The opening of Britain’s first automobile race track was led by the builder of the track, who let his wife drive while he sat in the passenger seat and smoked a pipe. A most British affair.

>Hugh’s greatest dream was to own a racetrack, and a few years before his nephew’s departure for Africa he had made a considerable dent in his fortune by building Brooklands racetrack, the first motor-racing course in Britain. A vast concrete bowl with a three-mile-long track so steeply banked that one could reach great speeds of 120 miles per hour, it had opened on a glorious July day in 1907, attracting a crowd of more than 13,000. More than forty cars had taken part in the procession. Ethel, resplendent in a wide turquoise flowered hat, had led, triumphant at the wheel of their car *Bamba* as the only woman driver, while Hugh sat alongside her, content to play passenger, wearing his habitual cloth cap and puffing his pipe. ___________________________ **Source:** Lamb, Christina. “Part One: 1914-1927, Chapter 3.” *The Africa House: The True Story of An English Gentleman and His African Dream*. Harper Collins Publishers, 2004. 31-2. Print. ___________________________ **Further Reading:** [Hugh Fortescue Locke King](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugh_F._Locke_King) [Brooklands Motor Racing Circuit](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brooklands) [Dame Ethel Locke King, DBE](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethel_Locke_King)