Let-down for the ladies

William Hickey, in his column in the Daily Express for March 25th, in an illustrated feature about 29-year-old Isobel Robinson who had finished 13th in a field of 14 at Brands Hatch the previous day, wrote: “She is the only girl in British motor racing history to have driven a single-seater against men in an official event. There have been other women racing drivers, of course, but they have all competed in saloon or sports car races.”

It seems that for ever more Mr. Hickey should go in fear and trembling of girls like Kay Petre, Gwenda Hawkes, Doreen Evans (now Mrs. Phipps), Bill Wisdom, Pauline Brock, Joan Richmond, Margaret Allan (now Mrs. Jennings), and the G.P. driver de Filippis, etc., etc. We suggested that the least he could do would be to stand these ladies, who, respectively, drove Austin, E.R.A., Derby Miller, Maserati, Duesenberg, M.G., Cooper, Fuzzi, Frazer Nash and other single-seaters a dinner. Mr. Hickey did not respond to this suggestion.