|
|
Post by mybigtoe18 on Jul 9, 2009 18:33:27 GMT 1
What a wonderful insight into the career of this remarkable motor sport woman. I enjoyed reading all the recommended sites.
|
|
|
|
Post by administrator on Aug 24, 2010 17:01:54 GMT 1
FILED BY MIDGET CAR HISTORIAN DEREK BRIDGETT:::
:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
RELEASES TO THE NATIONAL ARCHIVES
Right-wing extremists
Fay Taylour (KV 2/2143-2144)
This heavily weeded and reconstituted file deals with the Security Service's interest in Fay Taylour (1908-1983), well known in the inter-war years as an Irish speedway motorcyclist and motor racing driver, who came to the attention of the Security Service because of her extreme right-wing views.
Her support for the British Union of Fascists is noted in KV 2/2143 (1939-1941) which contains the correspondence leading up to her internment in May 1940. The file includes the text of her appeal hearing in August 1940, which was characterised by such peculiarities as her distress at having to appear without a hat (serial 58a). The appeal against internment was rejected. The file includes some of Taylour's intercepted correspondence, including some that she managed to smuggle out of prison to avoid the censor. In one letter to a friend, she said: "I love Nazi Germany and the German people and their leader and this war seems terribly unfair."
The story continues in KV 2/2144 (1941-1953) of which perhaps the most interesting element is the Home Office decision, against the advice of the Security Service, to release Taylour from internment on the Isle of Man in October 1943. The Home Secretary approved her release on condition that she left the UK and resided in Ireland. The Service was worried that she would provide details to the German legation in Dublin of arrangements for internees and particular cases on the Isle of Man.
In the minuting leading up to this decision in June 1943 Taylour is described as "...one of the worst pro-Nazis in Port Erin...she is in the habit of hoarding pictures of Hitler and had in her possession a hymn in which his name was substituted for God's."
Following the war, Taylour resumed her motor racing career, from which she retired at the end of the 1950s. However, as the Irish Times has noted ("Flying Fay's fast-paced life", 17 December 2003), her wartime detention was "airbrushed out of all her publicity".
|
|
|
|
Post by administrator on Feb 1, 2011 23:19:53 GMT 1
This is what it says on wikipedia about Fay Taylour's big car racing career:::
FAY TAYLOUR
Car racing
She switched to racing cars in 1931. Competing in a women's handicap race at Brooklands in the autumn, driving a Talbot 105 and lapping at 107.80 mph. In a similar race at Brooklands in the autumn of the following year, she came second, lapping at 113.97 mph. After this particular race, in excitement she made several more very fast laps of the track, not stopping until a flagman stepped out in front of her 2.6 litre Monza Alfa Romeo. For this she was fined and disqualified.
In 1934, she came home to Ireland and won the Leinster Trophy road race, in a front wheel drive Adler Trumpf. She was the only woman competitor in the race, as she had been when she drove a works Aston Martin in the Italian Mille Miglia. She also took part in 1934 in the Craigantlet hill climb in County Down. Her racing clothes were a jumper and a tweed skirt, according to a newspaper report of the event. Taylour said, that the day she met a man who was more difficult to handle than a racing car, she would probably give up racing. She remained unmarried.
She raced in Ireland, England, Italy and Sweden. She made frequent appearances in Australia and New Zealand and, on her way out there, often stopped off in India to race there.She also raced in the USA. Her last major race before the Second World War was with a Riley in the 1938 South African Grand Prix, where she received a hero's welcome for her spirited driving, even though she was unplaced
|
|
|
|
Post by administrator on Oct 6, 2011 18:18:58 GMT 1
|
|
|
|
Post by ovaltrack on Oct 6, 2011 19:17:50 GMT 1
|
|
|
|
Post by administrator on Apr 19, 2018 8:09:46 GMT 1
Fay Taylour in New Zealand.
Forwarded photo sent by Kevin J. McIvor Writer & Speedway Memories:
Fay Taylour beside Midget #3 Autographed Photo Thanking Merv Hardy -- Photo Courtesy: Jon Hardy.Attachments:
|
|
|
|
Post by tsrwright on May 6, 2018 5:39:50 GMT 1
Nice pic of Fay. Pardon my ignorance but what is the track?
|
|
|
|
Post by administrator on May 6, 2018 9:44:53 GMT 1
Nice pic of Fay. Pardon my ignorance but what is the track? |
|
|
|
Post by administrator on Aug 20, 2018 22:06:09 GMT 1
|
|
