Like Father Like Son Parts six to eight

The Roaring Twenties

Bethan gave birth to a son, whom they named David, in the summer of 1921. Two years later, a daughter was born and they called the little girl Phillipa. Peter’s business prospered and soon he had not one but four garages throughout the county. They bought a bigger house in a nearby village, honouring Peter’s promise to William and Beatrice that Michael would remain within easy reach. Michael, now aged five, reacted badly to the arrival of his younger siblings and this worried Bethan. There was something in her eldest son’s character that bothered her. He seemed to have a cruel streak and more than once she suspected him of hurting the younger two when her back was turned. Beatrice, of course, could find no fault with her grandson and claimed Bethan was imagining things. Michael was always on his best behaviour in the presence of his grandparents and appeared to sense the friction that he caused and revel in it. 

“I don’t understand the child and that’s a fact. I just don’t know what to do about it, Peter.”

“Oh, it’s probably a passing phase. He’s used to being the centre of the Universe and now he’s got a couple of other claimants. It’s a little jealousy, he’ll grow out of it.”

But he didn’t and Bethan felt a sense of guilty relief when William suggested, and Peter agreed, that Michael should attend the same Prep School as had Phillip. Bethan had expected tears and tantrums when the decision was announced to a seven-year-old Michael. She was surprised that he responded with something like glee to the news.

“Good! That means I get away from rotten old David and that smelly baby”

“Michael, that is not the way to talk about your brother and sister!”

“Not my brother and sister!”

“Yes they are!”

“Grandmama says they aren’t, so there!”

Life was considerably easier once Michael had gone away to school. Beatrice’s constant interventions all but ceased and Bethan was able to enjoy her children in her own way. She was an uncomplicated young woman and her approach to child rearing was similarly down-to-earth. In Bethan’s view, children needed a combination of love and firm guidance. What they did not benefit from was over indulgence of their every whim and this was a major source of friction between Peter and Bethan on the one hand and William and Beatrice on the other. 

It was a constant source of disquiet that Michael would be, by turns, sullen or rebellious at home and exude sweetness and light in the presence of his doting grandparents. By contrast, David was a happy child and Phillipa was a placid little girl with her mother’s huge eyes and dark colouring. The two younger children held no interest for Beatrice and it was difficult to explain to someone so young why this should be. Bethan found herself increasingly confused. She loved Michael dearly. He was all that remained of her love for Phillip but she was not so blind as to fail to see he was atrociously spoilt and possessed a very pronounced mean streak. It was easy to lay the blame at Beatrice’s door and it was equally easy to understand how it had come about. Peter did his best but was constantly reminded in ringing treble tones that he was not Michael’s father; something for which, he confessed to Bethan after a particularly trying day, he was heartily glad.

In September of 1925, with Michael ensconced at Prep School, Peter was invited by one of the motor manufacturers that he represented to attend a day’s motor racing at Brooklands. The former RFC flying school had reverted to its pre-war use as one of the premier venues for auto sport in Europe. The banked oval track was the scene of many time trials as well as circuit racing. It attracted the leading names in European motor sport and not a few from the USA and the British Empire. Quite a number of the drivers were former RFC pilots and Peter knew a number of them, if not personally, at least by reputation.

The event was to change his life. The day consisted of speed trials and he was drawn to the thundering machines like a magnet. It was not so much the sheer thrill of the thing, more it was the engineering challenge that held him in thrall. He knew he lacked the finesse to be a racing driver in a competitive, wheel-to wheel situation but his mind buzzed with the possibilities of making a car go faster - faster than anyone had ever been before. That very summer, Malcolm Campbell had raised the land speed record to over 150 miles per hour and was now reported to be preparing a new ‘Bluebird’ with his sights set firmly on the 200 mph mark. Also in the running were Henry Segrave and John Parry Thomas in the UK and Ray Keech and Frank Lockhart in the USA. Peter decided that he, too, would join the fun and spent a restless night in the Angel Hotel in Guildford, planning the outline of a strategy.

