Women with va-va-vroom
QUESTION Who was the first woman to win an international motor race?
Women have been involved in motor racing from the early days of the sport. Racing pioneers include France’s madame Labrousse, the first woman to compete in a motor sport race, and Italy’s Countess elsa d’Albrizzi.
British drivers include Dorothy Levitt, the women’s world land speed record holder, and Pat moss, sister of Grand Prix legend Sir Stirling moss.
The greatest driver of the early era was elizabeth Junek, known as the Czech Racing Queen. Between 1924 and 1928, she competed against the best male drivers of the era.
In 1927, she came fourth in the German Grand Prix at the nurburgring behind three mercedes-Benz cars.
The following year, she was leading the Targa Florio, a famous open road endurance race in the mountains of Sicily, but mechanical trouble meant she finished fifth.
Pat moss is one of the most successful female rally drivers of all time, with three wins and seven podium finishes in international events. She was european Ladies Rally Champion five times: 1958, 1960, 1962, 1964 and 1965.
In 1960, she won the gruelling LiegeRome-Liege road race driving an Austin Healey 3000. In 1961, she was second in the RAC rally and in 1962 was third in the legendary east African Safari rally driving a Saab.
That year, she won the Rallye Deutschland and netherlands Tulip Rally in a mini Cooper.
Irish rally driver Rosemary Smith won the Tulip in 1965 and the 1969 Cork 20-hour Rally in a Hillman Imp.
French rally driver michele mouton is considered to be the greatest female driver of all time. She began her motorsport career as a rally co-driver. In 1975, mouton won the two-litre prototype class in the 24 Hours of Le mans.
She signed a deal with Fiat France in 1977 and the following year took victory in Tour de France Automobile.
mouton signed with Audi in 1981 to race in the World Rally Championships and won the Rallye Sanremo that year. In 1982, she came agonisingly close to winning the World Rally Championships after winning rounds in Brazil, Greece and Portugal.
She was leading the penultimate rally of the season, the Rallye Cote d’Ivoire, by over an hour when a drive shaft failure 12 miles into the final leg cost her the title.
Danica Patrick is a legend in the macho world of nASCAR racing. Her career highlights include a fourth place on her 2005 debut at the Indianapolis 500 and a podium finish in 2009. She sensationally claimed pole at the Daytona 500 in 2014.
In 2008, she became the only woman to win an Indy Car Series race with victory at the Japan 300.
William Barnes, Birmingham.
QUESTION Why is a burial mound called a barrow?
THe word barrow once meant a mound, mount, mountain, hill or hillock. It is derived from the old english beorgh and Anglo-Saxon berg. ninth century King Alfred referred to the Alps as beorgas in his translation of orosius’s history.
When trying to describe grave mounds, early archaeologists used a variety of words. In 1607’s Britannia, historian William Camden said ‘they are called Lawes: the people round about say they were raised as memorials to the slain’.
He was drawing on research in Derbyshire where up to the 19th century local historians called them ‘lows’, from the old english hlaew, meaning slope.
Tudor antiquarian John Leland referred to grave mounds west of exmoor by the local word tors.
In his description of Kent, William
Lambarde tells his readers that hillocks are ‘called Barowes’, adding ‘which signifieth Sepulchres’ — playing on a false etymology of barrow from burial.
The Royal Society, founded in 1660, promoted the use of ‘universal language’ for the description and classification of the natural world, based on observation.
An early member was antiquarian and natural philosopher John Aubrey. much of his fieldwork for monumenta Historica (1663-1693) was undertaken on Salisbury Plain, here barrow was the local word for a burial mound. His adoption of the term influenced its use ever since.
L. S. Stuart, Nuneaton, Warks.
QUESTION Are there any valuable music cassettes?
THe remarkable resurgence of vinyl, with sales increasing year-on-year since 2005, has led musicologists to wonder whether the same could happen to cassette tapes.
When the cassette came to prominence in the 1970s and 1980s, it was more about function than sound.
Reel-to-reel and vinyl were expensive and bulky while cassettes were affordable, portable and could fit into a boombox or Sony Walkman. They were supplanted by CDs, which were as cheap, had better sound quality and did not need to be flipped or rewound.
nevertheless, the market in cassettes has shown signs of a resurgence, partly driven by nostalgia and the warmth of analogue sound. A cassette features prominently in the blockbuster film The Guardians of The Galaxy.
Lady Gaga, The Weeknd, Justin Bieber, Selena Gomez and Dua Lipa have released cassette tapes of their albums.
Like vinyl, cassette prices are driven by their rarity. The most valuable is the 1997 recording Xero, which sold for $4,500 (£3,270). Xero became the nu-metal band Linkin Park.
Prince remixes from 1995, The Artist (Formerly Known As Prince) The Versace experience: Prelude 2 Gold, sold for $4,117 (£3,000).
other valuable cassettes include an early three-song Depeche mode demo from 1980 worth $1,500 (£1,090) and a Rage Against The machine three-track promo from 1992 at $1,300 (£950).
Alex Eastman, Cupar, Fife.
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