THE JEAN REVILLE STORY BY DAVID HAUNTON

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JEAN REVILLE - MIDGET MAN OF MYSTERY BY DAVID HAUNTON

David Haunton's acknowledgments....

:::Derek Bridgett, author of Midget Car Speedway (2006), Tempus Publishing Ltd, for much help, for copies of many cuttings he culled from The Light Car and Cyclecar magazine (usually referred to as The Light Car), The Autocar magazine, and other press notices, and for starting this whole enquiry by his letter to the Wimbledon Guardian.

:::John Williams of Brisbane for encouragement, information and long phone calls from Australia. (John is a Welshman whose parents met in Wimbledon, so he is one of us, and therefore a Good Chap.)

:::Merton Library Services for local newspapers, directories, Voters Lists, and finding our first illustration.

:::Volunteers at Epsom and Ewell Local Heritage Centre for memories.

:::My thanks to the enthusiastic and indefatigable volunteers who staff the Epsom and Ewell Local and Family History Centre at Bourne Hall in Ewell, to Derek Bridgett, author of Midget Car Speedway (Tempus, 2006) for yet more information, to Hertfordshire Archives and Local Studies, to Surrey History Centre, and of course to John Williams, midget-hunter extraordinaire.

::: Brief report in Manchester Guardian 14 May 1934.

::: Published in News Chronicle , Northern edition, 10 or 11 May 1934.

::: Letter from Surrey History Centre to author, 1 May 2009

:::He is mentioned as ‘[one] of our best-known exponents’ in Wimbledon Boro’ News 6 September 1935, but apparently never raced again after the Australian trip.

:::Most of this section is due to John Williams of Brisbane, in talks and e-mails January to April 2009. John Williams supplies the definitions of midget car racing in Australia, where the sport continued strongly. ‘Early midgets’ raced between 1914 and 1918/19. In the 1930s, the English press referred to all small racing cars as midgets, but aficionados distinguish between converted road cars (light cars or cycle-cars, ‘not real midgets’) and ‘modern midgets’, which are purpose-built and conform to a set of size and engine capacity regulations which sound very similar to those Jean Reville claimed to have established with his Speedway Racing Drivers Club. Also, some early 1930s races in England were run clockwise – for purists true midgets have always raced counter-clockwise.

:::When Wandsworth Library’s holding of local directories runs out.

:::Letter to author 5 March 2009

:::News Chronicle 12 May 1934

::: R E P Secretan ‘Midget Racing in England’ National Auto Racing News 24 Feb 1938 (An American weekly; now National Speed Sport News).

::::SPECIAL NOTE::::The chapters previously appeared as a three-part series in the 2009 bulletins 169 (March), 170 (June) and 171 (September) of the MERTON HISTORICAL SOCIETY, secretary: Mrs S Harris, 100 Cannnon Hill Lane, SW20 9ET.

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CHAPTER ONE
THIS article is a tentative statement of work in progress. There are so many loose ends that an alternative title might well be ‘Jean Reville: International Man of Mystery’.

Our hero was a racing driver and racing car maker, based in Merton Park. He was briefly famous during 1934 and 1935 in the brand new sport of midget car racing. This enjoyed a short-lived vogue in Britain before the War, employing tiny purpose-built cars which hurtled round three or four laps of a small oval dirt-track course.

Early Days
‘Jean’ Reville was his preferred publicity name. His given names, as reported in Merton and Morden Voters Lists, were Eric Jene (consistently so spelt). Here I shall refer to him as Jean. We do not know where he was born, but from his 1928 marriage certificate we learn that his father, James Jocelyn Reville, was a flour miller and manager, and that Jean was then 28 years old, so born c.1900. However, the family do not appear to be in the 1901 census or those parts of the 1911 census available at present. (Is immigration more probable than name change?)

Jean married Daisy Florence Epsom ‘otherwise Palmer’ of Croydon, at Hammersmith Register Office in 1928, describing himself as a confectionery salesman. By May 1929, the couple had moved into 3 Merton Park Parade, a confectionery shop. There they joined Arthur Thomas Palmer and his wife Elizabeth Jane, who had been in residence and keeping the shop since 1914. (I believe that, to hold a lease or own a freehold, Arthur must have been over 20 years old in 1914, so he would be at least 35 in 1929.)

