PAST IMPERFECT:Charles Jarrott's motoring memoir is worthy of its 'classic' status, writes BOB MONTGOMERY
IT’S ALWAYS been a source of great surprise to me that the literature of motoring has produced so few books that acquire with the passage of time a “classic” status.
One work that certainly deserves that status is Charles Jarrott's Ten Years of Motors and Motor Racing 1896-1906,first published in 1906. Yet, even with this title, there is a twist in the tale of the story which we'll come to in due course.
Having studied law, Jarrott went to work in the fledgling motor trade, commencing his racing career on motor tricycles and transferring to motor cars in 1900. His first major success was in the Paris-Berlin race of 1901, when he finished eighth, and this was followed in 1902 by what was probably his greatest race when he won the Ardennes Circuit, after a terrific and sustained duel with the Breton driver, Fernand Gabriel.
In 1903 he placed second on the road in the tragic Paris-Madrid race, which was ended prematurely at Bordeaux, and he was part of the British team in the Gordon Bennett Race held in Ireland.
Cecil Bianchi, who shared many of his adventures as his riding mechanic, described him thus: “Jarrott was a man who really enjoyed life. He was very sporting, he’d been a good boxer and an excellent shot. He was a man who really entered into a meeting. Everyone liked him. He had a most charming personality and, of course, as the ace driver of his day, he had lots of fans. He was a big fellow. He stood over six feet tall and must have weighed 15 or 16 stone. I never had any worries at all when driving with Jarrott – he inspired such confidence. I never thought he drove too fast.”
His book is a highly readable account of the early days of motor racing and, down the years since its first publication, it has formed one of the cornerstones of countless motoring libraries.
Beautifully written, it tells of the difficulties faced by the early racers. Perhaps the greatest of these difficulties was the problem of dust. As they raced over the unmade roads of Europe, the racing cars of the day threw up huge clouds of dust which made it practically impossible for following cars to see where they were going.
Jarrott recounted in his book: “I had fought with myself again and again when, in the realisation of danger in driving blindly in the dust of another car, common sense and prudence advised me to slow down and let it get away, but reckless determination impelled me to go ahead, drive through the dust, and pass the car.”
Jarrott had many connections with Ireland, some of which are reflected in the book. Perhaps the most evocative of his memories are those of the night before the Irish Gordon Bennett Race, when he had a premonition of disaster in the forthcoming race. “The afternoon fled away and evening came – the evening of a lovely Irish summer day. Of the many impressions which I received in connection with this race in Ireland, none are clearer in my mind than the memory of the glorious sunset that evening; it was awe-inspiring in its grandeur and beauty, a sky of gold changing into a sea of blood, with heavy, ominous clouds rolling up in the distance, causing weird rays of light to strike on the horizon. It was solemn and impressive, and as I stood there and watched it, a strange feeling of impending disaster seemed to come over me.”
And the twist in the tale? Only many years after it was first published was it revealed that Jarrott’s book had been ‘ghost-written’ by A B Filson Young, a well known motoring writer of the time. Nevertheless, it remains an exceptional account of early motor racing and worthy of its place as a true classic of motoring.