LETTERS
I’m sad to report the death of Charles Bridges at the remarkable age of 96. I spoke with him only a week before his death and he was his usual cheerful self. Without Charles’s support, I doubt that I would have had the opportunity to enjoy an amazing motor racing life – with plenty of ups and downs of course!
The three Bridges brothers, Charles the eldest, then David and John, were all heavily involved in motor sport. They were the sons of a remarkable character, Harold Bridges, who started Bridges Transport which at its peak had over 100 vehicles. It went through many changes, but Harold always came out on top. He was awarded the OBE and became a Knight of St John.
In 1959 I’d started racing my Morris 1000 Traveller, but it was 1965 before something happened that would change my life. Garage owner and Jaguar enthusiast Gordon Brown had an ex-works/Moss XK120, and asked if I’d like to drive it at a Woodvale Sprint on Easter Monday, along with himself and other friends. I managed to get FTD and Gordon said he knew Charles Bridges, owner of Red Rose Motors, Chester who had just bought the ex-Graham Hill/John Coombs Lightweight Jaguar E-type ‘4 WPD’ – and he’d get me a drive.
Sure enough, the next morning the phone rang and Gordon asked if I could be at Oulton Park at 8am on Thursday. On a beautiful spring morning I met Charles Bridges and Terry Wells, the E-type mechanic who had come from John Coombs with the car. We had a superb season, beaten only once, by Ron Fry in a Ferrari 250 LM. In 1966, another good year in a Lola T70 Mark II led to a Grovewood Award; the rest is history.