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Sidney the robin

Fay Taylour the greatest woman rider.

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Just been reading up on the Irish lady rider who rode from the 1920s onwards Fay Taylour she seemed a real star.Mixing it with the men and being a box office attraction when visiting different venues .Anybody got any more information about her be great to hear about it.

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On 4/18/2019 at 12:04 PM, Sidney the robin said:

Just been reading up on the Irish lady rider who rode from the 1920s onwards Fay Taylour she seemed a real star.Mixing it with the men and being a box office attraction when visiting different venues .Anybody got any more information about her be great to hear about it.

Without checking my collection of 'Vintage' & 'Classic' magazines, Sid,  I'm sure there have been references made about her and I'm guesiing that the author would heve been John Chaplin.

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1 minute ago, steve roberts said:

Without checking my collection of 'Vintage' & 'Classic' magazines, Sid,  I'm sure there have been references made about her and I'm guesiing that the author would heve been John Chaplin.

John a great man and sadly missed a terrific historian of the sport.Reading a book that John wrote got me hooked on the great Tom Farndon and i believe the history of our sport should be cherished.

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She has been mentioned a number of times on different threads on "Years Gone By" topics. If you type her name in the search bar, you will find a lot more information about her.

By the way, are you talking about the biography of Tom Farndon, Steve?

Edited by norbold

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13 minutes ago, norbold said:

She has been mentioned a number of times on different threads on "Years Gone By" topics. If you type her name in the search bar, you will find a lot more information about her.

By the way, are you talking about the biography of Tom Farndon, Steve?

Unfortunately I don't have a copy of the Tom Farndon book but I have several written by John Chaplin.

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5 hours ago, steve roberts said:

Unfortunately I don't have a copy of the Tom Farndon book but I have several written by John Chaplin.

Sorry, my question should have been directed at Sidney. My mistake. 

Anyway, I highly recommend you get a copy of our Tom Farndon book, Steve!

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20 hours ago, norbold said:

Sorry, my question should have been directed at Sidney. My mistake. 

Anyway, I highly recommend you get a copy of our Tom Farndon book, Steve!

Hi Norbold i will get the Tom Farndon book how do you get it Amazon maybe??.The first Tom Farndon article i really took note of was in a John Chaplin book can't remember the name Ole was on the front of it.A terrific book and ever since then  have took a huge interest in his career i sometimes feel Tom gets forgotten as he never got a chance to prove his greatness.I did see Norbold there is a brilliant autograph book on EBay with Tom's signature in it 30 pounds onwards and i believe it will go for quite a bit i would certainly love it.

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2 hours ago, Sidney the robin said:

Hi Norbold i will get the Tom Farndon book how do you get it Amazon maybe??.The first Tom Farndon article i really took note of was in a John Chaplin book can't remember the name Ole was on the front of it.A terrific book and ever since then  have took a huge interest in his career i sometimes feel Tom gets forgotten as he never got a chance to prove his greatness.I did see Norbold there is a brilliant autograph book on EBay with Tom's signature in it 30 pounds onwards and i believe it will go for quite a bit i would certainly love it.

I got my copy on Amazon. Cheaper for me to get books and dvd's from Amazon.co.uk and get them shipped over, than to buy them on the main American site!

Steve

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2 hours ago, Sidney the robin said:

Hi Norbold i will get the Tom Farndon book how do you get it Amazon maybe??.The first Tom Farndon article i really took note of was in a John Chaplin book can't remember the name Ole was on the front of it.A terrific book and ever since then  have took a huge interest in his career i sometimes feel Tom gets forgotten as he never got a chance to prove his greatness.I did see Norbold there is a brilliant autograph book on EBay with Tom's signature in it 30 pounds onwards and i believe it will go for quite a bit i would certainly love it.

