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The Faberge Fiesta year was my idea of
complete heaven. Although racing was not new to me, rallying certainly was and I just
wished that I had been a wee bit younger and less sensible that would have caused my
off-road performances to be more inspiring. Nonetheless, winning the championship was a huge thrill, and my prizes of a season in the Tricentrol British Touring Car Championship and a works-supported drive on the RAC Rally were everything that I could possibly have dreamed of. The BBC chose to make a documentary programme called ‘Sideways Round Britain’, featuring myself and co-driver Flip Kerr, together with Tony Pond who was driving a Sunbeam Talbot that year. Although the rally came to a premature end as a result of the gearbox falling apart, we had a tremendous time with the team (particularly John Griffiths of Ford) who tried their hardest to keep us in the event. A great experience and wonderful to have the BBC video for posterity. Poor old Tony Pond didn’t have much luck either, as he ended up upside-down in a Welsh forest. 1980 brought the second part of my prize. Competing in the Touring Car Championship, alongside established stars, without my having served the conventional apprenticeship was both amazing and terrifying, and being thrown into the deep end of a myriad of racing tyre compounds and having to communicate sensibly with one's race engineer was a daunting prospect. There were various developmental problems in the engine department, but notwithstanding those, the season was fabulous, with the high point for me being the setting of a new class lap record at Oulton Park, my favourite circuit. At the end of the 1980 season, Ford and the other sponsors offered a package for 1981, but I chose to turn my back on motorsport and concentrate on being a married woman. With the benefit of hindsight, that turned out to be a grave misjudgement, but the upside of that was the birth of my son Rory. The next 14 years were given over to professional motherhood and as my son grew up, when it became apparent that my duties would become fewer, I chose to return to work. The very first job that appeared was with Champion Spark Plugs. I worked as a Buyer with them for seven years and serving on their global purchasing team, specialising in indirect materials and services (waste disposal was my specialist subject!). Working for an American company such as Federal-Mogul who own CSP is no easy matter, for not only was it totally stressful and unrealistically demanding, but also the cultural differences became untenable. Time therefore to cut my nose off to spite my face and walk away from loadsamoney but with the happy prospect of being able to sleep easily at night and at the minimum, be civil to my long-suffering husband. Currently, I have a wee part-time job within two minutes of my front door in a serviced office centre, where I can use my industrial, cutting-edge skills just now and again to try to improve the running of that business. My son is now 20 and the most expensive student in the world, so I shall continue working for the next couple of years to keep him in the style to which I stupidly encouraged him to aim for! Once he is off my hands, Mike and I will up-stumps and head north to the island of Islay, which of course was my original home, and we will probably spend our days in bucolic bliss, fishing for salmon and trout. |
