. My wages were two pounds, eight shillings and eight pence per week and as we lived in Sandyford at the time I had to get up at seven in the morning to catch the 44 bus to work.

I designed two summer dresses, which the buyers liked, and Cullen’s got orders to make 100 dozen of each garment. I asked Mrs Cullen for a rise on the strength of that and she gave me another halfpenny an hour! Una Tapley was in charge of cutting out the fabric and when she started the machine one day, a rat suddenly ran across the factory floor. Una lost concentration and the saw cut off the top of her finger. Blood was spurting everywhere, all over the material, and everybody was screaming.

Mrs Cullen came out of the office and asked what all the fuss was about. ‘Una’s cut the top of her finger off,’ I told her. ‘Very careless,’ Mrs Cullen said. ‘She has destroyed all this material.’ Mrs Cullen stopped the cost of the fabric from Una’s wages, but nobody was surprised – that was how things were in those days. Una went to the hospital that day and she never came back. After that, I couldn’t bear working there any more.

I was restless and I suppose my family wanted me to make use of my talents, such as they were. It was my Uncle Jimmy, who was walking behind me one day, who suggested it. He poked me in the back with his walking stick as I slouched along. ‘Be proud of your height,’ he said to me. ‘Stand up straight, Rosemary.’ Even to this day, I have to remember to make a conscious effort to stand tall. My mother agreed with him about my posture and that’s how it was that she enrolled me with the Miriam Woodbyrne Modelling Agency in South Frederick Street to learn deportment. I was taught how to glide rather than walk, swivel my head, pose for photographers and make best use of my long legs, skinny body and blonde hair.

Miriam was a lovely lady, very motherly and caring, and gave me great encouragement. It was a case of being in the right place at the right time because Christian Dior brought a collection to Brown Thomas in Dublin called the New Look. The dresses had billowing skirts, tiny wasp waists and soft rounded shoulders. Adrienne Ring, another model, and I were the only Irish girls at the agency with the right figure for his clothes. Adrienne was beautiful. She was dark, I was blonde, so we looked well together, and Dior brought some of his own models from Paris as well. I loved modelling but didn’t realise at the time that this experience would be so beneficial to my career in the motor industry. At 18 years of age I thought that fashion was going to be my life. I had no idea that one day I would be sitting on top of the bonnet of a car, flashing my legs for the photographers.

My mother was a very good dressmaker and she suggested that we open a little boutique together. It wasn’t like the boutique dress shops you see today – we didn’t sell dresses off the peg, but designed and made dresses to order. I was in good company as Ib Jorgensen was also designing dresses in a similar set-up in Dublin.

Our shop was upstairs at 23 South Anne Street in Dublin and had a back room, which we furnished with a lovely antique desk and big ornate standing mirrors, where clients came for fittings. The front room was where we did the cutting and sewing for the bespoke garments. Dad’s best friend financed the setting up of the business and on the first day we opened he took us for a celebratory meal in the Royal Hibernian Hotel, then one of the most fashionable places to eat in Dublin. I ate unfamiliar food and drank champagne for the first time that day; that night, I was very sick and vowed never to drink again!

We employed a wonderful machinist, as well as Betty, who came to work for us as a finisher and a go-for to assist us. Betty was about my age, we were both young and innocent and mad keen on pop music. We loved The Beatles but I am a little embarrassed to say that the only singer that ever really got to me was Adam Faith, a British teen idol from London, who was in the charts non-stop. He had developed this sexy way of singing, pronouncing every word in a distinctive way, which sent me, and thousands of other girls, crazy. When he came to Dublin, Betty and I went to the Theatre Royal to see him. There were the usual supporting acts but I can’t remember any of them; I was impatient to see Adam, everyone else was irrelevant. When he finally appeared on stage the audience erupted and sang along to his latest hit: ‘What Do You Want If You Don’t Want Money?’ Betty and I knew what we wanted!

We found out that he was going to appear at the Pavilion Ballroom in Blackrock, County Louth, and that was when Betty and I became groupies. I drove us to Blackrock in great excitement. When Adam came on the stage and I saw him up close, just a few feet away, he was even more adorable; he was gorgeous, tiny but gorgeous. Betty and I stood close to the stage and somehow he noticed me – well, I suppose at 5’10”, with long legs, blonde hair, painted-on freckles and screaming into his face, he could hardly miss me. As he was leaving the stage, he came over, stood beside me and asked my name. I looked down at him – he was only up to my shoulder – and I stammered: ‘Rosie.’