I can highly recommend the Tom Farndon book, Sidney. :D

Some years ago I was at a college reunion. Funnily enough, the person who first gave me the nickname, norbold, was there. I hadn't seen or heard from him since we'd left college about 45 years previously. During the reunion, he said to me that someone had brought along a small autograph book to sell at his school fete (he was a headteacher now), but it hadn't sold and the owner was just going to throw it away. He had a look at it and realised it was full of old speedway riders' autographs. He rescued the book as he hoped he would be seeing me at the reunion. He knew I was interested in speedway because he had seen some of my books in his local bookshop.

Anyway, he showed me the book and I couldn't believe it. It contained dozens of speedway autographs including Tom Farndon, Vic Huxley, Lionel Van Praag, Johnnie Hoskins, Alec Jackson, Dick Case and many many other top riders. He asked me how much I thought it was worth. I told him he could probably get at least £75 for it. He thanked me and took the book back.

Later on, just as I was leaving, he came over to me and said, "Here you might as well have the book, it's no good to me and I could see how much it meant to you." I reminded him it was probably worth at least £75 and he just shrugged and said, "It's ok, I wouldn't have known if you hadn't told me and we were just going to throw it away anyway." So he gave it to me for nothing.

A little while later I showed the book to John Somerville and he offered me £100 on the spot for it. I said it wasn't for sale. I still have the book today. A prized possession!

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1 hour ago, norbold said:

I can highly recommend the Tom Farndon book, Sidney. :D

Some years ago I was at a college reunion. Funnily enough, the person who first gave me the nickname, norbold, was there. I hadn't seen or heard from him since we'd left college about 45 years previously. During the reunion, he said to me that someone had brought along a small autograph book to sell at his school fete (he was a headteacher now), but it hadn't sold and the owner was just going to throw it away. He had a look at it and realised it was full of old speedway riders' autographs. He rescued the book as he hoped he would be seeing me at the reunion. He knew I was interested in speedway because he had seen some of my books in his local bookshop.

Anyway, he showed me the book and I couldn't believe it. It contained dozens of speedway autographs including Tom Farndon, Vic Huxley, Lionel Van Praag, Johnnie Hoskins, Alec Jackson, Dick Case and many many other top riders. He asked me how much I thought it was worth. I told him he could probably get at least £75 for it. He thanked me and took the book back.

Later on, just as I was leaving, he came over to me and said, "Here you might as well have the book, it's no good to me and I could see how much it meant to you." I reminded him it was probably worth at least £75 and he just shrugged and said, "It's ok, I wouldn't have known if you hadn't told me and we were just going to throw it away anyway." So he gave it to me for nothing.

A little while later I showed the book to John Somerville and he offered me £100 on the spot for it. I said it wasn't for sale. I still have the book today. A prized possession!

Wow! Hey, I wouldn't part with that either!

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On 4/18/2019 at 12:04 PM, Sidney the robin said:

Just been reading up on the Irish lady rider who rode from the 1920s onwards Fay Taylour she seemed a real star.Mixing it with the men and being a box office attraction when visiting different venues .Anybody got any more information about her be great to hear about it.

Try http://www.historicspeedway.co.nz/Fay Taylour.htm or just type Fay Taylour speedway into your search engine. There's lots available.

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18 hours ago, norbold said:

I can highly recommend the Tom Farndon book, Sidney. :D

Some years ago I was at a college reunion. Funnily enough, the person who first gave me the nickname, norbold, was there. I hadn't seen or heard from him since we'd left college about 45 years previously. During the reunion, he said to me that someone had brought along a small autograph book to sell at his school fete (he was a headteacher now), but it hadn't sold and the owner was just going to throw it away. He had a look at it and realised it was full of old speedway riders' autographs. He rescued the book as he hoped he would be seeing me at the reunion. He knew I was interested in speedway because he had seen some of my books in his local bookshop.

