Raymond Mays

A PICTORIAL SCRAPBOOK

Raymond's obsession with motor cars rubbed off from his father, businessman Thomas Mays, one of the first men in Bourne to own a vehicle and who also took part in speed trials and hill climbs. Here he is with a school friend at the wheel of his first car, a make believe model made from spare parts that must have been lying around at Eastgate House, the family home.

In 1929, Raymond acquired a Villiers Supercharged Special and he is pictured at the wheel of his new car in the yard at Eastgate House. His interest in this model  was the result of his friendship at Oundle School and then Cambridge University with Amhurst Villiers, a specialist in supercharging who lived at Eastgate House from 1922-25, working in the family fellmongering business and on Raymond's various motor cars, two of which can be seen in the background, a Lagonda in the garage and an Alpine Riley in front of the maltings and orchard greenhouse which were eventually to become the workshops for the ERA.

Raymond Mays kept his fleet of cars even during the Second World War of 1939-45. Here are his Bentley (on the left) and three Rovers, lined up in the yard of Eastgate House during that time with his mother and their pet Alsatian. All of the cars were adapted for wartime driving conditions with blackout grilles on the front headlights which were required by law to prevent their beams from being spotted by enemy aircraft on the roads at night.

This photograph was taken on 13th May 1950 in Raymond Mays' study on the first floor of Eastgate House and shows his presentation of the BRM V16 racing car to the committee of the BRM Trust. Mays is on the right, showing off the model, with Peter Berthon on his right. Other members in the group are the company secretary Jim Sandercombe (seated front left), Sir Alfred Owen (standing extreme left) and chairman David Brown (seated fourth from right). The other three are members of the committee of the trust which actually had 40 members. The model is of plasticine and was made for aerodynamic testing by the Standard Motor Car Company and eventually adorned the drawing office at BRM in Bourne where it became peppered with airgun pellets. Chief draughtsman Alec Stokes, remembers: "We had a lot of mice in the office and we tried to get rid of them with airguns but in the meantime, we also used the model car for target practice. I have no idea what happened to it but it would no doubt be worth a small fortune today."

Members of the international club known as the Anciens Pilots de Grand Prix pictured in the garden at Eastgate House on 17th July 1967. Raymond Mays was proud to be a member and often wore their badge on his blazer. Those pictured here are (standing, left to right) Duncan Hamilton, Raymond Mays, Philipe Etancelin, Maurice Baumgartner and Juan Manuel Fangio, (front row, left to right) Leslie Brooke, Louis Chiron, Stirling Moss and Emmanuel de Graffenried.

This photograph was taken at Rouen showing the two famous makes of motor racing car made at Bourne. On the left is the ERA of English Racing Automobiles, 17 of which were built between 1934-39 and right, the post war BRM of British Racing Motors, the type that won the world championship in 1962 with Graham Hill at the wheel.

See also Thomas Mays

NOTE: I am indebted to Alec Stokes, former chief draughtsman with BRM, and to Dr Michael McGregor and his book Historic Pictures of Bourne, for identification details used in some of the above photographs.

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