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Here’s Bill!

Lady racing driver Elsie Wisdom was better known as "Bill", although nobody knows why. Perhaps, being a sole girl among a number of large brothers, they gave it to her because she was always competing with them. Born in 1904, she wanted to drive and to drive fast from a very early age. Her first car was a G.W.K. but soon she progressed to faster racing cars. In 1930 she married motoring journalist and gentleman racer Tommy Wisdom, but certainly followed her own career. She won the Brooklands 1,000-Mile Race of 1932 with Australian driver Joan Richmond in a Riley. The next year she competed at Le Mans with co-driver Morris-Goodall in an Aston Martin, but did not finish due to bearing failure. In later years she returned to Le Mans with an MG and drove many rallies, including the Mille Miglia, the Monte Carlo and the Coupe des Alps, altogether a racing career of more than twenty years. “Bill” died in 1972.

(painting of Elsie Wisdom by Debra Wenlock)

Friday, 03 June 2011

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