He decided he would need a driver but reckoned there would be no shortage of volunteers. He would oversee the engineering side and he thought that he knew just the person to assist him. He made some telephone calls and was able to track to down someone who might know the whereabouts of one Albert Armitage, a former corporal in the Royal Flying Corps and, to Peter’s mind, a mechanical genius. Peter’s informant placed Corporal Armitage in a very upmarket motor dealer in the West End of London. So, the following morning, Peter motored north. 

He located the place without too much difficulty. The line of Rolls Royce cars was something of a giveaway. It also didn’t take him too long to spot the distinctive figure of Albert Armitage standing, arms akimbo and head to one side as he listened intently to the purr of a straight six. Peter had seen him many times in a similar pose in the grey dawn of some French landing strip as Armitage would listen, consider and then pronounce his verdict on an engine’s health. He had an unique talent for being able to identify a fault or a worn bearing just by hearing the sound an engine made. Peter had never known Armitage to be wrong and no pilot or observer would take a plane that Armitage had grimaced or sucked his teeth over. 

Albert Armitage registered Peter’s presence but his expression never changed. His whole attention was on a very small sound – a bum note in the orchestra. At length he was satisfied. He turned to a waiting mechanic.

“Change the timing chain, Chalky, it’s on its way out.”

Only then did he walk towards Peter.

“Mr Riley, sir, good to see you.”

“Good to see you corporal – or should I say Mister – Armitage.”

“Come about your motor, sir?”

“No, the car’s fine. It’s you I’ve come to see.”

“Me, sir? What on earth for? I don’t mean to be rude, sir, but it ain’t likely that one of the officers would come and see the likes of me for a chinwag about old times. I’ve seen a few of the old squadron through here and there’s not one in ten that recognised me.”

“I have a job for you, Mr Armitage. I have a little project in mind and you’re the only man in England that fits the bill.”

“Well, it’s very nice of you to say so I’m sure, Mr Riley, but I’m quite well situated here, thank you.”

“It’s Albert, isn’t it? May I call you Albert?”

Armitage shrugged.

“Right-ho then Albert. I’ll put it as plainly as I can. I mean to build a car to challenge Campbell and Segrave for the land speed record. I would like you to be the chief mechanic on the team. I can pay well. What would you say to ten pounds a week?”

Armitage’s slightly wizened face broke into a slow grin.

“I’d say you were bloody mad, Mr Riley, that’s what I’d say but if you want to pay me a fortune, I’d be happy to take it off you.”

“Right then, that’s settled, when can you start?”

“Two weeks from today?”

“Splendid. Here’s a fiver. Catch the 8.40 train to Dorchester and I’ll meet you at the station.”

Armitage’s face fell.

“Dorchester? You didn’t say nothing about being out in the sticks. What would my missus say? We got a nice flat in Battersea, Mr Riley, and a sprog on the way. I couldn’t go leaving her in London while I gallivant off to Dorchester, could I?”

“Nothing simpler, Albert old son. You bring the lady with you. I’ll fix you up with a nice cottage. What could be better than fresh country air for her and the young Armitage?”

“Well, I don’t know, Mr Riley. She’s a London girl, born and bred here like meself. I ain’t too certain that she’d take to the country, like.”

“Well, you can but ask her, Albert. Ten pounds a week and a cottage, she might like the sound of that.”

They agreed that Armitage would telephone him the next day and Peter drove back to Dorset in high spirits. He had totally failed to consider Bethan’s reaction in all this. She stood silently throughout his exposition of the great project, the hiring of Albert Armitage and the welter of technical details he threw at her. He looked, she thought, like an overgrown schoolboy. His face shone with enthusiasm and his expansive gestures threatened to knock over the ornaments on the mantle. Part of her regarded him with fondness but another part felt icy cold. How dare he jeopardise their life together for the foolish, meaningless pursuit of speed? She was just about to launch into a tirade of truly grand proportions when she heard him say:

“Of course, I’ll have to find a good driver.”