We went backstage afterwards and Adam and I got on very well. Mind you, he did most of the talking, because I was breathless and, in any case, had nothing to say. We just sort of clicked, as they say. I know now that Adam was a notorious womaniser but at the time I imagined he only had eyes for me. He said how much he loved Irish girls and their red hair, which upset me a bit, and I decided there and then that I would become a redhead. He went back to England and he telephoned from time to time and sent me postcards.

Adam was playing Dick Whittington in the Wimbledon Theatre later that year and asked would I like to come to the pantomime to see him. Would I what? I was surprised that my mother made no objection and she said I could stay with my sister Pamela, who was by then married and living in London. So I dyed my hair and discovered, much to my annoyance, that you need a special complexion for bright red hair, which I didn’t have, but the damage was done. I made a skin-tight green dress to get the real Irish look and made sure to wear dead flat shoes. At the time I thought I was the bee’s knees, but looking back I’m not so sure.

The tickets were there at the box office with a little note saying that I should come backstage after the show and we could go for something to eat. The theatre was magnificent, all brown and rose-pink with hints of cream and gold, a bit like the Theatre Royal in Dublin. As I looked around me I thought I was in heaven, and when I sat in my seat in the stalls and he blew me a kiss, I was ready to pass out.

When I went backstage, he introduced me to Eve Taylor, his manager, and we were supposed to go out to dinner but he was too tired. He was living with Eve and her husband at the time and it was taken for granted that I would stay with them. When we got back to the house, we had a drink and then Adam said he was going to bed, which was understandable, considering he had spent most of the evening onstage with a cat, trying to become the Lord Mayor of London.

We went upstairs and he brought me into the bedroom and I realised then that we were meant to be sleeping together in the same bed. He got undressed and got into the bed and was fast asleep in no time. I took off my shoes and maybe I might have undressed but I had on one of those waspie things – waist clinchers, they were called – and I didn’t want him to see me in that. I climbed on to the bed, and as I lay there it dawned on me that, although he was asleep now, eventually he was going to wake up. I wasn’t ready for what might happen when he did. I waited, thinking what to do, and then made my decision: I crept downstairs, opened the hall door, never thinking there would be an alarm, and left the house behind me with the bells ringing in my ears. I didn’t care, I was out of there.

I met Adam in London 30 years later. He had been in a TV series, Budgie, which was now a musical, playing at the Cambridge Theatre in the West End of London. A friend of mine told me she had heard that he had afternoon tea every day in Harvey Nichols and suggested we go along. He remembered me, or at least he said he did, but the magic was gone: we were both that much older and wiser.

The boutique in South Anne Street continued to attract custom, although I felt we could do better. When we received an order from Cutex, the nail polish company, who were bringing out a new shade of pink, I was delighted. They had heard about us and asked me to make a dress in exactly the same colour as the polish. This was just the kind of publicity we needed, and the business flourished after that.

In celebration of the success of the company, for my 21st birthday present my father decided to drive us to Spain. It was my first time on the continent and I was very excited – I didn’t realise at the time that driving the roads of Europe would be something I was to become very familiar with. We stayed in Sitges, a historic town on the Mediterranean coast, where the beaches were wonderful. It was so different from Ireland and I loved it.

The following year, my good friend, Mairéad Whelan, and I decided to go on our own. I met Mairéad through rugby. Her father, who was President of the Old Belvedere Rugby Club, got us tickets for the matches in Lansdowne Road. We sat in the front row, sometimes holding our see-through plastic umbrellas, enthusiastically watching the players running around in their short shorts and blowing them kisses. I don’t think they ever noticed us.

