Practically Classics Forum

Hi B-W, could I ask two questions please?

If perhaps not best known for a motoring connection were you known for the performing arts..

Also, was B-W your maiden name or did you come by it through marriage

(I suppose thats three questions really but I haven't been able to get on here much the last couple of days)

Hi, no, I was definately not know for any involvement in any form of performing art!

I was perhaps best known for being quite a "fast" lady.....

The "B" was my maiden name, and I aquired the "W" by marriage - short though it was.

Cheers!

Was your father one of the Bentley Boys?

arceye wrote:Was your father one of the Bentley Boys?

Yes!

And perchance, did you fly?

arceye wrote:And perchance, did you fly?

I did indeed!

I think you're there barring naming the name - how the hell did you get that? Seriously, I'm intreagued to know!

Cheers

Luxobarge wrote:how the hell did you get that?

He's telepathic.

Well then I reckon you are Diana Barnato-Walker, Lady aviatrix and daughter of Bentley Boy Woolf Barnato.

If I am correct, its just cos I'm sad ,that and a little logical thinking, having eliminated a couple of possibilities and got you down to involvement with something fast (thank you for the clue), but probably not cars though with a motoring connection that was not your fame, you would most likely be either of the air or on water (lest you were an athlete which would have been the next possible avenue to explore)

So, a quick bit of research finds a B-W aviatrix, very likely as a candidate as she is both dead and has a motoring connection mainly through her father Mr B (who again we know to be of a Motoring background), who shares part of her name, but not all, as was ascertained in an earlier question.

Does that make sense or does my brain just work funny?

I'd better be right now then, or I'll have egg on me face

You are indeed of course correct - Diana Barnato-Walker, who flew delivery missions on many types of aircraft during the war, and became the first woman to break the sound barrier.

I chose her because she used to live a few hundred yards from our house, in Horne Grange. If we'd moved here a year or two earlier I'd probably have met her, but many of our local friends knew her quite well. They all tell that she was quite an oddball kind of character, fabulously wealthy but very mean at the same time, and very snobby. We get on really well with Chris our postman, and he tells of being invited in for a cup of tea once, whereupon she'd reach into the back of the cupboard and pull out some manky old cheap tea that probably last saw the light of day back in the war, and she'd serve him that - just because he's the postman and not part of "society". It tasked awful apparently.

I've read her autobiography, and it stinks of an overly-privileged childhood. For example, when she was a teenager she wanted a Bugatti to drive. So when she was 18, her father bought her a brand new Rolls Royce. Upon seeing it she threw a hissy fit and cried that she wanted a Bugatti, not a Rolls. So her father took the Rolls back and made a call to his mate Etori Bugatti who had a special car made and delivered just for her. Yes, he was the kind of guy who had friends like that...

Tells you all about the spoilt brat society of the '20s and '30s, does that. The book is full of similar stories.

So, after all that I do believe sir that you are yet again IT.

Cheers!

Does that make sense or does my brain just work funny?

- Arceye - The answer to your question is 'Both'