She felt as if a weight had been lifted from her shoulders. Her greatest fear was to lose Peter in some ghastly accident. Losing Phillip, she had once confided to Beatrice, had felt like the end of her life as well. Now, and it had been a slow, gradual process, Peter had insinuated his way into her heart, the thought of another death was too much for her to bear. She grasped one of Peter’s flailing arms and pulled him towards her. Raising one hand, she placed her finger lightly on his lips to silence him then drew him into a deep and passionate kiss. Deep down, she recognised that they had grown too comfortable in their marriage. It was not so much that she did not love him, she truly did. It was more the case, she now realised, that she had never really let herself go with Peter in the way that she had with Phillip. The ghost of Phillip had always accompanied her to their marriage bed. It was time, she decided, to change all that.

She led an uncomplaining but somewhat puzzled husband up the stairs to their bedroom. She sensed that something that she had believed dead inside her had, at last, sprung back to life. He started to ask about the children but she silenced him with another kiss, her hands already busy removing his clothes. He gazed at her in wonder. Peter felt his brain had stopped working sometime around the point she first seized his hand. He co-operated in the process of being undressed but didn’t seem able to grasp precisely what was happening to him. He yelped in surprise when her hand gripped his tumescent penis and squeezed gently. Her eyes never left his face as she stood and slipped the dress from her shoulders, stepping out of the pooled white cotton at her feet like Aphrodite from the foam. 

Still holding his somewhat stunned gaze, she stripped herself naked, standing in front of him with huge eyes and a half smile on her face. She felt deliciously wicked. Peter looked at his wife’s nakedness and felt his breathing constricted. His heart hammered at his ribs. He was stunned. Bethan had never acted like this – not even on their honeymoon. His shock was complete when she knelt beside him and took his rigid erection gently into her mouth, sliding her tongue over him and sucking very softly at the head. Bethan nibbled at him, savouring the slightly salty taste, she felt herself grow wet. There seemed to be some direct connection between the jerking prick in her mouth and her own flowering desire. She bobbed her head, sliding him in and out of her mouth, alternating swirling her tongue around the contours of his prick with more vigorous sucking. She heard him groan and felt his hips pushing himself back at her.

She felt powerful and fulfilled. She sensed he was close to climax and speeded up her efforts, one hand snaking around to knead his balls. His breathing was rapid, harsh. Her sex was now dripping; she could feel the juices running down the top of her thighs. She squeezed her legs together, rocking her pelvis to increase the delightful sensations that flooded her as she sucked him. Then, unbelievably, she felt her own orgasm welling up inside. Now she needed him to come, to make it perfect. Her hand left his balls and pumped at his shaft; she sucked harder, slowing the movement of her head as her hand picked up the tempo. She heard him gasp. His prick seemed to swell momentarily between her sensitised lips and then she felt the first powerful spurts hit the roof of her mouth and she moaned, a deep, guttural sound that sent Peter wild. He thrust at her, undulating his hips frantically and pumping his seed into her mouth. She swallowed convulsively and her own climax hit her like a thunderbolt out of a clear blue sky. She spasmed, her body shook with the fierceness of her orgasm. A hand flew between her legs and she pushed her fingers in her sopping sex, squeezing her clitoris between her palm and her pubic bone and rocking against the sweet pressure as wave after wave of white fire seared through her veins. 

At last the super-heated sensations began to recede and she became aware of Peter’s softening penis still within her mouth. She sucked at him gently and licked away the last of his semen. It seemed to Peter that she purred as she did so. His head spun in a mixture of love and confusion. Bethan had never shown such passion before. In truth, it was something that had bothered Peter. He loved her dearly and, although she had never been frigid, their sex life had previously been, well, not that exciting. Now something had been released in her and he wasn’t sure why or even quite how to respond. Her eyes were deep pools of brimming mystery and he felt himself drawn into them. He leaned forward and kissed her, tasting himself and he did so. He found it strangely arousing and began to stiffen again. She wriggled in his arms, her nipples tracing fire across his naked flesh and he slid into her.