Intriguingly, in 1929 Jean and Daisy married again, this time in St Mary’s Church in Merton Park, with Jean now a ‘motor engineer’. (What was the impediment to the first wedding ?) I presume that Daisy was a relation of the Palmers. It is curious that she is entered in the Voters List for October 1929 under her maiden name of Epsom, with her qualification being that of the wife of a resident. In the 1930 Voters List, Daisy is safely ‘Reville’ and remains so while in Merton.

At this point we should note that the Merton Park Parade of shops, with flats above, curves round from Kingston Road into Watery Lane. Nos.1–12 form a continuous terrace and were built in 1907. Then there is an open plot (thus avoiding any need for a no.13), and then a detached showroom, no.14, which was added in 1930 with an unusual triangular ground plan. The open plot and no.14 have always been occupied together, by motor engineers and/or traders.

In 1930, Arthur and Jean started a new venture called Palmer Reville & Co. This offered ‘motor hire services’ based on 3 Merton Park Parade. The following year they raised sufficient capital (from whom?) to move this business to no.14, while Arthur retained and continued the confectionery shop at no.3. In 1931 they were joined by Dennis James Reville and his wife Grace Gladys, who occupied 14A Merton Park Parade, the flat above the showroom.

I believe that Dennis was a younger (?) brother of Jean, who assisted at Palmer Reville & Co. I presume they erected some sort of temporary workshop and garage on the open plot, where they began to modify BSA front wheel drive sports cars, which they offered for sale under the tag of ‘Palmer Specials’. They were sufficiently successful in this that by the end of 1933 they could offer three different versions – the ‘Ulster’ 2-seater and ‘Le Mans’ 4-seater for touring, and the ‘Brooklands’ 2-seater for more dedicated sportsmen.

The Sport
There were many car-based competitions in the 1920s and 1930s – time trials, rallies, hill climbs, economy runs, even a few road races on private land. All over the country young men with spanners modified and tuned some of the immense variety of small cars available. Motorcycle racing on dirt-tracks began in the mid-1920s; car races with standard roadsters on the same tracks were occasional events that became more frequent during the early 1930s.

The first dirt-track meeting for midget cars featuring specially-designed vehicles was held in June 1933 in Sacramento, California. This exciting new sport rapidly became widely popular across the USA and then crossed to Britain in 1934. Chiefly performed at greyhound racing and motorcycle speedway stadiums, the sport was calculated to attract a more numerous, working-class, paying audience than traditional motor racing, where fans tended to be more upper-class. Normally a programme contained a dozen or more races.

First Racing Car
I suspect that Jean acquired his racing experience in amateur sports over the period 1929-1933. He certainly drove in dirt-track races during 1933 (eg. at Wembley Stadium in early August), using a BSA sports car ‘of somewhat special attributes’. Since the firm’s later cars were known as Palmer Specials rather than Palmer Revilles, I speculate that at the same time Arthur was developing expertise in car modification.

Arthur Palmer and Jean Reville decided that they could exploit the new midget racer arena, and so created a single-seat midget Palmer Special towards the end of 1933. This was a variant of their existing designs, with small wheels and a low, narrow and rather crude body, in which the cylinder heads of the ‘Vee’ engine protruded through the bonnet. The driver’s seat was moved to the centre-line, but the steering wheel remained in its original position, so that the steering column pointed at the driver’s right shoulder. Versions were offered for sale for £180 ‘including engine mods’. This was raced during the 1934 season, and was evidently improved and ‘cleaned up’ as time went on. A few (two or three?) further examples were produced.
(c) DAVID HAUNTON 2009

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CHAPTER TWO:
JEAN REVILLE threw his energies into promotion and publicity. He set up a Speedway Racing Drivers Club, based at 14 Merton Park Parade, which organised the first British race meetings for midget cars, at Crystal Palace, and drew up rules for size and engine capacity of the cars. The first meeting was on 31 March 1934 (Easter weekend), and Reville interested Paramount Films sufficiently for them to send a film crew.

