Speed Monarch book review: Eric Fernihough the bike king

First things first – pronunciation. Although in Yorkshire it’s said with a ‘huff’, our Eric preferred ‘Ferni-ho’. Sounds a little ho-falutin’ but then Eric Fernihough wasn’t the usual grimy Brooklands biker. Raised in comfortable circumstances, this Cambridge graduate was, for a few short years, one of Britain’s famed speed kings and holder of the world’s absolute motorcycle speed record. In the end, stretching ever further, he paid the ultimate price, and his one-time fame is long gone.

Though Mat Oxley’s Racing Hitler tells of  Ferni’s records, this fuller biography is also a history of the world motorcycle speed record. Author Terry Wright has gone to remarkable lengths in Britain, Germany and Hungary to source primary information on a man who, says Doug Nye in his foreword, “had the looks of a lanky bank clerk”, yet proved a brilliant tuner and a man with bulging bravery glands.

Bikes not being my main area I didn’t expect to be pulled into this; in fact from the moment I met the picture of toothy Eric with a black cat on his shoulder grinning at the camera I realised what a human story this was; a century’s distance doesn’t diminish the fascination of sheer grit and determination, and Wright has traced much personal material, letters and photographs, even bank statements, showing how bean-counting ‘Ferni’ financed more and more racing and record-breaking with his garage at Brooklands. In fact he reminds me of a two-wheeled Goldie Gardner.

It’s actually two parallel works, one on Ferni, the other on the motorcycle speed record, interweaving the two as suits; detail on setting up the record organisation and classes, then in the 1930s the shift from British to German domination spearheaded by BMW and its ace Ernst Henne. With successes in grands prix, the North West 200 and many records and by now a tuning wizard on JAP twins, Ferni set out to wrest back the crown on his increasingly hot streamlined supercharged V-twin Brough Superiors, and in 1937 took the record at an eye-watering 169.79mph. When Henne added another 4mph, Eric set off to the record site at Gyon, Hungary aiming for 175mph. He was close to that when he got into a tank-slapper; it was unsurvivable. He was 33.

Wright collects all the witness statements possible and while it can never be proved it may be that some unexpected aerodynamic effect from an untested fairing destabilised the machine. A moving memoir from team-member John Rowland recounts that on “that long, lonely” trip home he met commiserations in all countries for this popular figure. Once as famous abroad as here, Fernihough is more remembered there: Wright finds a memorial to him where he died at Gyon, where locals annually lay flowers.

Rowland’s photos of their adventures, including the crash, boost the rich spread of previously unseen and gripping images which go back to pioneer speed contests between bikes and cars. Reaping from many sources and especially Brooklands’ trove of Ferni’s papers, even his diaries, Wright shows us a driven man, careful with money, who put his life on the line, and lost.

Speed Monarch
Terry Wright
Loose Fillings, £85
ISBN 9780645932706