This time it was slow and gentle. Peter revelled in the sensation of liquid heat that clasped him and the slow undulations of her hips in time with his deliberate thrusts. He bent forward and sucked gently on her nipples, catching first one and then the other between his lips. Bethan giggled; a delicious, wicked sound that spurred him on. He picked up the pace and she matched him thrust for thrust. Her hair was a dark storm of sex and thunder against the white of the sheets. Peter felt suspended in time and space, linked to reality only by the sweet muscles that grasped his erect cock and drew him deeper inside. 

“Oh, God, Bethan, I love you so much!”

She heard his voice from far away as she voyaged among the stars, floating free, liberated from her past and her grief for the first time. Orgasm lapped at her in wavelets, each one higher than the last until she could stand it no longer and it swept her away her, crashing into the ocean of fulfilment. Lost in her own passion, she was only vaguely aware of Peter’s sharp cry and manic pumping as he reached his own climax. The dim awareness of his pleasure warmed her; reaching through the fog that wrapped her and bringing her gently back to the shore of misty contentment. 

Peter felt the change in her and in a vivid flash of enlightenment, saw that she had been freed at last from the long shadows of their past. He stopped himself from speaking with difficulty. He suddenly realised that to acknowledge the change would also be to acknowledge the problem. No words were necessary. It was sufficient that she had finally come out of the ice that had trapped her heart for so long. He knew that from that moment onwards, their life together had changed, become richer and more intimate. There was nothing to say that could add one iota.

1928 The Record Breaker

It took Peter two years to build the car. Parry Thomas died in a crash at Pendine Sands and Lockhart perished at Daytona Beach. Campbell had raised the record yet again and all the while Peter and Albert Armitage suffered setbacks and frustration. At first, they had followed the fashion for using giant aero engines. They fitted a 350-horsepower Rolls Royce engine onto a reinforced and stretched Mercedes chassis and found a madcap young Irishman named Connor O’Driscoll to drive for them. The tests at Pendine were disappointing. The car couldn’t seem to get past 140 mph, for all Albert’s loving ministrations. They took it home and fitted a supercharger but while this increased the power, real speed eluded them.

O’Driscoll soon lost interest and went off to join the ‘Bentley Boys,’ where his dashing style and ability to party for days without a break soon made him a popular member of the racing team. Peter and Albert, meanwhile, slogged on. It was Albert who changed their fortunes. He had settled into country life as if born to it and his wife had become a sort of unofficial nursemaid to David and Phillipa while looking after their own child, a boy named Peter, in honour of their benefactor. Albert always claimed that it was his wife who had given him the idea. She had told him one evening about the children playing together and how Phillipa could always ride a tricycle faster than her older brother. 

“It’s cos he’s so much heavier. She ain’t nothing like as strong but she wins every time.”

Something clicked in Albert’s fertile mind and the next day he approached Peter.

“The problem with those bloody great motors, Boss, is the all the rest of the gubbins that you have to reinforce to take the weight. Look how much we had to put into the chassis and the drive train. Now, how would it be if we could build a really lightweight car that still had enough grunt to fly? Let them others keep getting bigger, I say. We haven’t got Campbell’s money to throw around so I reckon we need to come at it a different way.”

Albert’s revelation became the plan for a new car. The huge Rolls Royce engine was ditched and a much smaller car emerged. They acquired a 200-horsepower Hispano engine and married this to a custom-built chassis. Peter then decided on an aluminium body to further reduce weight. Albert worked his magic on the Hispano and extracted an increase of almost 50% in the power output without any increase in the weight. The resulting car, named ‘Bethan II’ was about half the size of Campbell’s Napier-powered ‘Bluebird’ and about a quarter of the weight. No driver was available so it was Peter who climbed into the cockpit on 4th March 1928 to test the new machine.

The body of the car was narrow, so much so that Peter’s legs straddled the prop shaft, but the overall design was entirely new. The aluminium fairing was formed in a series of graceful curves that enclosed the widely spaced wheels before sweeping into a body shaped like an elongated teardrop. A low fin swept back from behind the driver’s head to blend smoothly into a boat-shaped rear end. The radiator had been angled back to a 30-degree incline to allow a low-slung front and their one real concern lay in the propensity for overheating that this might cause. There was no battery or starter motor so the engine had to be fired by a huge crank that took two men to swing, such was the compression. The real breakthrough was in the fuel system. Between them, Albert and Peter had come up with a direct injection system that did away with the need for carburettors. 

