Mick Walsh From the cockpit
‘Her dramatic motoring featured euphoric highs, winning the 1932 JCC 1000 Mile Race with Elsie Wisdom, and tragic lows’
As I researched Donald Healey’s epic 1931 Rallye Monte-carlo win (p124), I happened to be chatting to Hugh Conway, chairman of the Bugatti Trust. “You know, my mother did the Monte and raced at Le Mans,” he revealed. “She was great friends with Joan Richmond. You really should read Joan’s autobiography, From Melbourne to Monte Carlo and Beyond.”
Within days a copy arrived from Conway and I was absorbed. Richmond grew up in New South Wales, where this fearless tomboy could ride almost as soon as she could walk. Her father, who disliked cars, died when she was 11 and through riding fences and fixing farm machinery she developed an independent spirit.
Chauvinistic regulations meant her entries into horse races were continuously turned down so she switched to motorsport. Aged 21, with money from her legacy, Richmond bought a sporty Citroën 5CV and started hillclimbing. Pepped up with an overhead-valve conversion, the Citroën began winning its class and local Riley salesman Bill Williamson offered her a deal on a Nine. Continued success and her engaging personality led to a job with Shell, despite disapproval from her mother. Her racing in Australia climaxed at the 1931 Grand Prix at Phillip Island, where Richmond finished fourth.
When CE Shippam and JB Dixon passed through Melbourne on their round-the-world expedition in a Riley Special Tourer, she met them out on the road. Later at a cocktail party, the bold idea of an Australian entry into the Monte formed. Victor Riley offered three cars, Shell pledged to sponsor, support increased from Dunlop and a local coachbuilder made special bodywork. Shell insisted on a chaperone, a rather conservative widow set on spoiling the fun – ‘I thought she was an old bag,’ wrote Richmond.
The Nines set off in August but first there was the small matter of a 4000-mile drive to Darwin to be shipped to Singapore on the impressive SS Marella. The journey then took in the Grand Trunk Road, problems with carrying firearms, paperwork hassles, Ur and Babylon, an escort across the Iraq desert by armoured RAF Rollsroyces, and snowdrifts over the Chouf District.
The team arrived in Naples on 30 December and started the New Year with the final stretch to Sicily by ferry. Before arriving at Palermo for the start, they drove part of the Targa Florio course and were entertained by Count Florio.
After such an adventure, the rally was almost an anticlimax. A loose horn striking the radiator forced a delay to solder up the leaking core, while punctures led to more stops. But the winter scenery through Campania at night, and seeing Mount Vesuvius at dawn tinged with orange around the crater, was extraordinary.
The team arrived with five minutes to spare, finishing 17th out of the 64 finishers. She even befriended Louis Chiron, who gave her a driving lesson and demonstrated his dancing prowess.
She then prepared her Riley, ‘Jacko’, for the trip home, regrinding the valves for the nth time, and it changed the course of Richmond’s life as she decided to stay in England. Her dramatic motoring featured euphoric highs and tragic lows, winning the 1932 JCC 1000 Mile Race with Elsie Wisdom, plus international rallies and two Le Mans sorties including 1935 when she drove a works MG with Eva Gordon-simpson, the future Mrs Conway. But in 1936 the love of her life, Bill Bilney, died at Donington racing an AC the day after he’d proposed. Stunned with grief, she escaped to Scotland and couldn’t face the funeral. The resilient Richmond eventually bounced back to rally and race, including a final Monte for Vauxhall in 1939.
During WW2 she worked for De Havilland, reluctantly returning to Australia with her mother in 1946 to live a peaceful life to 94.