SCRAPING HER BOTTOM ON THE GROUND
Born Rosetta Arnold in Bedworth, Warwickshire, she was the oldest of nine children, with six sisters and two brothers.
She was always known as Rose.
Her brothers became keen motorcyclists and passed their enthusiasm onto Rose. “My Dad always had motorbikes, and I started to love them so much I can remember every registration number.”
The family home was so overcrowded (“too many children”) that as soon as she was old enough, Rose moved to Birmingham and worked as a gas welder, making hoods for sports cars. She found it extremely boring.
Rose married a motorcycle mechanic who took her to race meetings, where she fell in love with the sport.
One day, a friend, Ken West, took her to a disused airfield. He had a motorbike with sidecar and persuaded Rose to get in, “Come on, Rose. Sit in and have a try.”
They did some scrambling and Rose loved it, “I never looked back.”
Rose attended scrambling meetings with Ken. There is a real art to being in a sidecar during a race. The passenger is vital in balancing the bike, lying low on straights and using their body to help navigate bends.
Rose became very adept at riding sidecar. She said her ambition was to compete in the Isle of Man TT races. Other competitors laughed at her – no woman had ever participated in this most prestigious of races.
Whilst she was competing, that Rose met Roy Hanks, and they became close friends.
Roy worked for his family business, ‘Fred Hanks Motorcycles’, based at 247 Slade Road, Erdington – a suburb of Birmingham.
The company was created immediately after the war, as Fred Hanks (Roy’s father) saw motorisation as the future. He ran the business with his wife, Maizie, until his two sons, Norman and Roy, were old enough to work in the shop.
Fred was also a competitive racer. He rode in both the Dutch and Belgian Grand Prix and twelve times in the Isle of Man TT race.
He wore orange and black leathers, the same colour as the outside of his shop. These remained the colours the Hanks family racers used throughout the years.
Norman was a sidecar racer but his teammate had decided to give up the sport. Roy said he would provide a passenger for the next race, at Mallory Park.
Roy introduced Rose to Norman as new riding partner. They got off to an inauspicious start.
“It’s a woman,” said Norman.
“You didn’t say it had to be a man,” replied his brother.
Both Rose and Norman tried to get on the bike at the same time. Swinging his leg over the saddle, Norman kicked her in the face. Bloody and battered, she raced anyway.
Rose went on to race regularly with Norman, but it was his brother, Roy, she fell in love with – and eventually married.
Every weekend, Norman and Rose entered competitions, travelling the whole country. As well as Mallory Park, they raced at Brands Hatch, Silverstone and Oulton Park. Gradually, they began to win races. Rose admitted they had a few lucky escapes, including failed brakes whilst going very fast down a hill.
Norman persuaded Rose to enter the 1967 Isle of Man TT sidecar race .
During the race, they had engine problems and finished twenty-seventh.
In 1968, a new sidecar class (750cc) was introduced to the competition. Norman and Rose entered.
It was three laps of the Isle of Man course, a total of 113 miles.
Rose and Norman drove the course at 83mph. They came second, beaten by Terry Vinicombe and John Flaxman.
Nevertheless, Rose was the first woman ever to appear on the podium at the TT races, in sixty-five years. “I’d secured my place on the winner’s rostrum. I could hardly believe it.”
Prince Philip presented the awards and gave Rose a bouquet. He asked her if she’d ever scraped her bottom on the ground? She blushed and responded, “My double rubbers protect me.”
Rose received plenty of flowers that day. “It was like a dream come true. I was on cloud nine and I can’t remember much about it except the other sidecar crews presented me with a bouquet.”
Rose also received an award from the American and Canadian Division of Women’s International Motorcycle Federation.
The Isle of Man local newspaper called Rose, ‘The fastest woman on the island’.
Despite Rose’s success, there was still a lot of misogynistic prejudice, especially in the press headlines.
- “A wife doing a man’s job.”
- “A rider for the girls to root for.”
- “A woman’s world now.”
Rose never finished on the TT podium again. Her next best performance was seventh in 1969.
Even though she achieved her greatest success with brother-in-law Norman, Rose occasionally raced with her husband, Roy, who himself had a stellar racing career.
Rose and Roy raced at the Isle of Man in 1970, but their engine blew up.
When their only child was born, a daughter, Julie, Rose stepped back from racing.
In 1972, Norman quit competition as the World Champion. He felt he had nothing left to achieve.
This meant when Rose was ready to resume racing, her long-standing partner was unavailable. She said she would have to make do with her husband, but it never came to fruition because Rose suffered serious knee problems, an injury common amongst sidecar passengers.
Rose only ever got on the track again once. In 1998, to commemorate the thirtieth anniversary of her podium appearance, she and Roy did a parade lap at the TT. They were cheered by thousands of spectators.
When they finished the triumphal lap, they were clocked at just under 100mph – a time quick enough for them to have qualified for the main race.
In later years, when Rose had retired, she still attended the Isle of Man races, selling merchandise for the TT Supporters Club, which she and Roy helped to run. She became known as, ‘The Lady of the Paddock.’
Reflecting on her racing career, and competing with both of the Hanks brothers, she called herself, “A Rose between two thorns.”
Roy wrote a book about the history of the Hanks racing family.
The Hanks family finally shut their shop in Erdington in 2006, after sixty years of trading. Roy had just turned seventy and wanted to retire.
Her daughter, Julie Hanks-Elliott, took up the baton and competed in the World Women’s Road Race Championships.
Rose’s twin granddaughters, Jamie and Bobbie, have also taken up the sport, competing at a high level – although Jamie prefers two wheels to sidecars.
Jamie became the first British woman ever to score points in the Motorcycle World Championships.
The family remained very close, all living within five houses of each other in Erdington.
When Rose died, daughter Julie said of her, “When I was born, Dad said perhaps best Mum stay at home. I’m not sure that she did, but she made a brilliant job of everything, even when her knees started to go.”
Rose died after a short illness and is survived by her husband, Roy.
RIP – Rose Invades Podium