Peter sat quietly, repeating the starting drill to Albert who stood by the cockpit as two burly mechanics grunted at the starting handle. His mind was racing and there was a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach as the engine crackled into life.

“Take it easy on the first couple of runs, Boss, get the feel of her before you open her up.”

“Right-ho, Albert.”

“Keep a weather eye on the temperature gauge, we don’t want her seizing up on you.”

“Will do.”

“Right, Boss. Ready when you are.”

Peter eased the car into gear and slowly let out the clutch. The car snapped forward and threatened to stall. He depressed the clutch pedal slightly and fed it some more gas. This time it picked up smoothly and accelerated out onto the test area. Somewhere out there, Parry Thomas’s car, ‘Babs,’ was buried under the sands. The long sweep of the huge tidal beach at Pendine stretched out before him and Peter began to concentrate solely on the machine around him. He moved swiftly up through the gears, keeping always below 3000 revs – the figure agreed with Albert. As the car moved faster the vibration increased and he could barely read the dials that seemed to dance in front of his eyes. He hit the marker post for the measured mile and gave her three quarter throttle. The car seemed to leap forward, rushing towards the horizon. The quarter mile markers flew by and then he was braking gently, easing off to turn for the return run. ‘Bethan II’ had touched 180 mph! 

He was more confident this time and pushed a little harder on the way back. The speedometer climbed, 180, 190, 200! Then it was time to brake again and he brought the car back gently to the waiting Albert.

“By Christ! I think we’ve done it this time, Albert. She absolutely flies! What a beauty!” 

“Wonderful drive, Boss, I reckon you must have hit 210 at the back end. All we got to do now is hit that at the front and we got the record!”

The mechanics were busy stripping off the bodywork encasing the front end and Albert listened intently to tick over of the Hispano.

“Sweet as a nut, Boss, sweet as a nut.” 

“When do the scrutineers arrive?”

“Day after tomorrow, so we still got some time to get her perfect for the big day.”

At 10.33 am on 7th March 1928, Peter Riley became the fastest man in history. ‘Bethan II’ clocked 218.6 mph on the measured mile on the first run and 216.2 mph on the return, setting a new world record at 217.4 mph, eclipsing Campbell’s mark of almost 206 mph set the previous month. The press photographers clamoured around them and the reporters shouted questions as Peter and Albert hugged each other and danced a circular jig on the Welsh sand. 

The newspapers the following day were full of it. There was even a gracious quote from Malcolm Campbell and a more robust and frank admission from Henry Segrave who was reported as saying ‘Good God! In that little runabout?’ Peter and Albert returned to Dorset in triumph and were feted as heroes by all but Bethan, who was beside herself with fury that Peter had actually driven the car. The hero was soon reduced to a tongue-tied wreck, shifting uneasily from foot to foot in the full glare of his wife’s wrath.

Worse was to follow. Two weeks after the record-breaking attempt they received official notification that their record would not be ratified. ‘Bethan II’ lacked a reverse gear – something that had recently been introduced as a requirement by the FIA for all cars attempting speed records. They were crestfallen. Albert was drunk for two days and refused to come out of the garage where he sat, nursing a bottle of whisky. Bethan relented and comforted Peter who had simply sat in stunned silence after reading the letter. He felt cheated. He was the fastest man on land in the world and he had lost all official claim to that title on a technicality. ‘Bethan II’ had been completed a scant three days after the new rule came into force. 

Peter and Albert had one further try at Pendine at the end of 1928 and a modified ‘Bethan II’ was timed at 221.65 mph on the first run. Disaster struck on the return. The engine overheated and a radiator hose blew. Peter had the presence of mind to put the car into neutral and coasted to a stop, his dreams in tatters. Twice he had broken the world land speed record and twice he had been denied. Also, if we was honest with himself, it was simply too expensive to compete. It was over. He had promised Bethan he would quit after one last attempt and now he had to honour that commitment. The following year Ray Keech officially claimed Campbell’s record but that was soon eclipsed by both Henry Segrave and later, Campbell himself, who pushed the mark up to 246 mph.

