Читать книгу Driven: A pioneer for women in motorsport – an autobiography - Rosemary Smith, Rosemary Smith - Страница 8

As I sat behind the wheel of Renault’s 800bhp Formula 1 car, my hands were sweaty, my pulse was racing and my heart was banging away in my chest. What had I let myself in for? A week before, I had been happily drinking tea and watching Flog It on the telly and now I was surrounded by film cameras and mechanics all yelling instructions at me. As I wedged my body into the car and the mechanics wheeled me out of the garage, I was shaking. I was nervous, terrified, but nothing was going to stop me. I hadn’t felt like this since I attempted to break the Irish National Land Speed Record in 1978. As I began to drive, the noise was deafening, but all I could do was keep going as the air whistled past me. It was then that the adrenaline kicked in and I was away, without a thought for my safety or survival. The sheer excitement of it all overtook me as the engine roared and my speed increased. I had fire in my belly and I just went with it. Fright and exhilaration all at the same time, a sensation I will never forget!

It was a truly amazing experience and the only reason I became involved was because two charming men, Paddy McGee and James Boyer of Renault, suggested it. They wanted to make a documentary of the old girl driving a Formula 1 car around the Circuit Paul Ricard in France and it didn’t take much to persuade me: I love a challenge. I was well known in motorsports circles in my day, having achieved notoriety for competing against, and sometimes beating, many of the male drivers, but I was never really famous until I went to Marseille in June 2017 to drive that Formula 1 racing car. After that, I received more publicity than I ever had before in my entire life. Of course, when I was driving in rallies and racing all over Europe, there was no social media to promote events and certainly no Google or YouTube. The documentary made of that Formula 1 drive has thousands of hits on YouTube and they keep telling me I have gone viral, but that just sounds like a bad dose of the flu to me!

When I was asked to go to Silverstone prior to the British Grand Prix to celebrate my Formula 1 drive, I was treated like a celebrity and that’s a nice feeling when you are coming up to your 80th birthday. I’ve had six stents inserted, a broken collarbone, a cracked kneecap and a sprained ankle (and none of them in a car) and I survived. Eighty isn’t old any longer and I see no reason to stop doing the things I love. A lot of my contemporaries are still going strong: Paddy Hopkirk, Jackie Stewart, Rauno Aaltonen – I see them all at functions and parties.

I am enjoying life to the full; running the driving school, giving private lessons and generally keeping busy. Recently, I gave a talk to a large group of people at a seminar in the International Financial Services Centre in Dublin. ‘Are you sure?’ I asked the woman who telephoned to ask me to do the talk, because I knew the people attending would all be highly educated with senior positions in their organisations. I only know how to drive cars and win rallies, but apparently that is enough. I rarely turn anything down, but I did a week ago when I was asked to take part in an event testing a self-driving car. ‘Autonomous,’ they call them. I was supposed to sit in the car with the windows blacked out and a little laptop on my knee to steer. That I declined to do!

People often ask, When are you going to retire? and I just laugh at them. Do they really believe I could sit watching television and eating marshmallows with my feet up for the rest of my life? I am glad to say that there is always something to be done. I have a huge calendar on the wall, on which I write down all my appointments, and as I sit looking at it today, my life looks very full. Last week, I had a telephone call from a man asking me to drive his car from London to Spain next year in a classic rally. I said I would, thanks very much, but these days I always include the proviso: If I’m still alive.

I contemplate death from time to time but I sorted out my funeral arrangements long ago. When my mother died, I had a headstone made for the family grave in Deansgrange and it set me thinking about how I would like to go. In 2003 I saw Adam Faith’s funeral on the television and he was the first person I had ever seen buried in a wickerwork casket and I fell in love with it. I have observed so many beautiful oak coffins go through those curtains at the crematorium and I think it’s a disgrace and a terrible waste of good timber! I am sure they unscrew the brass handles to be recycled before they reach the furnace, but even so …

I talked to my friend, Pat Doyle, who told me about a very good funeral parlour in Bray, County Wicklow, and I asked her to accompany me so that we could order the casket. It was a lovely place, and when we entered, a very suave gentleman approached us, looking suitably sombre. ‘I want to order a coffin, please,’ I said. ‘It has to be a wickerwork casket and must be sprayed pink.’ The man replied that this was most unusual but it could be done and then he wanted to know who had passed away. ‘It’s for me,’ I told him. ‘Could you let me know when you want it?’ he asked. ‘I’m not sure,’ I replied, ‘but my friend Pat here will let you know.’

We went out of that funeral parlour laughing our heads off and drove straight to the solicitors to make my will. I gave my solicitor details of friends and family to whom I would bequeath whatever I had left and he duly took notes. Then I told him about my visit to the funeral director and all about the pink wickerwork casket I had ordered. When I am cremated, I want the church softly lit as I look better in low lighting and nobody is to wear black, nobody, I told him. As my casket is wheeled up, I want the music ‘Blaze Away’ by Josef Locke, singing about making a bonfire of his troubles and watching them blaze away. Then, as I am going through the curtains, Andrea Bocelli and Sarah Brightman will be singing ‘Time to Say Goodbye’, and if you could arrange for an enormous cardboard hand to be waving at everyone that would be great. The poor solicitor is still looking at me!

The will and the funeral arrangements are all sorted but I’m not ready to say goodbye just yet, and before I go I am determined to do what so many people have suggested: tell my story. I have driven cars in rallies all over the world – Africa, Canada, Europe, Australia, New Zealand, Tasmania, you name it, I’ve been there – but when I started off on my career, 60 years ago, I had no idea that anybody would have the slightest interest in my story and so I didn’t make notes and I have never kept a diary – when things are over, they are over as far as I’m concerned. So this is what I’m up against, but I will do my best to write about my life as honestly as my memory allows.

September 2018