Racing trials on fenland roads

THE PERILS OF TOFT HILL AND THE
CHALLENGE FOR FRANCIS GIVEEN

The fen roads around Bourne were perfect for the testing of racing cars and Raymond Mays (1899-1980), motor racing pioneer and champion of the international circuits, took full advantage of them and because they were long and flat and with little traffic about in those days, he could use them frequently without interruption. His father, Thomas Mays, was a magistrate, and so Raymond's standing in the community was such that few people would be prepared to complain if they were inconvenienced by his activities and as a result, he was frequently found blocking the road to improve standing starts or to make speed checks over measured distances.

His favourite section for high speeds was the South Fen road between what is now Cherryholt Road and the turn off into Tongue End which gave a good two mile run, so enabling the car to open full throttle and reveal any imperfections. For longer endurance tests, he went further afield, using a circular route between Bourne and the Great North Road, turning south at Colsterworth to Stamford and thence back to Bourne which gave him a sufficiently high mileage to judge performance.

As his main interest at that time was hill climbs, he had the added advantage of using Toft Hill on the way to Stamford, one of the most dangerous roads in the area, now a winding section of the A6121 with a steep incline and sharp double bend which runs from farmland on the uplands to the west of Bourne through the village and out into the open countryside, a distance of about one third of a mile. The hazards of driving this way are acknowledged by those who know the route and the many warning signs, both on the carriageway itself and on the grass verges, because a moment of lost concentration could end in disaster.

It is therefore surprising to discover that Mays used this hill for his trials and not all of them were successful. One of his first models was a Bugatti known as Cordon Bleu which he eventually sold to a young Oxford undergraduate, Francis Giveen, who was new to motor racing and needed to be taught how to handle such a fast car. But he was determined to race and so Raymond invited him to spend the weekend at Eastgate House in order to polish up on his driving in readiness for a hill climb race meeting later in the year, the opening event of the season at Kop Hill, near Tring in Hertfordshire, on 28th March 1925.

Giveen had already owned the Bugatti for two months but had found it difficult to handle such a fast, light machine and after several runs through the narrow lanes around Bourne, Raymond decided to pit him against his favourite slope, Toft Hill, where they duly arrived one morning with friends and relatives to supervise the course and warn of any approaching traffic.

Raymond took Giveen as passenger for several fast runs which went off without mishap and then it was his turn to try himself. “He seemed quite happy and obedient to my strict instructions to do several runs and work up his speed gradually”, said Raymond when recalling the event in later years. “But then he came in for some special racing plugs to give the car a full throttle effect. Cordon Bleu roared up the narrow lane emitting that lovely and unique exhaust note, round the acute left hand corner which was followed by a bend to the right. But as he was leaving the corner, Giveen skidded and, with his foot hard on the throttle, hit the right hand bank with a sickening thud, shot across the road broadside, hit the opposite bank and turned the car completely upside down.”

Dead silence followed and there was no sign of life and those attending the trials rushed over to the crash scene. They lifted the car on its side and found Giveen underneath, alive and practically unscathed, saved by a small Triplex screen that had borne the whole weight of the vehicle while upside down and had so saved his life, while the car was hardly damaged except for a few dents.

Raymond spent another day with Giveen trying to give him confidence but was unhappy at the thought of him driving in competition some weeks’ later. In the event, he ran off the track while approaching a bend, leaped into the air, jumped a small sandpit, knocked over some spectators and disappeared from view but miraculously rejoined the course and finished the race although he could remember nothing about it afterwards. No more cars were allowed to run that day and ironically, as a result of the incident, hill climbs on public roads in England were stopped for ever. Fortunately, no one was killed and all of those injured recovered but ironically, it was Giveen’s crash that sealed the fate of these classic events that had been pioneered by Raymond‘s father, Thomas Mays.

In the spring of 1930, Raymond Mays received a letter from Francis Giveen saying that he was experiencing problems and asking for a meeting to discuss them. This was revealed by Mays in his book, At Speed, which was published in 1952 but hastily withdrawn from sale for reasons unconnected with this incident.

The two men subsequently met and dined at the Grosvenor Hotel, London, where they both presumably stayed the night. Mays was alarmed at Giveen's state of agitation and the following morning, on leaving his room, Mays met one of the porters who said: "Have you seen your friend, Mr Giveen, sir? He was walking up and down the corridor outside your room last night flourishing a revolver."

Two days later, Giveen's body was found on the towpath alongside the River Thames at Medley Weir, Port Meadow, near Oxford. He had apparently shot himself after taking a taxicab to the river carrying a double-barrelled sporting gun. Another man who happened to be walking along the towpath at the time, Alfred Bradbury, a driver's assistant, of Caversham, near Reading, was taken to hospital with shotgun wounds over his body.

On Wednesday 21st May 1930, an inquest was held at Oxford on Francis Waldron Giveen, aged 23, when evidence was given by his father, Henry Hartley Giveen, a distinguished lawyer and King's Counsel, who revealed that his son had spent three months in a mental home earlier in the year. "While he had been climbing in Cumberland, he had suddenly decided to go to Paris", he said. "Then I had information from one of the government officers that he had been interned in what corresponds to an English lunatic asylum. I sent someone out to look after him and he was taken away from that place and put in a sort of mental home in France. He was medically supervised and came back to England on April 17th on the recommendation of the doctor."

Michael O'Sullivan, surgeon at the Radcliffe Infirmary at Oxford, said in evidence that the cause of death was shock and haemorrhage following a gunshot wound in the face. A verdict of suicide during temporary insanity was returned. Mr Giveen expressed his sorrow that Alfred Bradbury had been wounded and said that he would be fully compensated.

NOTE: The top photograph shows the 1.5 litre Brescia Bugatti known as Cordon Bleu in 1924 with
Raymond Mays at the wheel, Amherst Villiers in the passenger seat and mechanic Harold Ayliffe.

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