The BRM Trail

A town trail through Bourne to celebrate the BRM was announced in 2014 to create a lasting tribute to the motor racing connection with this town.

It is being financed with a £4,000 grant obtained from the Heritage Lottery Fund following a joint bid by the school, the Civic Society and the BRM Association. The Len Pick Trust has also contributed a further £1,000, thus bringing the total amount available for the project to £5,000.

The BRM Association was formed in 2013 after the successful world championship anniversary day celebrations were held in the town, fifty years after the Formula 1 car won the world championship with Graham Hill at the wheel (pictured above). The event brought thousands of visitors to the town and raised £30,000 for charity.

The community business development coordinator at Bourne Academy, Isobel Copley, hopes the entire community will become involved in establishing the BRM Trail. “We want this to be a project which involves the whole town and create a permanent reminder of BRM in Bourne", she told The Local newspaper (24th January 2014). "Many of our students did not know the BRM even existed until they helped at the anniversary day and so this project will provide valuable learning opportunities for them.”

Anthony Delaine-Smith, a founder member of the BRM Association, said: “Bourne is the birthplace of the motor sport industry and we have not done enough to promote that fact. This project is the perfect opportunity to address that. BRM has a big following across the world and we hope the trail will attract more people to the town and there will also be scope for local people to learn more about the history of this exciting period in the history of world motor racing.”

The manager of the Len Pick Trust, Adrian Smith, was equally enthusiastic. “The project will benefit the town by bringing substantial educational and tourism benefits", he said. "The success of the BRM Day generated a tremendous interest among local people, and indeed world wide, and the project can only enhance this legacy.”

The BRM Trail was the idea of Mrs Sally Sutcliffe, Business Studies Instructor and Head of Mays House at Bourne Academy who in the summer of 2013 was driving along listening to the radio when she heard a presenter talking about the Heritage Lottery Fund and the innovative ways in which it was being used. Having watched the excitement of her Mays House students the summer previously when helping with the organisation of BRM day, she came up with the idea of applying to the fund for a grant to create a town trail in Bourne to commemorate the BRM.

Then, shortly before Christmas 2013, the school was contacted by the Heritage Lottery fund with the news that the bid had been successful.

Students at the school will be working alongside retired motor mechanics, local historians and the town council. The project aims to reach out not only to local people but also the much wider public as a celebration of an exciting and very successful time in British industry.

Constructing the trail will involve knowledge of each building, devising the best route through the streets and taking into consideration the many more places of historical importance along the way. The trail itself will be marked by bronze plaques at specific intervals. Leaflets will be designed and produced by students to accompany the town trail.

Part of the project will also involve the compilation of a filmed living memory bank. Interactive films will be on show at the Heritage Centre and short clips will also be used by the BRM Society and the Civic Society in talks about the history. The BRM Association is also constructing a web site to make the living memory films available to a wider public, featuring former employees who will be filmed both individually and in groups, the filming to be be done by GCSE and A Level students as part of their course work. All films will be stored, edited and converted for use in a variety of media, so providing an opportunity for students to be trained in recording, analysing and cataloguing living memories.

Former employees will also be invited into school to meet with small groups of students. Where car and engineering plans still exist, they will be scanned, compiled and logged along with the photos currently stored in boxes by the BRM Association and others. It is hoped that eventually, the project will provide a totally comprehensive collection of memories in a variety of forms for future display.

"We have been overwhelmed by public support for the project", said Isobel Copley. "In addition to the organisations mentioned, we have had support from local people, former employees and visitors to the town. The idea has been met with enthusiasm and offers of help. We plan to share the project with the young people of the town through the involvement of the other local schools. The project is very much about bringing the BRM history in the town to the attention of all generations. We want to make it accessible for everybody."

Work will start in July 2014 when pupils begin interviewing former BRM staff to create a film which will be shown at the Heritage Centre in South Street where the Civic Society maintains a museum devoted to Raymond Mays and the BRM. Pupils will also begin work on setting the town trail to lead visitors around the various places involved with the development of the car and to design the plaques to be placed on route and information leaflets. The trail is expected to take one year to complete and will be ready by the summer of 2015.

WRITTEN IN JANUARY 2014