Both the first and the second (14 April) meetings were advertised in the Times, as was another on 26 May. All these were on Saturdays. Also in May, he posed for a publicity picture with the Hon. Victoria Worsley, a socialite and racing driver, before her attempt at a lap record at Crystal Palace on Whit Monday (the Wimbledon Boro’ News calling him ‘the well-known local racing motorist’).

As well as this activity, Jean was racing at least once a week throughout a season lasting until September; at Crystal Palace this was often as the captain of the local team of three drivers. By 23 November 1934 The Autocar could describe him as ‘the originator of miniature-car dirt-track racing in this country’.

The Gnat
In November 1934, Reville’s publicity machine announced a new car in the motoring press, while the Wimbledon Boro’ News had an early picture of Reville himself in ‘his latest baby car’ on 7 December.

This was the Gnat, a specially designed midget racer with a 992cc JAP motorcycle engine, one gear and one small brake. Initially the exhaust pipe ran between the driver’s knees, which ‘must have added to the excitement’. Only six feet long, the Gnat was billed as the ‘World’s Smallest Racing Car’, with ‘Jean Reville’ prominent in its paintwork, and ‘Palmer Special’ rather more quietly across the radiator. In January,

The Light Car had portrait photos of the machine itself, and commented approvingly that the ‘Palmer-Reville duo had done a great deal of serious thinking on the subject of the right kind of dirt-track car’. This was followed on 1 February by news of design changes as a result of testing. (But where were the test runs held ?) Later opinion was not so flattering: ‘unbelievably crude’ was one Australian comment delivered decades later with 100% hindsight – but what else could be expected of two pioneering young men with spanners ?

During February 1935 a certain unreality creeps into the publicity – there are reports that Jean Reville has plans to produce 50 machines ‘by Easter’, backed by a company with ‘unlimited capital’, and that he intends to take a team of six English drivers to California to compete against ‘the Americans’.

Such euphoric talk may have been stimulated by meeting Joel ‘Joe’ W Thorne, the playboy American heir to two millionaires, pilot, and driver of fast cars, boats and motorcycles. The two men were pictured in the local press in February, Thorne having just competed in the Monte Carlo Rally, and genially agreeing he would raise a team of midget racers (in the USA) and return in the summer.

On 21 February he sailed for New York from Southampton aboard the luxurious Ile de France, and apparently did not return to Britain before the Second World War: at least, he did not again leave Britain by ship in that period.) Of course, all Jean Reville’s talk may have been ‘shooting a line’ with his tongue firmly in his cheek. He must have known that producing 50 Gnats in eight or nine weeks was quite impossible on the Merton Park premises – in the event it seems only five or six machines were made over the next few months.

Jean Reville had a very busy and successful 1935 racing season, with much publicity. For example, he won three races at Crystal Palace on Easter Monday, raced at the Silver Jubilee meeting at White City in May, and the second Lea Bridge meeting on the Saturday before Whitsun, and competed in three meetings over Whitsun – on the Saturday at the opening meeting of the Perry Hill Stadium in Catford, on Whit Monday at Crystal Palace in the afternoon, and at Lea Bridge Stadium in the evening.

Probably his last appearance on a British track was at the recently opened Wimbledon Stadium on 1 September. This was a two-car match arranged by the stadium management to test the interest of the local greyhound racing (known locally as ‘gracing’) and motorcycle speedway fans. In the event, his opponent’s car ‘refused to function’ and Jean was reduced to driving a solo demonstration run, which was adjudged ‘insufficiently interesting’. This seems to have been the only occasion on which midget racing cars were shown at Wimbledon.

And Away...
At some point in 1935, Arthur Palmer had relinquished the sweetshop at 3 Merton Park Parade and taken a newly-built double-fronted shop at 215/217 Kingston Road, Ewell, where he sold toys and prams as well as confectionery. All six Palmers and Revilles moved into the new accommodation. Dennis continued the motor hire service until 1937, when 14 Merton Park Parade passed to Mr A G Spencer, motor engineer.

