WHO LET THE RIFF RAFF IN?
IT’S THE NINTH OF OCTOBER 1961 AND MRS BAILEY has given birth to future Tyrrell driver Julian in a hospital in Woolwich, south-east London. Mother and baby are doing well. The father is not present for the birth; he’s doing time in prison. ‘Dad was a delivery driver,’ says Bailey. Delivery driver might be slightly euphemistic because occasionally Bailey Sr’s van may have contained somewhat warm goods. ‘We lived in Woolwich until I was 11 when, late one night, we were pulled from our beds and the whole family left the country for a new life in Menorca.’
Not a lot of schooling took place in Menorca, but one day a family friend took a teenage Bailey to a kart track. He was good. Very good. People noticed, there was more karting, the boy had some purpose at last and eight years after he was smuggled out of the country in a hurry, Julian Bailey arrived back in the UK for a test in a Formula Ford. He was quick and he was hooked and determined to be a racing driver. But what chance did a working class lad have in the privileged world of racing?
The world had been changing throughout the ’60s. The Beatles came from a working-class background and so did George Best. Working class actors such as
