Photos by a dedicated racing wife... with thanks to Claire Russell

[Ray Bell]

Some years ago, maybe in 2014 or so, in the course of my work I was talking to a 91-year-old lady living in a retirement unit in Tamworth, NSW. As I talked to her I noticed a picture of a nice TC on top of her television and I asked her about that.

"Oh, I've got lots more pics of MGs, my husband used to race one!"

Quickly the appropriate photo album was pulled from a shelf and I was looking at lots... and I mean lots... of photos from various pit areas, starting grids and hillclimbs around NSW and Queensland. I didn't have time to study them then, I had work to do, but I arranged to go back the next day and photograph all the pages in that album. There were six photos on most pages, four on some and a few with just one or two bigger prints. From memory there was 90 pages.

Claire Russell was the wife of Keith Russell, who was a 'racing mate' of Noel Barnes, and wherever they went racing Claire took her camera. I guess she was at the chemist shop the following day getting the little black and white prints processed. And eventually she sorted them all into this album.

Here's a few samples:











The first two are from Tamworth Hillclimb, which climbs to a lookout on the North-Eastern corner of the central part of Tamworth. I have no idea whose the first car was, but the Healey 100S belonged to Sam Miller.

The others are from Bathurst in 1959, Barry Taylor's Gladiator on the trailer, the Leer/Collerson MG with the Stewart MG together and Noel Barnes and his MG. The Gladiator had just graduated to a Holden motor at this time and it's worth noting that there were traces of the Allan Tomlinson MG TA in the Collerson car.

[Paul B]

Fantastic old pics Ray, I just love seeing this type of stuff, Note the date on the last pic, 30/3/59.
Thanks very much for taking the time to photograph these and post them up.

[Ray Bell]

I hope you're not alone in that... and I'm sure you're not...

These are very basic pics of very basic motor sport for the most part. But it's a background to the sport we had in the halcyon days.

A couple more... at Lowood:









...and I think this might be the famous Lou Kingsley:

[Paul B]

Here is some footage from Bathurst in 1960

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZI0BWB0d2_w