With the end of the 1935 British season, Jean Reville accepted a contract to race for a season in Australia, along with two other drivers. They were to tour as an ‘England’ team using three Gnats and competing against local drivers and machines. Reville was billed as the ‘British Champion’; the other two were ‘Bud’ Stanley (allegedly of Wimbledon, but whose given name no-one seems to know) and Ralph E P Secretan. On 13 September 1935, Jean Reville ‘racing motorist’ sailed from London for Sydney aboard the SS Orsova, together with Ralph Secretan and his wife, but without his own wife Daisy. And he never came back.

The team had a good Australian season, starting at the newly-opened Sydney Showground on 2 November, and later going on to race at Melbourne and Brisbane. Stanley and Secretan returned to England in early 1936, but Reville stayed on in Brisbane. (Why ?)

According to my Brisbane correspondent John Williams, Reville subsequently had a successful racing career in Australia, supplemented by a motor-import business and various half-hearted engineering enterprises. In 1945 he married the daughter of William Jolley, the mayor of Brisbane, and they later had a son. (What had happened to Daisy ? She had not sailed for Australia by 1948.) Jean Reville remained in Brisbane until he died in the early 1980s. Sadly, in later life he made many claims about his involvement with English midget car racing, but most if not all are exaggerated or false. (See Part 2.)

Arthur Palmer occupied his new shop with its prams and toys until at least 1960, when he retired elsewhere. The shop, with its window display of a working electric train set, is still fondly remembered in Ewell. I must also admit to a soft spot for Arthur Thomas Palmer, confectioner and racing car designer (part-time).
(c) DAVID HAUNTON 2009

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CHAPTER THREE

IN chapter one I began by saying that ‘this is a work in progress’. Progress has been made, so there are some changes. We now know that Jean Reville was born Eric John Revell on 24 October 1899 in Puckeridge, a small village in Hertfordshire. He was the son of James Joslen [sic] Revell, a carman (driver of a horse and cart), and Emma Cecilia, née Barker, and had left Puckeridge by 1922, presumably for London.

Brother Dennis was not younger, but five years older than Jean. A draper’s assistant in 1911, after a spell in the wartime Army (Bedfordshire Regiment), he married Grace Johnson in 1920, and they ran a stationer’s shop in High Street, Puckeridge 1922-1933. Then they joined Jean and Daisy in Merton Park Parade, and changed the spelling of their name to Reville. Dennis became part of the Palmer-Reville operation; he acted as a ‘Steward appointed for the Meeting’ for the Easter 1934 meeting at Crystal Palace (Jean was ‘Track Manager’), and continued the Merton Park garage operation for two or three years after Jean left England.

Arthur Thomas Palmer was rather older than I thought. He was born in 1876 in Rotherhithe, and so was 34 when he moved into a confectionery shop at 82 Kingston Road, Merton, in 1910. Four years later he moved again, to 3 Merton Park Parade. He and his wife Elizabeth Jane seem to have had no children, but Daisy Florence Epsom, their niece, was already living with them in 1911, aged 12 (which explains the ‘Epsom otherwise Palmer’ on her marriage lines). There is no trace of her parents Annie and Arthur (milk carrier of Lewisham in 1901), nor her older twin siblings, also Arthur and Annie, in those parts of the 1911 Census available to date.

Jean Reville and Daisy had two children, Arthur Eric (June 1930) and Margaret Ann (August 1932), so Daisy would have had good reason not to accompany Jean to Australia. There would thus have been eight rather than six Palmers and Revilles who moved into the double shop premises in Ewell in 1935, with Arthur Palmer now 58. When he retired, it was Daisy who continued the Ewell business, ‘trading as A T Palmer’. Dennis and Grace Reville stayed with her until they died, in 1952 and 1958 respectively. Jean’s daughter Margaret Reville left in 1954. Jean’s son Arthur Reville had married another Margaret in 1952, and the couple remained with Daisy until she retired, aged 60, in 1959. The business was then continued by a Mr and Mrs Derry, still trading under the ‘A T Palmer’ name.

