Racing Is Life - The Beryl Burton Story [DVD]

Product Information

Cycling was taken up as much by women as by men, providing a new found emancipation for late Victorian and Edwardian women by enabling greater freedom of bodily movement and mobility of travel. It became a social pastime, with local groups being formed to go out riding collectively. Before long, by the early 1890s, with the coming of the ‘safety’ cycle and pneumatic tyres, some women became involved in racing and time‐trialling, with a few even turning professional. Many of the participants – such as Jean Smith, Barbara Conway and Pauline Hunter – have since been largely forgotten, although the Croucher sisters, Brenda, Maureen and Carol, of the East Bradford Cycling Club, are perhaps better remembered. Valerie Rushworth was national road race champion in 1964 and won 11 British Championships between 1959 and 1966, going on to represent Great Britain internationally, as a rider and later as coach and team manager. The National Cyclists' Union was formed in 1883 – in a merger of the Bicycle Union and the Tricycle Association – ­and soon after, in 1890, they banned road racing out of fear of the reaction from the upper classes to the sudden increase in working class mobility – to become law in 1896 (H G Well’s novel of that year, Wheels of Chance, indicated the danger). A new body, The Road Racing Council – later to become the Road Time Trials Council (RTTC) - promoted time trial races, done in secrecy, instead. In 1942 a leading rider of the time, Percy Stallard, defied the ban and formed the rival, and dissident, British League of Racing Cyclists (BLRC). This was to eventually merge with the NCU in 1959 to form the British Cycling Federation (BCL), who lifted the ban, although Stallard apparently remained disgruntled. Thus the ban on road racing had only recently been lifted when this was filmed in 1962; the year when Tommy Simpson became the first Briton to wear the yellow jersey on the Tour de France. Burton only discovered cycling later on in life and was introduced to cycling by her husband, Charlie Burton. She took her first National medal in 1957; the start of an incredible cycling career.She dominated women’s cycle racing in the UK, across Europe and around the world, winning almost 100 domestic championships. Her first play is about the life of cycling legend Beryl Burton, which is great news for fans of underappreciated women from the north with the name Beryl who had previously only heard of Beryl Bainbridge.

Ken Nichols and Maureen Nichols, Mud Sweat and Gears: A History of the British Cyclo-Cross Association, Mousehold Press, 2011. I spoke to a journalist called Sue Mott who interviewed Beryl in the early 80s … and she said that she had never met a sportsperson who was so driven and focused as Beryl even having known those sorts of people as well [like Steve Redgrave and Andy Murray],” he says. She won her first national medal in 1957. It was a silver in the national 100- mile individual time trial championship. With that in mind, my only gripe is that ‘Beryl’ is sometimes in danger of becoming mawkish in its level of reverence for its heroine; when we’re told a record she broke remains unbeaten today, the audience break into applause, and the actors do too. The play ends with a roll call of her achievements, the stage laden with trophies. It’s astonishingly formidable, but we’ve just spent two hours learning what an incredible woman she was – we don’t need to have it, quite literally, spelt out to us.

Accessibility tools

Burton’s achievements on the bike were intimately tied to, and often indistinguishable from, her life off it. Cycling was her sport, hobby, social life and means of transport. However, in an era when professional cycling did not really exist – especially for women – it was not a job.

Beryl Burton’s cycling success reads like the script of a Hollywood film. Five times world pursuit champion, thirteen times national champion, twice road-racing world champion and twelve times national champion. Her accolades include time trials, former world record holder, former British record holder, numerous sports awards, an MBE and an OBE. It’s already charmed audiences at the West Yorkshire Playhouse and you can now catch it at the Rose Theatre in Kingston before it goes on a national tour. Burton worked on a rhubarb farm, cleaned houses, and worked on the biscuit counter at the local Co-op supermarket alongside her record-breaking exploits. One of the best bits of Peake’s writing is her confidence with breaking down the fourth wall to provide a sardonic commentary on events. When the play starts, the actors talk about how they had to google Beryl Burton before their auditions. At one point, an actor blames a crap prop on ‘David Cameron and his arts cuts’. It’s an endearing, playful device, almost like being on a school trip and having your mate next to you whisper in your ear.

6.  Leeds Childhoods  - Golden Acre Theme Park

The wheels are 28 spoked, tied and soldered where the spokes cross to make them stiffer, with Airlight hubs, which were a brand made by the British Hub Company. Airlight were jewels of British engineering, and had terrific bearings. The rims are Italian, made by Fiamme. And the tubular tyres, which are too old to inflate, are the legendary Clément number 1s, known as ‘white strips’. The word ‘Seta’ refers to the silk tube, which a thin rubber tread is bonded to and can be seen in the sidewalls. After dying at the age of 58 of heart failure whilst cycling a a memorial garden was made in her honour in her home town in Morley, Leeds.