Prince Bira and his teacher Charles Wheeler with the bust of Prince Chula.
By now Chula had decided to go in seriously for racing and to act himself as Bira’s manager. That the two of them, together with the first rate technicians they assembled, made a wonderful team is, of course, motor-racing history. When, in his first race in the new car at Dieppe on 20th July 1935 Bira came in second, Chula realised that the White Mouse team (so-called after Chula’s Thai nickname of mouse) could be a serious contender in light car racing.
Chula had clearly inherited, along with his father’s industry, his talent for organisation. This was obviously recognised by the Racing Correspondent of The Times, who wrote when Bira won the International Trophy at Brooklands in May 1939: ‘Bira’s success was as well-deserved as his frequent victories always are. As a driver he possesses all the essential virtues, skill, coolness, and sympathy with the mechanical functions of his car. But these in themselves would be unavailing if it were not for the thoroughness with which his cousin Prince Chula attends to every detail of the organisation. Bira’s cars are beautifully turned out. There is never a hint of last minute rush, and his pit control is what others would do well to copy.’
Prince Bira and Romulus in June 1936 after winning the Picardy Grand Prix.
Prince Bira in Hanuman winning the Campbell Trophy, April 1938.
In those last years before the Second World War, Bira competed in 68 long distance events, out of which he won 20 and achieved 14 seconds and 5 third places which, as Chula comments, ‘was a record any amateur driver could be proud of’.
Looking ahead, Chula had initiated and begun work on a project very near his heart: a Grand Prix in Bangkok in December 1939. He was sad that this would no longer be during the reign of his uncle, King Pradjahipok, as the King had been in Europe since 1934, ostensibly for consultations about his failing eyesight. However, owing to constitutional difficulties which had arisen before his departure and which continued in his absence, a delegation from the Government had come from Siam to wait on him in his rented house in Cranleigh, Surrey, in an endeavour to find a ground of common agreement and to beg him to return. After prolonged discussion this was found impossible and the King abdicated in 1935 to be succeeded by Ananta Mahidol – the elder son of Prince Mahidol who had shown such friendship to Katya. As Ananta was only ten years old, a Council of Regency was appointed.
Bira, though beginning to be successful in his career as a racing driver, continued to work with Charles Wheeler and, deciding in 1934 that he would also benefit from taking drawing classes as well, he enrolled in the Byam Shaw School of Art in Kensington. Although he only studied there for one term, it was long enough for fate to bring into his life two fellow-students, one a pretty red-haired girl called Ceril Heycock, with whom he fell in love, and my sister Lisba Hunter.
Lisba was then only nineteen. She had silky ash-blond hair and golden skin that rendered her eyes an almost startling blue. Lisba found Bira’s mercurial personality amusing and engaging and was intrigued at getting to know someone so completely different from her many English admirers as a Siamese Prince with the exotic name of Birabongse.
It is true that the word ‘Siamese’ conjured up in her mind that graceful enigmatic creature, the Siamese cat and then, of course, there were those twins. But about their country and origin she had only a vague notion of a mysterious Eastern domain of whose history and customs, in common with most of her compatriots of that period, she knew next to nothing.
Princess Elizabeth Chakrabongse
Princess Ceril Birabongse
‘You must meet my cousin’, Bira told her, shifting restlessly from one foot to another. ‘Perhaps you could come to our flat for tea or a drink?’ She replied she would like to do so. Eventually invited to tea, she rang the bell of a small pleasant block of flats in South Kensington and an English manservant showed her into a sitting-room where a perfect stranger advanced to greet her.
‘I am Bira’s cousin’, he said, shaking hands. ‘Bira told me you were coming, but he’s been detained and won’t be here until later.’ Unaware that his mother was Russian, she was much surprised at how different his appearance was from Bira: short, pale, dark-eyed, good-looking with an unusually attractive voice, she was impressed by his considerable dignity which made him seem older than his 25 years.
While they had tea, they found much to talk about in a bantering lively way, while each was inwardly engaged in the half defensive, half nervous attempt to sum the other up and render manageable their mutual knowledge that this was no ordinary casual meeting. Bira, when he arrived, added his amusing drollery to the flow of agreeable chatter and when Lisba rose to go, he saw her out and, after calling a taxi for her, sauntered back, ready to receive Chula’s thanks for introducing him to such a charming girl. Great was his shocked astonishment therefore when Chula exclaimed vehemently: ‘Keep her away from me – I never want to see her again!’, adding, ‘If I do – I shall fall in love with her!’
By 1935 it was clear, not only to Lisba and Chula, but to all in their confidence, that their attachment was not ephemeral and, by 1936, they were unofficially engaged. Bira meanwhile had proposed to and been accepted by Ceril and, looking back on those days, it is remarkable the hostility provoked by their engagements.
In our conventional middle-class family, eyebrows were raised and voices lowered when the matter was discussed. Of Siam, little was known and no attempt was made to learn more – but it was readily assumed that Lisba risked sequestration in a harem. Orientals sweeping innocent girls off their feet were all very well on the flickering black and white cinema screens, but in real life – in Kensington such a thing was unthinkable. For myself, while understanding the reservations of our parents, I was in favour of the marriage. This was the situation when, in April 1936, I went with Lisba and our mother to Monte Carlo where Bira was to compete in what Chula called the greatest and most popular ‘round the houses’ race for the Prince Rainier Cup’.
This was run over fifty laps, a distance of one hundred miles, along the twisting streets of the little principality, still elegant before the intrusion of skyscrapers and factories. I was happy to be there, not because I was interested in motor-racing, but because I understood that Katya and her husband would be coming and, even from the little I then knew of her remarkable story, I longed to meet her.
Lisba introduced us and I found myself shaking hands with an elegant lady whose still abundant severely dressed chestnut hair framed regular features that, though pleasing, seemed clouded by a pensive sadness, setting her apart from the convivial excitement around her. In consequence I felt timid, afraid of intruding on her different mood. To begin with, therefore, our conversation was rather stiff and formal; I cannot remember what I said that amused her, but suddenly and delightfully she smiled – a wide generous smile – instantly looking so animated and so much younger that I recall Queen Saowabha’s long-ago praise of her ‘pretty smile’. In a flash, I could now well imagine how she had once so fascinated Chakrabongse.
There was a fine, rather chilly, day for the race in which Bira managing skillfully to avoid a crash in the second lap, worked his way up the field to record his first important win.