England Snippets
Jean Reville never described himself as a mechanic – my mistake in Part 1 – but as a confectioner for both his weddings, in 1928 and 1929, as a garage proprietor in 1932, and eventually as a racing motorist in 1935.

On 12 May 1934 Jean Reville was one of the attractions at the first midget car race meeting at Belle Vue Stadium in Manchester. This was not too successful, as ‘the track was too narrow for three cars abreast’. Intriguingly, pre-event publicity included a photo of another car racing past Jean’s, which is lying on its side, with Jean standing beside it; evidently a previous occasion.

6 April 1935: the programme for the Easter Monday meeting at Crystal Palace shows that at least six Palmer Specials had been built and survived to race that day. The publicity machine is evident – there is a Special Challenge Match Race between Jean Reville in the Gnat, ‘First appearance on any Speedway’, and Jimmy Hanley ‘the famous Gaumont British film artist of Little Friend’ (a recently-released film). Hanley was a child star, only 16 at the time. He had presumably met Reville while working at Merton Park Film Studios, just across the road from the Merton Park Parade premises. What 16-year-old boy could resist ?

One possible explanation of Jean Reville’s failure to return to England after the Australian trip has now been rebutted: a search of the bankruptcy petitions to Kingston County Court for 1934-1936 found no reference to him. So we have to ponder further.

‘Bud Stanley’, the third of the British drivers who raced in Australia, has now been unmasked by inspection of the passenger list of the SS Orsova. This was the pseudonym of Stanley Edgar Budd (ho ho), born in Wimbledon in 1910 to George Budd, jobbing gardener, and his wife Harriet. The family were living at 60 Haydon’s Road in 1911, less than a mile from Merton Park Parade, and moved to Oatlands Road, Burgh Heath, some time before 1934. Between 1897 and 1900 they were in Ware, Hertfordshire, a town only seven miles from Puckeridge. Did the Budds know the Revells back then?
(c) DAVID HAUNTON 2009

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CHAPTER FOUR

Australia
1936: Contrary to my statement in chapter one, Jean Reville seems not to have raced in Australia after the somewhat intermittent season for which he was engaged, and in which he enjoyed only patchy success. At the end of the season, he landed in hospital with an injured hand and arm, perhaps exacerbating the injury received at Crystal Palace in 1934. All three Gnats that he had taken with him to Australia were sold in March 1936.

An Australian neighbour of the elderly Jean Reville recalled that he was an entertaining and persuasive talker, who could sell you anything. However, a junior-school friend of his Australian son Bruce recalled Jean as full of talk about his great past, but commented ‘no-one believed him’. Some of his claims will be examined in Part 3. His persuasive abilities were tested in another field, when he stood (but was not elected) as a Group B candidate for Queensland in the Australian Federal elections in November 1958, and again in 1972.

A Race Meeting
Let us remember Jean Reville in his brief prime, as an excellent and competitive dare-devil of a racing driver. Here reproduced in its entirety is a rather breathless account from the Wimbledon Boro’ News of 1 June 1934, which gives the flavour of a typical midget car race meeting, and of the incidents and accidents which might befall a ‘racing motorist’. (The dirt-track at Crystal Palace was built within the Corinthians’ football stadium in 1927, and used for motorcycle events from 1928. The track circuit would measure only some 350 yards.) Note that in this article ‘Marett’ may be a mistake for ‘Marriot’.

From the Wimbledon Boro’ News 9 March 1934:
Midget Cars in Collision
Wimbledon Drivers’ Thrilling Race

A large crowd at Crystal Palace Speedway on Saturday saw Victor Gillow beat Jean Reville, the Wimbledon racing motorist, in the first heats of the British Individual Midget Car Dirt Track Championship, organised by the Speedway Racing Drivers Club, Merton Park Parade, Wimbledon. There were, as usual, thrills and spills in every race, although all the drivers concerned luckily escaped unhurt. The standard of racing was particularly good with fast times and close finishes being the order of the evening. The main attraction was the first heats of the British Individual Championships, in which the first two contenders were Victor Gillow and Jean Reville. These two drivers met each other in three 4-lap races, each run off from a rolling start. They proved the two fastest drivers throughout the meeting.