Anyway, he showed me the book and I couldn't believe it. It contained dozens of speedway autographs including Tom Farndon, Vic Huxley, Lionel Van Praag, Johnnie Hoskins, Alec Jackson, Dick Case and many many other top riders. He asked me how much I thought it was worth. I told him he could probably get at least £75 for it. He thanked me and took the book back.

Later on, just as I was leaving, he came over to me and said, "Here you might as well have the book, it's no good to me and I could see how much it meant to you." I reminded him it was probably worth at least £75 and he just shrugged and said, "It's ok, I wouldn't have known if you hadn't told me and we were just going to throw it away anyway." So he gave it to me for nothing.

A little while later I showed the book to John Somerville and he offered me £100 on the spot for it. I said it wasn't for sale. I still have the book today. A prized possession!

A great story that Norbold i bet you would not sell it for 1000 pounds,i have a prized Peter Craven autograph that my uncle got signed in pencil.Speedway autographs and pictures have always been a passion of mine and it has got me hooked on memorabilia and the history of our great sport.

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18 hours ago, norbold said:

I can highly recommend the Tom Farndon book, Sidney. :D

Some years ago I was at a college reunion. Funnily enough, the person who first gave me the nickname, norbold, was there. I hadn't seen or heard from him since we'd left college about 45 years previously. During the reunion, he said to me that someone had brought along a small autograph book to sell at his school fete (he was a headteacher now), but it hadn't sold and the owner was just going to throw it away. He had a look at it and realised it was full of old speedway riders' autographs. He rescued the book as he hoped he would be seeing me at the reunion. He knew I was interested in speedway because he had seen some of my books in his local bookshop.

Anyway, he showed me the book and I couldn't believe it. It contained dozens of speedway autographs including Tom Farndon, Vic Huxley, Lionel Van Praag, Johnnie Hoskins, Alec Jackson, Dick Case and many many other top riders. He asked me how much I thought it was worth. I told him he could probably get at least £75 for it. He thanked me and took the book back.

Later on, just as I was leaving, he came over to me and said, "Here you might as well have the book, it's no good to me and I could see how much it meant to you." I reminded him it was probably worth at least £75 and he just shrugged and said, "It's ok, I wouldn't have known if you hadn't told me and we were just going to throw it away anyway." So he gave it to me for nothing.

A little while later I showed the book to John Somerville and he offered me £100 on the spot for it. I said it wasn't for sale. I still have the book today. A prized possession!

Strange how items come about, a couple of years ago I was at the Halifax reunion, they had a small auction & a old autograph book come up, I got for a few quid, full of old autographs, all 3 Craven on one page!

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After writing my little story above I dug out the book as I haven't looked at it for a while. Here is a fuller list of the well-known speedway autographs it contains:

Sprouts Elder, Tom Farndon, Lionel Van Praag, Wally Kilmister, Gus Kuhn, Alec Jackson, Eric Gregory, Norman Evans, George Greenwood, Vic Huxley, Dick Case, Buster Frogley, Alf Foulds, Bluey Wilkinson and Johnnie Hoskins.

It also contains a number of photographs of teams and individual riders as well as some other autographs of actors, including Robertson Hare, and an autograph of World Flyweight Boxing Champion, Jimmy Wilde. It won't be up for sale on eBay any time soon!

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11 minutes ago, norbold said:

After writing my little story above I dug out the book as I haven't looked at it for a while. Here is a fuller list of the well-known speedway autographs it contains:

Sprouts Elder, Tom Farndon, Lionel Van Praag, Wally Kilmister, Gus Kuhn, Alec Jackson, Eric Gregory, Norman Evans, George Greenwood, Vic Huxley, Dick Case, Buster Frogley, Alf Foulds, Bluey Wilkinson and Johnnie Hoskins.

It also contains a number of photographs of teams and individual riders as well as some other autographs of actors, including Robertson Hare, and an autograph of World Flyweight Boxing Champion, Jimmy Wilde. It won't be up for sale on eBay any time soon!

I can see why John offered you a £100!!

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