Barbara Skinner

Barbara Skinner was a British driver who raced in the UK and at Le Mans.

From Birmingham, her family was connected with the engineering side of motoring; Herbert Skinner was the founder of SU (Skinner Union) carburettors. Her own father, Thomas, made his fortune from the Lilley & Skinner shoe brand.

She became associated with Morrises in 1932. Her first car was a 21st birthday present from her father. It was a Morris Cowley Special which had previously been his. Although it was a tuned development car with a sporty engine, it was Barbara's road car as well as her first racing car. Her first major achievement in it came five months after she acquired it, when she won the MAC award for a lady driver in a sportscar at the Shelsley Walsh Amateur Hillclimb. She set the same time as Alec Issigonis in an Austin. Issigonis would find fame as the designer of the Mini in 1959.

The Cowley Special wasn't especially competitive and was quickly replaced by a Morris Minor in 1933. This was the "White Minor", which was given to her by William Morris and still exists today. She knocked three seconds off her Shelsley best time in 1933, before setting a ladies' record in 1934, in a supercharged Minor. She achieved this at the 30th MAC Meeting in June, going up the hill in 46.6 seconds. She set exactly the same time as her brother Peter and they were joint third in the 850cc class. At the Open meeting in September, she was not quite as quick, but still picked up another Ladies' award. Away from Shelsley, she won her class in the Lewes Speed Trials.

She excelled at hillclimbs and sprints and competed all round Britain, although Shelsley Walsh was her home track. Normally, she drove a Morris Minor, but she did try other cars, including a larger, borrowed Alta in 1936. She used this car for that year's Brighton Speed Trials, finishing second in the Ladies' Unlimited racing car class behind Eileen Ellison's Maserati. Kay Petre was third in a Riley.

Both she and Peter drove the family's Skinner Special at Shelsley.

In 1933, she also entered her Morris in the RAC Rally and came 30th overall. Finishing positions for her second attempt in 1934 are not forthcoming. This experience of endurance driving would have stood her in good stead for her attempt at Le Mans later.

She occasionally raced at Brooklands, reasonably competitively, and made the trip to Le Mans in 1935, as part of the legendary "Dancing Daughters" MG works team. This was an all-female squad organised by George Eyston. The Dancing Daughters epithet probably came from a radio programme and the team wasn't referred to as such as often as it was referred to as "George's Young Ladies". She and Doreen Evans were 25th, the second of the team's three cars to finish. 

She was also an early competitor at Donington, then billed as "the only road racing circuit in the country". In March 1936, she entered her supercharged Minor into a Frazer Nash Car Club meeting. There was a Ladies' five-lap handicap that weekend, which she pulled out of, before finishing second in the Third Short Handicap.

Later, in October 1936, Barbara married racer and motoring writer John Bolster. The pair had been competing against each other, albeit not always in the same class, for years. She continued to compete in hillclimbs under her married name, in either the Morris or the Skinner Special. This car, which she and Peter raced at Shelsley Walsh in 1937, started life as a Morris Minor, but had an eight-litre Hudson engine.

She was killed in a traffic accident in 1942, aged 31.

(Image copyright Shelsley Walsh)