The one good thing to come out of all the frustration was the publicity that Peter Riley and Albert Armitage received. The garage business boomed as people came from far and wide to buy their cars from the world-famous driver. Other racing enthusiasts started to bring their own cars for Albert’s magic treatment and soon, the preparation of racecars was a lucrative sideline to the thriving sales side. So it was something of a bombshell when, in early 1929, Peter announced to Bethan that he was selling out the car dealerships. He had received a very tempting offer from a major London firm and had accepted it.

“But why, Peter? The business is really doing well now, isn’t it?”

“Yes, my love. Profits have never been better. I don’t know why but I’m very uneasy about the state of the economy. Everything is going mad and yet it’s only a couple of years or so since the General Strike. I have a nasty feeling about things and this offer is just too good to pass up. We’ll clear about half a million after settling with the banks and I really think I’d be a fool not to take it.”

“But what will you do?”

“Part of the agreement is that I become of a director of their firm. They’ve offered a good salary and I only have to work for them twelve days a month. The rest of the time, well, Albert and I have some ideas and, no, they don’t involve driving, before you ask.”

What they did involve was the design and manufacture of a brand new racing engine and the Riley Armitage engine, with its revolutionary direct fuel injection system, was to become the power plant of choice for racing teams from all over Europe for the next decade. The great crash of 1929 left Peter and Bethan unscathed. They had cash in the bank and the rest they invested quietly in Government Stock. Peter lost his directorship when the big London firm went bust but he found this something of a relief. His job he had likened to that of a performing seal. He’d been trotted out at receptions and promotional events and been asked to say why the latest XYZ Tourer was the best car he had ever driven and so forth. He also disliked the time he had had to spend away from Bethan and the children.

1933 Shadows at the Margins

The small party on the hilltop shivered in the freshening breeze. Two graves of amber marble lay before them. One was weathered, the gold lettering dulled; the other, obviously new, bore the words:

William Augustus Worrell Welford-Barnes
1861-1933

Peter stood silent. He glanced around at the little family gathering. Beside him was Bethan, holding his hand tightly. On the other side was his daughter, Phillipa, the image of her mother even down to the way she gripped his other hand. His son, David, tall and fair-haired like himself, although lately there had been more and more silver among the gold in his own case, was standing a little apart. Next came Beatrice, leaning heavily on her grandson, Michael, but determinedly dry-eyed. Michael; Bethan’s son from her marriage to Phillip; Michael, who on learning that Peter’s world land speed record had not been recognised had said, ‘ well, of course, you can never do anything properly, can you?’ Michael, whom, Peter suspected, was behind the bullying that David had to endure at Stowe School where both were boarders.

Peter sighed inwardly. He caught Michael looking at him through lidded eyes, a look of faint curiosity, almost of appraisal on his face. With William dead, Michael was now the owner of Pitton House and all that that entailed. Of course, he would not inherit in his own right until he reached the age of twenty one but, like it or not, Michael Jonathon Welford-Barnes was a wealthy young man of almost sixteen. 

Despite Peter’s best efforts over the years to build bridges with Phillip’s son, he had failed utterly. Their relationship now was one of open dislike on Michael’s part and strict neutrality on Peter’s. Wherever possible, Peter avoided his stepson’s company. Even Bethan found Michael a trial. He was an extremely good looking boy, fine featured with his mother’s dark colouring and piercing blue eyes; eyes that always struck Peter as being far too cold and calculating for one so young. Michael excelled at sports, something that David found difficult, and was sufficiently bright to do reasonably well academically. With his money and family connections, he had set his sights on a place at Oxford when he finished at Stowe in two years’ time. By contrast, David was clumsy; still at the gawky stage of puberty where his feet seemed too big for him and co-ordination impossible.