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Duncan Hamilton (S. 1934-36)
OBA Alumni Hall of Fame
Born: 30th April, 1920, Cork
Died: 13th May 1994, Sherbourne
A cat may have nine lives, but Old Brightonian James Duncan Hamilton seemed to
have even more and lived all of them to the full, blazing a trail of
success and, more importantly, laughter everywhere he went car racing.
The following description found in the book Winners sums him up
perfectly: "for many motor racing enthusiasts, Duncan Hamilton
epitomises the sort of carefree, wealthy, amateur racing driver of the 1950s who treated motor racing as a well paid sideline to the more
serious business of high living, hard drinking and chasing girls".
While much of this is true, a glance at his racing curriculum vitae,
with victory at the Le Mans 24 Hours the zenith of his career, tells you
that he was deadly serious when behind the wheel. However, read his
autobiography Touch Wood - by far the funniest sporting book ever - and
you’ll understand that Duncan ought not to have survived beyond his
teenage years, his life a cross between that of a boy’s own hero and
that of a devil-may-care stuntman.
Yet, for all the japes, Duncan soon proved after demobbing from the
Fleet Air Arm that he was a more than useful racer, shining in Formula 2
single-seaters and peaking with seventh place in the 1952 Dutch Grand
Prix. It was in sportscars, though, that he shone. Sadly, the prelude to
his greatest success is now so enshrined in motor racing legend that it
obscures the fact that he won the Le Mans 24 Hours in 1953. Driving a
works Jaguar C-Type, he and co-driver Tony Rolt believed that they had
failed to gain entry for the race. So, after qualifying, they headed
into town for a monster session. Only once they’d drowned their sorrows
several times over were they found by a team member who told them that
they would be starting the race after all. Never has so much black
coffee been drunk in an attempt to sober up. No two drivers will ever
have found the day-and-night enduro so trying or victory so sweet.
Later that year, Duncan made even more of an impact when he crashed into
a pylon when racing in Oporto and cut off the power supply to the
Portuguese city for several hours...
More sportscar wins followed, but the death of close friend Mike
Hawthorn in a road accident in 1959 convinced an already injured Duncan
to retire from racing and concentrate instead on his garage business,
one that’s still going strong today, selling classic sportscars, run by
son Adrian.
Duncan was a man who cast a very large shadow, and one who made an awful
lot of people laugh long and hard.
Duncan Hamilton in the news:
Top Gear, Low behaviour >>
(Daily telegraph Motoring Section, 14/06/03)
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Buy Duncan's book:
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"Touch Wood!"
£33.00
As you read this book there begins a bonding process between reader and writer which is so real one finds oneself alsmost begining to believe that Hamilton is a friend; such is the imtimate relationship that he evokes with his writings. The true revelation of this book is not his considerable racing achievments nor the rare glimspe that he allows us into 50's and 60's motor racing; a time of much informality and jocularity. It is instead the manner in which he went racing that Hamilton binds us to the pages. The 'incidents' such as the night he fell, blind drunk, from the top of a lampost up which he had found himself onto a startled policeman, the almost casual acceptance of the risks of his trade and the descriptions of the accidents he suffered make this the best book of the period that this reviewer has read. A book from a bygone era, and from an author who lived life as he drove; flat out with a smile on his face. You will not be disappointed in this book. The only disappointments are not having known Hamilton and, the greatest, the turning of the last page.
buy now >>
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