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CHAPTER 4

And we’re off!

Out of the blue, in December 1961, Sally Anne Cooper sent me a telegram asking me to drive with her in a Sunbeam Rapier for the Monte Carlo Rally the following January. I had never heard her name before and had no idea who she was, or why she had picked me, but I was delighted with the idea. I could only guess that someone must have seen me driving in the RAC Rally and told her about me, but I was never sure if that was true or who it might have been. My father said that the Coopers were a famous family, who had made their fortune from insect repellent aerosols in England.

After that telegram, I spoke with Sally Anne by telephone and she told me she was getting married in May. She wanted to do something glamorous and exciting before she began her married life and had decided that the Monte Carlo Rally was it.

Even though I had never driven under extreme snowy or icy conditions, I was thrilled with the idea of driving in the Monte and didn’t have to think twice. A friend of my father, who had some experience of driving in France, sat down with me with very detailed maps of the journey I was about to undertake, which quite honestly meant nothing to me. I tried to be polite and follow what he was saying but my mind was already on the road.

In early January 1962 Sally Anne sent me an airline ticket for the flight from Dublin to Heathrow. I arrived in London to find an immaculately dressed chauffeur standing there with my name on a placard to meet me, something I had only ever seen in films. Outside the airport, we got into a Rolls-Royce and I sat silently in the back of the car, being transported to somewhere in Hertfordshire. I wondered if it was all a dream – maybe I was being kidnapped. I think it only hit me as we drove through the English countryside that I was away from Ireland, all alone and in unfamiliar territory.

It was getting dark by the time we arrived at the house, and as we drove up to the big, imposing mansion my first thought was that there must be a lot of money in fly spray. Sally Anne’s father was a lovely English gentleman. He was so kind and put me at my ease as he showed me to my room. The bedroom was luxurious – all pink, with long white drapes at the window overlooking the gardens. He said how good I was to take the drive and explained that this was Sally Anne’s last fling before her marriage. As I put down my little case, Mr Cooper informed me that dinner would be at 7.30 p.m. and added, ‘We dress for dinner.’ Dress for dinner! I had no evening dress with me and the best clothes I had were on my back. I was wearing a smart grey and white herringbone tweed suit with a long jacket and trousers, which I had made myself. When I confessed that I had no dress, he reassured me and said not to worry about it, I would do fine as I was.

But I was worried; I wanted to make a good impression. I had a quick bath, put on some make-up and had to try to look my best in the tweed trousers and a blouse to wear to dinner. I was young and slim, with long blonde hair, and must have looked well but I certainly wasn’t dressed appropriately as I realised immediately when I went downstairs and met Sally Anne for the first time. She was wearing a pale blue taffeta dress and all the men were in dinner jackets with bow ties. I don’t know what they made of the Irish girl dressed in trousers and a frilly blouse, but it was too late to worry about that.

Sally Anne’s father had bought her a Sunbeam Rapier; it was one of the Rootes’ ex-works cars, which I had never driven before. A two-door, four-seater saloon, it had a chunky look about it. It occurred to me much later that Mr Cooper must have been a friend of Lord Rootes to get that ex-works car. The next day we set off on our journey to Scotland. We were headed for Blythswood Square in Glasgow because the Monte Carlo Rally started from various locations and Glasgow was one of them. In those days the Rally started at points all over Europe and converged on Grenoble, then on to Monte Carlo.

I found the Rapier very heavy going at first but I soon got used to it. My social skills not being the greatest, the prospect of having to sit with strangers in the car for 600 kilometres was harder to cope with than driving a Rapier for the first time. On the way we collected Pat Wright, a friend of Sally Anne, who was to be my co-driver. I had never met her before but was relieved to discover that she was easy to talk to and I liked her from the start.

Sixty-five cars left Glasgow to face the long drive down through England to Dover. Pat sat beside me navigating and Sally Anne sat in the back of the car, dressed in a mink coat and red leather gloves, a picnic basket by her side, as she waved to the crowds. She didn’t do any driving the whole time we were on that rally.

We drove down to Dover, crossed the English Channel and drove north into Holland and Belgium and then back down into France and over the Alps. I had never encountered snow and ice like that before; I thought the Tim Healy Pass in Kerry was challenging, but this was a whole new ball game. Determined not to let myself down, I found to my amazement that all that slipping and sliding in the big, wet field in Dublin, where my father had taught me to drive, had been excellent training for handling icy roads.

The going was slow, but we made it to Monaco three days later. The sun was shining and we stretched ourselves on the harbour wall. Very soon, a Rolls-Royce came to collect Sally Anne and she said that she would send the car back for us, which she did after what seemed an age. The Coopers had a beautiful villa in the South of France, just outside Monte Carlo, and when we were eventually picked up we were shown to our rooms at the top of the house, which must have been the servants’ quarters. Servants’ quarters or not, now that the long drive was over this was like a magical holiday; I enjoyed every minute.

The first thing I did was to buy myself an evening dress to wear and Pat Wright helped me with that. This was my first time in Monte Carlo and I didn’t know what to expect. There were awards ceremonies and everything and everybody looked so glamorous. To see Princess Grace for the first time in her dark glasses beside her husband, Prince Rainier III, giving out the trophies was something to tell my mother about when I got home. Mixing with all the other rally drivers, who before this had just been names, was exciting; I didn’t know at the time that I would be teammates with some of them before too long.

It was on Saturday night, when we had dinner in the Hotel de Paris, that I met Norman Garrad for the first time. He must have been around 60 years old, and when he approached me I tried to ignore him – I was more interested in talking to the young men of my own age and there were plenty of them around. Norman was the competitions manager for Rootes and in his day had been a force to be reckoned with, giving Stirling Moss and Sheila van Damm their first drives in rallying. But to me, knowing none of this at the time, he was just an annoying elderly man and I couldn’t wait to get away from him. When he did manage to get my attention, he offered me the chance to drive on the Rootes’ rally team. But I laughed at him. I made it clear that I wasn’t interested and shoved his business card in my bag and went on dancing. Norman shrugged his shoulders and, with a knowing smile, moved on. I had no idea that his offer was a chance of a lifetime.