Raymond Mays - man about town

Raymond at the wheel with radio stars Bebe Daniels and Ben Lyon who were
 visiting Eastgate House in 1938

Raymond Mays was thrust into the world of business as head of the family firm of skin dealers and fertiliser manufacturers and as the founder of ERA and BRM although he was always more at home in the front row of the stalls at Daley's Theatre in London rather than sitting round the boardroom table running a company.

He acquired a love of the theatre as a young man about town which remained with him until he died and enjoyed the close friendship of many stars of the day who he frequently met in London and visited him at his home in Bourne for weekend parties. Even at the age of 20, his first racing car, a Bugatti Brescia, was called Cordon Rouge after the famous brand of champagne, and a second Bugatti followed, this time named Cordon Bleu after the brandy, an indication of his love for the high life.

Raymond was born at Eastgate House on 1st August 1899 and after a spell at Oundle School he went to the Guards Officers Training Establishment at Bushy Hall where he was commissioned as a subaltern in the Grenadier Guards in May 1918 and sent to Chelsea Barracks in London, a posting that enabled him pursue his stylish living and predilection for theatrical musical comedies. The following October, he was posted to France and after the Armistice was signed on November 11th, he went to Germany with the army of occupation but he did not take to military life and returned to Bourne the following year after resigning his commission.

His only other time in uniform was on 1st March 1939 when, with another world war looming, he was sworn in as a special constable for Lincolnshire. By this time he was 40 years old and unlikely to have been called up for military service although little is known about his duties after that or whether he actually went out on patrol in the streets of Bourne or assisted at public functions.
 

Raymond was obviously stage struck and once said that if he had not been able to motor race, he would have loved to have pursued a career in the London theatre. He also unashamedly admitted that he had fallen for the musical comedy star, Winifred Barnes, while serving with the Grenadier Guards at Chelsea Barracks. She was then appearing in The Happy Day at Daly's Theatre and was extremely popular with the young officers. "Night after night I gazed at her from the front row of the stalls and decided I must meet her", said Raymond. "I called at her Eaton Square house but she was out and unfortunately another opportunity did not come along." But there were to be other infatuations that turned into lasting friendships.

After resigning his commission, Raymond went up to Cambridge in 1919 to read engineering at Christ's College but still managed many trips to the London theatres and to pursue his love of racing through the Cambridge University Automobile Club. But times were bad in the family business and Raymond left Cambridge without a degree, returning to Bourne to join the family firm although motoring remained his main interest. His father, Thomas Mays, died in 1934, and his mother Annie remained his hostess at Eastgate House, always offering support and encouragement, organising the hospitality, arranging rooms and meals for guests attending his lavish parties which frequently included businessmen, famous personalities from the world of motor sport as well as the stars of stage and radio, and although handicapped by arthritis in her later years, she presided over Eastgate House from her bedroom until she died there in 1973, aged 97.

Raymond also took an active part in amateur dramatics in Bourne for a spell, appearing in a production of The Quaker Girl presented by the Bourne Amateur Operatic Society at the Corn Exchange in 1930 when he was on stage with two of the society's stalwarts, Win Hassock and Kath Hinson who remembered in later years: "He could neither act nor sing that well but my goodness he certainly looked good on stage." Ballroom dancing was another matter and among his hundreds of motor racing trophies was a silver cup for winning a competition at Skegness. He had already gained a great deal of experience on the floor by joining several dancing clubs while at Cambridge University and so the competition at the seaside resort's Casino Ballroom during a family outing presented a challenge which he and his cousin, Nona Agnew, accepted with enthusiasm and they won first place, even though hundreds of couples were taking part.

Among those who also made the journey from London's West End was José Collins, star of the musical The Maid of the Mountains at Daly's Theatre, one of Raymond's favourites which he saw again and again. "I first went with my parents when I was a schoolboy and I was captivated", he recalled later. "The music and the scenery thrilled me but most of all José Collins. Her magnificent voice, her black hair and the intensity of her acting held me spellbound. I longed to go and make myself known to her and determined to do so one day. In the years that followed, while at Cambridge and in the army, I saw it 84 times, always with José Collins, and she later became a very good friend. I remained a terrific admirer."

In 1935, Raymond met Ivor Novello who at that time was the darling of London's West End theatre where several of his musical comedies enjoyed a hugely popular success. Glamorous Night at the Drury Lane Theatre was among the most famous and the first to star Mary Ellis, another favourite with Raymond, who saw the show and became firm friends with both her and the composer who also visited Eastgate House on several occasions.

Mary Ellis was particularly popular in Novello's production of The Dancing Years. "I first went to see this show just before the war", said Raymond. "I knew and admired Ivor and often went to see it at Drury Lane. During the war years my mother used to send Mary eggs because she couldn't get any. My favourite song from the show was I can give you the starlight and the producers would sometimes cut this particular number from the show but whenever I went to see it, I would send a little note round to the stage door to say that I was in the audience and would she sing it and she always did."

One of his favourite pieces of music was A Stranger in Paradise from the London stage production of Kismet which he saw several times when it was sung by Richard Kiley and Doretta Morrow. "A beautiful song that I never tired of hearing", said Raymond. "I loved the melody and the words and it was played by orchestras around the world and if they did not, I always used to ask them to."

GLAMOROUS VISITORS TO EASTGATE HOUSE

Other guests included Novello himself, Binnie Hale, Phyllis and Zena Dare, Norma Shearer and Bebe Daniels and Ben Lyon, two American friends who were to achieve fame on wartime radio in Britain with their patriotic shows Hi Gang and Life with the Lyons.

Raymond never married and in his final years, became a solitary figure, often seen walking the streets of Bourne alone with his dog, and receiving only occasional visitors, confiding in one of them with some disappointment: “You know, I have done absolutely nothing for Bourne.”

He died on 6th January 1980 with debts of £150,000, his house heavily mortgaged and most of the valuable contents already sold. These included a series of nine original water colour paintings by the motoring artist Gordon Crosby, showing Raymond in action on the track, that had been bought by a Swiss count with the proviso that they would stay on the walls of Eastgate House until Raymond's death and when this eventually occurred, they were collected by the owner and shipped to his home in Switzerland.

The house itself and what was left of the family estate were sold and the money raised went to help pay his debts. His CBE, awarded for services to motor sport in 1978, was offered for sale after his death in March 1994 when it fetched just under £400 at Sotheby’s auction rooms in London.

His funeral was held at the Abbey Church followed by a private cremation at Grantham and so there is no headstone in the town cemetery where his father and other ancestors are buried. But in the summer of 2002, a new perimeter road on the Elsea Park estate was named the Raymond Mays Way in his honour and the following year, in November 2003, a £10,000 motor racing memorial was unveiled on a grassy patch in South Road to remember his achievements while the Raymond Mays Memorial Room at the nearby Heritage Centre contains a wealth of material in photographs and artefacts collected by the Civic Society recording his life and career.

See also     Desert Island Discs     The Theatre

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