Nostalgic Moments and Living History

A Step Back in Time

Hi there, and welcome back. Thank you, as always, for giving me the space in your inbox.

This week, I’ve gone for something a little different from my usual, but I hope it still delivers what you enjoy reading. The details, the vignettes, the tiny precious moments and the crystallised parts of life.

It’s another prompt from my dearest, and it gave me a bit of a challenge, truth be told! So of course I wasn’t backing down.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy it.

K x

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With a sound not unlike a long boom of thunder so deafening it rattles windows, the cars ripped away from the starting line. I had never heard anything like it. I burst out laughing, grinning from ear to ear, and hunching my shoulders up in some feeble attempt at blocking the noise - all while still trying to capture it all on video. To insufficiently crystallise this moment and the absolute assault on the senses that it was.

There was one car that hadn’t been able to start. The cheering crowd had noticed and turned to watch as the pit crew ran out to help while the scream of engines from the successful starters vanished around the first corner. They tried and tried again, before eventually rolling car and driver into the pit. All around, spectators ahhed with sympathy.

Then the screaming engines grew louder like some angry, shattering hoard of mythical beasts galloping pell-mell towards us. They tore into sight and were passed, almost before I knew they were there. My heart raced with them, I was clapping and cheering though I knew not for whom or even why.

And there, limping out of the pit, with an engine finally chomping at the bit to catch up, came the non-starter to deafening cheers and shouts from us all. The underdog was underway, on the heels of the vanishing pack.

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This was the Goodwood Revival. A glorious September weekend, where racing fans, vintage car devotees and general vintage enthusiasts gather under one sky to celebrate days gone by. While the event centres around the racing, thousands pour into the famous circuit to step out of their day-to-day lives and into a slice of history. We buy vintage outfits, peruse vintage stores and dance to vintage music.

All against the background refrain of racing cars.

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“Oh dear, I must sound terribly boring,” said the man in the seat next to me. We were sat uncomfortably close given that we were strangers on that hot September day, and still barely able to hear each other over the car engines and the music and the crowd. He was dressed in a dapper suit, complete with a waistcoat, and was probably not unlike something he had worn back in the day.

Of course, I protested. I asked more questions, though his answer was lost as the vintage Ferraris screamed past our stand and into the famous Goodwood chicane. His son returned with drinks, pausing before he sat to watch the cars. He pointed at one unique vehicle, turning to say something to his dad. The car in question was Ferrari red (of course) but, unlike the other sleek specimens in this Ferrari-only race, it was very boxy and square at the back. It looked a little like a plough horse turning up to Ascot.

And yet, it sped out of the corner towards the chicane at a remarkable rate, swung into the tight turns and then accelerated away remarkably quickly. I was fascinated and puzzled.

The gentleman next to me closed the infinitesimal gap between us. “Did you see that one?” He pointed towards the carthorse Ferrari disappearing around the bend. “He’s a friend of ours.”

“Oh I see,” I said. “He’s doing very well, isn’t he?”

He smiled, a little proudly. “He loves that car.”

“It’s, uh,” I hesitated, being a complete newcomer to this racing world. “It’s a bit unusual isn’t it?”

The gent smiled. “Yes it is. It’s called the bread van.”

The Ferrari 250 GT SWB 'Breadvan' from 1962 is worth roughly £30 million and is a one-off. The story behind why it was made is as peculiar as the car itself. On this day, it came in 3rd. He did very well indeed.

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The Revival brought life back to the Goodwood Circuit almost 20 years after racing was stopped there. It’s the only racing event where everyone is in period clothing, including the drivers and crews. There are leather-clad drivers taking a running start towards cars at least 60 years old, and airfield ground crew in old RAF uniforms and singers in polka dot dresses crooning tunes from the war. There are slick hairstyles and pinstripe suits, victory rolls and red lipstick, bright winged spectacles and huge petticoats, tweeds and flat caps, frilled parasols and frilled socks, cardigans draped around shoulders and Silvercross prams, pocket watches and overalls, hair scarves and dog tags.

It’s a clash, a cacophony, a raucous bringing together of eras, events, contexts and ideas. And it is wonderful for that reason.

(Honestly, I’m not sure what they do with people who turn up in modern clothing. We didn’t see any so maybe they threw them out…)

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We knew we were getting close to Goodwood, winding through the beautiful South Downs, enjoying the clear, blue sky above and the promise of gorgeous weather, when a 1929 Bentley pulled out of a road in front.

There’s something about those old cars, with their thinner tyres, the cloth hood folded down, and the throaty engine. We grinned at each other and opened our windows to listen. We followed it through lanes and villages, close behind, until it reached an open road. Then it was gone, in a deep roar, leaving us far behind.

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It’s a place where you can go from watching race car champion drivers fly into and out of corners at breakneck speed to jiving or Lindy-hopping to wartime songs. You can sit in old cars at a drive-in cinema, listening to Michael Caine’s iconic ‘you’re only supposed to blow the bloody doors off’, then ride the rainbow-coloured horses on the steam-powered carousel. Wander past stores selling Land Rover Defenders converted to electric, or vintage film posters of Live and Let Die, or model airplanes, or expensive Panama hats. Buy some ’new’ vintage outfits, or learn to repair clothing, or wander past priceless cars. There is something for everyone. As long as you’re in vintage clothing.

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The races were winding down. The stands had emptied. Thoughts turned to home and tucking exhausted children (and adults) into bed.

So of course our feet turned inwards, taking us under the tunnel beneath the circuit, towards the grass field of the old aerodrome. We ambled past the paddocks, snapping photos of beautiful cars, past the wartime military vehicles, and on towards the green sky of the setting sun.

On the cooling grass, we sat by a single rope fence, barely a few metres from several gleaming Spitfires, lined up and ready to go. Every day of the Goodwood Revival starts and ends with a duo of Spitfires circling the track, soaring over the gold and green fields, captivating us all with the sound of their engines, so different and distinct from the cars.

The ground crew were readying two planes, and from a nearby gazebo, a young man in a tuxedo jogged across and hopped in the cockpit of one. It felt improbable, and yet completely logical in this world of expensive cars and racing. He was talking to a man on the ground, then came the moment many of us had held our breath for. The engine started. It chugged and choked, then roared to life, blasting us in the downdraft. I didn’t laugh like I had this morning at the start of the races. I was held suspended in that moment, absorbed in the sound of history.

As the sun lowered, the duo took off, flashing brilliant and bright against the sky. We stood to leave, our feet finally turning us towards home and there, in the glorious and hazy summer sunset, I saw the outline of the ground crew, in their vintage uniforms, leaning on the wing of a grounded Spitfire, watching the birds circling overhead, silhouetted perfectly against the golden sky.

We turned, and headed home.

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