In Heat 1 Reville and Gillow entered the first bend side by side at over 45 mph and for a lap they were practically locked together until Reville gained a slight lead coming out of the Paddock bend, and held it to the finish, winning by ten yards in the excellent time of 95 seconds. Before the commencement of Heat 2 Gillow took the precaution of changing over to rough-tread tyres, owing to the treacherous nature of the track.

From the inside position and with slightly better acceleration off the mark, Gillow was into the first bend some distance ahead of Reville, who nothing daunted kept his foot down for the remainder of the race. In spite of the fact that he twice over-slid and hit the fence, Reville succeeded in slightly reducing Gillow’s lead. However, the latter eventually won by 12 yards in 94.4 seconds.

Spoiled by Mishap
In Heat 3 both cars were smartly off the mark and into the first bend together. What promised to be the most exciting of the heats was spoilt through Reville getting an eyeful of cinders while crossing behind Gillow to the inside position. With a clear track, Gillow then proceeded to give what was probably his finest display of spectacular driving on the Crystal Palace track, winning by about 15 yards in the record time of 94.2 seconds.

In the second semi-final of the Crystal Palace scratch race, Jean Reville (Palmer Special) emerged from a tremendous cloud of dust with Leon Marett (Palmer Special) also of Wimbledon, hot on his heels, while Hagborg and Pat Regan were fighting a separate battle for third place some considerable distance in the rear. For three whole laps Reville and Marett thundered round with only inches separating their cars, until Reville struck a bump on entering the Paddock bend, which caused his car to leap quite two feet in the air, colliding with Marett’s car as it came to earth again.

With a terrific wrench on the steering wheel Reville coolly averted what might have been a nasty accident by broad-siding his car completely off the track. He was, however, travelling at such a speed that that it took the whole length of the football pitch to bring the car to a standstill. It was then found that the steering of Reville’s car was ... badly damaged, and in addition, a badly sprained wrist would not permit him to compete again in the meeting. The race was finally won by Marett, with Pat Regan second, in 99 seconds.

Gillow again scored in the final with Hagborg second, Pat Regan third and Marett last. The absence of Reville robbed the race of much of its interest, as the spectators were eagerly anticipating another Reville-Gillow duel. Gillow won by 40 yards in 96 seconds. This Saturday there will be record attempts and match races

(c) DAVID HAUNTON 2009

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CHAPTER FIVE:

Speculation: Arthur and Lancelot
It’s a clue, isn’t it ? But is it a blatant one ?
[/i]
I wonder if there was any connection between Lancelot ‘Lance’ Palmer of Palmer’s Garage, Tooting, established 1904, and Arthur Palmer of Palmer’s Confectioners, Merton, established 1910. Was Lancelot a cousin, and did he provide the initial finance for 14 Merton Park Parade?

The two businesses were situated less than two miles apart along a main road. Lancelot was born in 1884, to George James Palmer, master builder. In 1920 his business occupied nos.183-199 Tooting High Street, but by 1928 his premises were reduced to nos.191-195 where he ran a ‘motor spirit service station’ until at least 1934. Lancelot lived at 190 Mellison Road, Tooting, from at least 1911 until 1934, initially with his father George and mother Caroline, eventually alone.

Later Claims
In later life Jean Reville claimed much that was untrue about the part he played in the beginnings of midget car speedway – the most important part of his life, where he had a genuine claim to fame – expanding his role to the extent that one could say he was recalling a fantasy life of his own imagination.

Perhaps he was shocked that, after two years of prominence, from being a very big fish in the small English pond (he was British champion in 1935) he became just another driver in the increasingly well-organised and technically advanced Australian midget car racing scene. Though, as midget car historian Derek Bridgett remarks, ‘One often finds that ex-speedway riders exaggerate and get faster and better with age!’ [/font][/font]
(c) DAVID HAUNTON 2009

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CHAPTER SIX

AMONG the things Jean Reville claimed in the 1960s were:

(1) He was not born in Britain. This fantasy trades on his adopted name, and started early – he is already ‘Eric Jean Reville’ when getting married in May 1928, while in the official programme for Easter Monday 1935, he is listed as ‘of France’. He may have visited or even raced in France or Belgium – a newspaper report mentions his ‘big continental reputation’, though I have found no evidence yet in French racing sources.

