The rowers' racing lunch

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Watching live racing today is not always such an easy task. There’s a great number of gates and hurdles to conquer before you can get anywhere near the action. That clearly wasn’t the case when these delightful shots were taken in the late 1930s. They seem to have more in common with Renoir’s Rowers’ Lunch then with today’s racing. But then, date-wise at least, they’re close in history to Renoir’s time than ours.

We see, of course, the famous Brooklands banking, with spectators watching the racing in their bathing suits from their punts on the River Wey, just a few yards from the circuit with no safety barriers in sight. No, we tell a lie – there are sandbags and there’s a policeman to keep an eye on them.

The first and clearest of these photos is said to have been taken in August 1938 at the Surrey track. The racers with numbers 8, 9, 10 and 11 all seem familiar. Do you recognize them? And if you’ve ever visited the old banking and wondered why you haven’t seen this part, it no longer exists as the bridge section was removed in 1969.

Words: Jeroen Booij; pictures: Brooklands Museum
 

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