It was no easy trip because, first, there was the ferry to Liverpool, then a train to London, another to Dover and the journey across the English Channel to France and yet another train. Two young women travelling alone in Franco’s Spain attracted attention and we met some amazing people along the way. We were late arriving in Barcelona that first night and missed the train to Sitges. Exhausted, and not sure where we were going to sleep, we sat drinking coffee in an almost deserted bar. Our salvation came in the form of two tall American men in naval uniform with fancy epaulettes and medals on their chests. It turned out they were officers on a huge naval vessel moored in Barcelona and offered us accommodation in the stateroom of the ship. We looked at one another, wondering if this was a wise move, but we went with them anyway. They were intrigued that two Irish women were travelling alone and seemed genuine in their concern for us. We needn’t have worried as they behaved like perfect gentlemen and the stateroom they gave us to sleep in was fit for royalty.

One of the officers appeared to be well connected and spoke in familiar terms about the Kennedys. He told us that Jackie Kennedy had been offered one million dollars to stay with John F. Kennedy until after the presidential election in 1960. He obviously didn’t think much of Jackie as he said she was an odd woman.

The next morning they gave us breakfast and brought us back to the station and we got the train to Sitges. We stayed in Sitges, in a little old house in the centre of the town, for three weeks and had a ball. We lazed about on the beach, swam in the sea and in the evening we watched the Flamenco dancers and enjoyed the nightlife.

It was beside a pool on that holiday that I followed my father’s swimming instructions in an attempt to save a little girl’s life. As I lay on my sunbed beside the pool, I heard a splash and a scream and saw a young child disappearing under the water. I dived into the pool without a thought and grabbed the child by her long blonde hair and dragged her over to the side of the pool, only to be berated by several members of her family, who shouted at me in Spanish. Apparently the child was not as young as I thought; she was a good little swimmer and had only been playing. I never practised my life-saving skills again.

The trips abroad were wonderful but I still had to concentrate on making sure the business was successful and that meant hard work and long hours. Everything was going fine until I made a big mistake. I designed and sewed the clothes for a wedding: the bride’s wedding dress, six bridesmaids’ dresses, the mother of the bride’s dress, the bride’s going away outfit, everything. We worked on those dresses for three months and borrowed to pay for the fabric, which was the very best quality. The young lady in question married a very wealthy man and, although I pursued both of them, I never got paid. I still have the wedding photographs as a constant reminder of my lack of business sense, or maybe it’s just my trusting nature.

I dreamed up other ways of making money but unfortunately, for one reason or another, they didn’t work. TLC was the name of one product I invented, which stood for Trouser Lining Company and also, of course, tender loving care. In the 1950s tailored trousers were becoming popular and the more expensive ones were lined. I thought that it would be brilliant to be able to buy lining as a separate item so that they could be worn underneath any pair of slacks. I made samples in white, black and cream, and Roches Stores was very interested. I tried to get them made in Ireland, but the cost was prohibitive so I researched having them made in China, but the company there wanted to know how many thousands of pairs I would be wanting, so that idea went out of the window.

I struggled on for a while but my heart wasn’t in it. Fortunately, a new friendship offered a welcome distraction. Delphine Bigger was one of our customers who came in for shirts and trousers to be made, which was quite unusual at the time. She ran the Coffee Inn in South Anne Street and was married to Frank Bigger, who, together with Ronnie Adams and Derek Johnston, won the Monte Carlo Rally in 1956. At enormous expense, Delphine bought Hermès scarves from Brown Thomas, and I would transform them into blouses. They were £29 each, which was an enormous amount then, and three were needed for each blouse. I thought her the most exotic and extraordinary person I had ever met, and although we were worlds apart we got on very well.

I was at a bit of a loose end when one day Delphine asked me to go on a rally with her. I agreed without knowing just what I was letting myself in for. She didn’t tell me that I was going to navigate until we arrived in Kilkenny, but I would have gone anyway. Looking back now, I must have had a sense that this was to be a significant turning point in my life, and so it was.

CHAPTER 3

‘You drive,’ she said (#ulink_56d0143f-1451-5f12-b797-e3d5b4660360)

Delphine was 10 years older than me; a striking woman with a head of thick wiry hair and an imposing stature, one of those larger-than-life characters you sometimes meet. She was a woman of the world and, among other things, she taught me to drink. She introduced me to gin and orange, which I didn’t take to, too sticky and sickly for my liking, so I replaced it with vodka and tonic, but I never really got into the habit until much later.