(2) His mother died when he was young, and his father re-married. This tale seems to have adapted elements of his wife Daisy’s family history, not his own. His parents were still alive, together in Puckeridge, in 1928, having then been married 35 years, whereas Daisy’s immediate family seems to have disappeared by the time she was 12.

(3) He had raced at Brooklands race track and had a workshop and driving school there. Alas, Brooklands Museum can reveal no trace of Palmer or Reville among the recorded renters of lock-up shops there (though the records are incomplete), and the curator has never heard of midget cars racing on the circuit. Perhaps this hints at acquaintance with Lancelot Palmer (‘aeroplane engineer’ in his 1920 advert) who may well have had dealings with aircraft firms at Brooklands airfield in 1914-1918.

(4) He introduced midget car racing to England in 1932. The date more probably marks his entry to dirt-track racing, well before midgets.

(5) He entered 354 races (and won 300). This might just be true – if we count four seasons (1932-1935) of racing in all types of cars. It allows about 90 races a year, about four or five per week over a 20-week season. The curiously exact ‘354’ smacks of private log-books, (with an eye on future publicity ?), while ‘300’ might imply he had only the most recent one to consult (and exaggerate).

(6) He built a vastly improved Flying Gnat in summer 1935, which was not one of the three Gnats he took to Australia, ‘through a shipping mix-up’. There was no mention of the name in the contemporary press, though The Light Car did report his plan for a car with two 500cc engines in May 1935. Fellow driver Ralph Secretan confirmed that Reville’s mechanic Ted Andrews ‘laid out and built the first four-wheel drive [midget]’ but this ‘never actually competed’. I presume that had such a car been built, Reville would have advertised it widely in publicity photographs. Possibly the Flying Gnat was this new version, under construction, and Reville later convinced himself that it had been completed.

(7) The firm had a secret test track ‘up at Furneau, north of London’. This is presumably Furneaux Pelham, a few miles up the Great North Road from Ralph Secretan’s home in Gloucester Place near Regent’s Park. However, the local pronunciation is ‘Furnix’, not ‘Furnow’, Hertfordshire Archive and Local Studies have no record of a track there, and enquiry to the very active Stevenage and District Motor Cycle Club produced a deafening silence. Presumably Jean knew Furneaux Pelham from his youth, as it is only four miles from Puckeridge, where he was born. He may also have known the Rye House Stadium in Hoddesdon, Hertfordshire, which opened in 1934 for speedway training.

(8) All Palmer-Reville business records and experimental machines were destroyed by a bomb during the War. This is my specialist subject, and I cannot find any bomb near enough to be responsible. This claim may have been inspired by the fact that such a disaster did befall the Skirrow family, who built excellent midget racers in England 1935-1939.

(9) Jean later recalled his ‘brilliant mechanic Edouard Specq’, but there is no mention of the name other than in Reville’s notes, written 30 years after the events. I suggest this is Ted (ie. Edward) Andrews in disguise: the mechanic who polished every speck of dust from the racing cars was dubbed ‘Ted the Speck’, and this got playfully Frenchified into ‘Edouard Specq’.

(10) Jean set up a company with Sir Henry Buckland to manufacture and promote midget racing cars. In the 1930s Sir Henry was the moving spirit and General Manager of the Crystal Palace complex, so of course Jean Reville had dealings with him when setting up his 1934 meetings. Would such a shrewd businessman have backed a small firm like Palmer-Reville without any real resources ?

(11) There is also an Internet rumour that Reville went to the United States in 1928, and started the midget car racing scene in Sacramento in 1933. This must be false, as emigration sailing records show that Jean (or Eric) Reville (or Revell) did not leave England by sea in the period 1925 to 1934, and it is most unlikely that he had the money to leave by air.
(c) DAVID HAUNTON 2009