Fifty long years have passed since one of England’s early Grand Prix heroes perished tragically young, at the unforgiving Nürburgring circuit. Because Peter was a local lad from the Kidderminster area and had begun his racing career at Shelsley the Midland Automobile Club had put together a celebration meeting to mark this milestone.

They gathered together many of the cars that Collins had actually driven during his varied career, or that represented marques that he had raced and invited his widow Louise over from Florida to be their guest of honour. There was also a full hillclimbing programme with seventeen different classes of competition during this weekend at the World’s oldest (103 years) unchanged motorsport venue set in the glorious Worcestershire countryside.

To coincide with the Collins tribute Ed McDonough was launching his latest book, ‘Peter Collins – All About The Boy’ at this meeting with signing sessions by the author and Louise Collins. Being a confirmed Collins fan this was a meeting I couldn’t miss, so packing our wet weather gear in deference to the abysmal summer, my wife and I set off at an indecently early hour. As we traveled along the near deserted motorways westwards the weather actually improved and, wonder of wonders, the meeting remained dry until the late afternoon.

Parked up and on our way to the paddock diner for a ‘full English’ we paused to exchange banter with Ed McDonough who was setting out his marquee with his publisher Peter Shimmell. The pangs of hunger stilled, we soaked up the atmosphere of the paddock watching the competitors readying their cars for the first runs. We came across FOC racer and hillclimber Colin Campbell who had brought his very original Aston Martin DB2 for the Collins display. Ferrari GB's Tony Willis, who had arranged for some of the display cars to be present, was there with his wife Jane in a very purposeful 430 Scuderia.

Next we walked up the hill to take some pictures of the display cars as they paraded for the already large crowd. Collins’ career encompassed not only Formula One and hillclimbing but also rallying, tackling the Monte Carlo Rally and the Rallye des Alpes in Sunbeams and Ford Anglias and sports car events such as Le Mans and the Targa Florio and many of these cars were represented. Can you envisage Kimi Raikkonen, for example, engaging in such diverse forms of motorsport?

Back to the small ‘retail village’ we met up with FOC President Jack Sears and wife Diana who had traveled from Norfolk to meet up with Louise Collins. By now Louise had arrived, greeted old friends and was settling herself for a book signing session with Ed. She is a delightful lady, full of charm and with a lovely sense of humour and she seemed to be enjoying the meeting tremendously, especially her trip up the famous hill in an open top Jaguar XK120 to wave to the crowds, who waved back with great enthusiasm.

The weather had improved to such an extent that on a dry track in the afternoon Martin Groves broke his outright record, ascending the 1,000 yard hill in a mind-blowing 22.58 seconds in his Gould GR55B NME and a Supermarine Spitfire gave us an aerobatic treat over the rolling hills.

Motorsport commentary legend Murray Walker, who had been signing copies of his latest book, presented the prizes at the end of a great day saying “I made my first ever broadcast from Shelsley Walsh in 1948 and it seems like this friendly, wonderful place has hardly changed at all.”

So a very interesting event, which was a mix of the old and the new, drew to it’s close – the sun had fittingly shone on the memory of one of England’s and Ferrari’s ‘golden boys’ – gone but never forgotten.


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Louise and Peter Collins (Louise King Collection)

Louise at Shelsley Walsh