Bourne is famous for British Racing Motors (BRM), an international enterprise that once employed 100 people, among them Dick Salmon, one of their leading motor racing mechanics who accompanied the team on their visits to race tracks around the world. He was then a young man but cherishes those days and in November 2006 published a book about his experiences, a coffee table volume lavishly illustrated, that remains in print to this day. Richard Henry Salmon, always known as Dick, was born at Irnham, near Bourne, on 22nd May 1925, son of Henry and Amy Salmon who ran the village post office and general stores. He was educated at the village school and then went on to the Grantham Boys Central School. By the time he left, the motor car was beginning to make its mark and he went to work at a small garage in nearby Corby Glen for 7s. 6d. a week, later moving as an apprentice in motor engineering to Bert Willson who ran the Windmill Garage at Rippingale, even though this meant cycling 5½ miles to and from work every day. During the Second World War, Dick joined the Home Guard when he was 16, training in the evenings and at weekends, but after being called up in 1943, failed his conscription medical because of flat feet but a year later he passed a second medical and began his military service with the Royal Engineers, undergoing his basic training at Ayr in Scotland before being posted to the Middle East, spending the rest of his time in the army in southern Iraq. After demobilisation, he realised that he had acquired the travel bug and decided not to return to garage work but found employment working on a farm as a mechanic and lorry driving until being advised of a vacancy at BRM. “Nothing could have been better”, he said. “By this time, the BRM was a popular topic of conversation with the racing hero Raymond Mays resuming a pioneering career from where he had left off before the war. This ignited a flame of ambition in my mind and what better way to use my qualifications than to help in the sport of motor racing.” At that time, the first BRM cars were being tested on the runways at the disused wartime airfield at Folkingham, north of Bourne, and anyone passing by could hear the roar of high powered engines being put through their paces. “This proved to be a great attraction”, recalled Dick, “and my pals and I would visit the airfield in the hope that we would be lucky enough to see the cars in action. These excursions also increased my desire to be involved with this exciting sport and maybe even become a racing mechanic.” He applied for the job and was successful, thus satisfying his desire to travel and also work in his chosen trade and began work for BRM at their workshops in Bourne attending his first meeting as a motor racing mechanic in 1952 when he travelled to France for the Albi Grand Prix. Over the next 17 years, there were many similar assignments attending races in many countries in three continents. The highlight of his career was the time he spent as mechanic to Graham Hill in South Africa in 1962 when he won the World Drivers Championship and BRM the World Constructors Championship. In the years that followed, the prestige of BRM declined and Dick moved to work as a Quality Engineer for Lotus Cars in Norfolk. Unfortunately job security was precarious because of fluctuations in the retail car trade and once again, he found himself redundant and moved back to Bourne, working for a spell at the Perkins Engines plant in Peterborough as experimental engine tester and then Fiat Allis at Essendine as a quality engineer until those works also closed down. This coincided with the final closure of BRM and Dick was recruited to help with the preparation of the cars for their sale by Christie’s at Earls Court in London, a fortuitous appointment because during this period he was approached to restore a 1930s Triumph Tourer car for a Norfolk businessman. Along with another ex -BRM mechanic, Gerard van der Weyden, he went into partnership and formed S V Restorations after acquiring premises at Billingborough where many vintage and veteran cars were brought up to standard including Rolls Royce, Daimler, Alvis, Humber and of course Triumph. He eventually sold the business and retired, but memories of working at BRM persisted and so he put it all down on paper and the result was his book, BRM - A Mechanics Tale which tells in minute detail of the trials and tribulations of a famous company that brought recognition for Britain on the international racing tracks of the world and prestige for Bourne which is now regarded as the home of motor racing. Dick had married Mary Stubbs, second daughter of Wilfred Stubbs, a former Bourne police inspector, and his wife Edith, on 17th September 1954. They spent their honeymoon touring North Wales for a week and in later years they set up home in Gladstone Street, Bourne. They had one son, Michael, who was born on 3rd August 1958. Sadly, Mary died on 22nd July 2000, aged 71, shortly before Dick’s book was published but it carries the dedication: “To my late wife Mary, who tolerated my unsociable working hours with great fortitude.” Recalling those days, Dick said: “BRM meant everything to me, good or bad. Travelling the world with the team following Grand Prix racing was challenging, hectic and stressful, sad and happy, the most glamorous of all sports. I rubbed shoulders with some of the best drivers of the day, including world champions, Juan Fangio and Mike Hawthorn, and worked with the best bunch of mates you could wish for. Though we toiled long hours in often difficult conditions, I consider myself privileged to have worked for BRM.”
NOTE: BRM - A Mechanic's
Tale by Dick Salmon is published by Veloce Publishing REVISED OCTOBER 2012 See also Winning the world championship The BRM civic reception
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