by Tom Rubython
In retirement, they made up for the years they had been apart and did everything together. Wallis quickly became involved with Clouds House, which was an addiction rehabilitation charity. Peter Hunt described it as “probably the most rewarding work he had ever done.” Wallis worked closely with Nick Barton, the director of the charity. Sue was also not entirely inactive, serving as a church warden and organising the local meals-on-wheels service.
But there was also plenty of time for leisure, as Peter Hunt recalls: “Wallis sang in several choirs, developed new hobbies, such as bird watching and travelling to remote and exciting countries on what can only be described as ‘intrepid holidays.’”
Eventually, Wallis had to slow down, and, after a long illness, he died in the spring of 2001. Wallis and Sue had been married for almost 58 years and had enjoyed every moment together. Sue had hoped he would hang on to celebrate their 58th wedding anniversary, but it was not to be.
He was 78 and dealt with his last illness with great forbearance. Peter Hunt says: “Wallis remained a rock to Sue and his children, grandchildren and great grandchildren until his death. He bore his last illness with remarkable but typical stoicism and strength, never complaining, and was always far more interested in other people than in his own problems.”
Announcing his death in The Times, Sue Hunt described Wallis as “her best mate.” That was surely true. In his eulogy at the memorial service, held at Wellington College, Peter said: “He was, quite simply, a bloody nice bloke and we all miss him terribly.” Carolyn Chadwick and the Wellington Choir sang a Mozart anthem and some contemporary Wellingtonians played their trumpets in tribute. Afterwards, there was lunch in the Great School and the Hunts and their friends watched Wellington College 1st XV rugby team play Radley College. As Peter Hunt said: “Wallis would have loved to have been here to watch that.”
Indeed, he would have.
CHAPTER 4
Less than perfect schooldays 1955 to 1964
His heart was never in it
In 1955, James Hunt was sent to Westerleigh Prep School at Hastings, in Sussex. The object was that, five years later, he would pass his common entrance examination and get into Wellington College. Both Wallis and Sue knew it would not be easy. Although fiercely intelligent, James was no student.
Westerleigh was the start of a new tradition for the Hunts, and came about because its headmaster, James Wheeler, knew Wallis from when they had served together with the 11th Hussars in North Africa. Wheeler admired Wallis greatly, and called him “a tough and go-ahead man.” He was delighted to welcome James to his school.
But convincing James to attend was a problem for his parents; boarding school was the last thing he wanted. In fact, he didn’t want to go to school at all and it was a struggle to get him into the car for the hour and a half journey to Hastings. It was their first experience of the true reluctance of their eldest son to attend school. But once he was there, James appears to have made the best of it, although straightaway he began looking forward to the holidays.
Sue and Wallis were mystified by their son’s lack of academic achievement, especially when all his brothers and sisters enjoyed their education and achieved excellent results. They didn’t understand what made him so different.
His eccentricity also came to light for the first time when he took up knitting. He knitted a pair of bright green shorts for his younger brother Tim and some socks for his sister Sally. Wheeler told Hunt biographer Christopher Hilton that James actually enjoyed knitting: “He didn’t mind in the slightest anyone making silly remarks about the knitting. That sort of thing didn’t bother him at all.” But he was not particularly gifted with the needles and suffice it to say that none of his garments were ever worn by their recipients; although years later, Tim Hunt swore he had worn his green pants with pride.
The knitting was perhaps a symbol of his rebellious streak and his way of telling his parents he didn’t want to be at Westerleigh. He further demonstrated his disinterest by failing to befriend any of his schoolmates. A loner at school, Hunt made no lasting friends.
Useless in class, he threw all his energy into sport. He had incredible energy and tremendous stamina, which, combined with his competitive spirit, determination and tenacity, meant he dominated Westerleigh’s sports days. If anyone was up against him in any sort of sporting endeavour, they were destined to lose. His sheer will to win was vastly different from the attitudes of fellow pupils. He was good at virtually every sport on the curriculum, and exceptionally good at any sport that demanded high levels of energy or good hand-eye coordination.
His tennis was easily early round Wimbledon standard. He could also have been a county-class cricketer had he so desired. He was an all rounder and exceptionally good at bowling and batting in a way that Westerleigh had never before seen in a pupil. He apparently opened up both the batting order and the bowling line for the Westerleigh cricket team. There was one memorable match, still remembered today, when he almost took all ten of the opposing team’s wickets. In the end, he settled for nine. He was also a good goalkeeper, playing in that position for Westerleigh’s soccer first team.
And then something happened that was to blight his performance, and that may well have contributed to his early death. He began surreptitiously smoking cigarettes at Westerleigh Prep.
Even then, he was an obsessive character and the habit simply grew and grew. It’s hard to know how much he was smoking as the habit peaked, but some say it was around 60 cigarettes a day. He started smoking the Embassy brand and, later, Rothmans. He enjoyed smoking and, from the age of 12, was rarely seen without one in his hand. If ever there was a moment for his parents to act, it was when they found out about this new habit. But they could not stop him, and it was to become a pivotal part in his life.
After five years at Westerleigh, he predictably failed his common entrance. But his entry through Wellington’s hallowed portals was never in doubt. The common entrance exam in those days was highly subjective in its assessment and in many ways purely symbolic – used by public schools to reject pupils they didn’t want. And Wellington badly wanted James Hunt because of his sporting prowess.
Wellington is a magnificent school. Built in between the rolling plains of Berkshire, it is permanent memorial to the Duke of Wellington, and was named after him. It occupies a magnificent ivy-covered, red-brick building that dominates the vista for a mile around.
Wellington College was originally conceived to supply the nearby Sandhurst military college with army officers for training. Consequently, the teaching staff have always adopted a strict, military-style discipline. Hunt hated it, but years later said: “I didn’t like it, but it was good for me.”
Combined with that, there was an air of benevolence around Wellington that reminded one of the novel Goodbye Mr Chips, written in 1933 by James Hilton. Goodbye Mr Chips was a seminal work and was turned into countless films and televisions dramas. Wellington could have been ‘Brookfield’ and any particular master in Hunt’s time could easily have been ‘Chipping’.
Carved over the doorway at Wellington was the latin motto: ‘Sons of heroes’. It was certainly an apt description of Wallis Hunt and his son, James. But in 1960, when he walked through the front gates, Hunt had little appreciation of the privilege being bestowed upon him or of the history of the establishment. He simply didn’t want to be there.
Hunt was put into Combermere House, a red-brick extension off the main building. He lived in a dormitory with partitioned cubicles, which allowed some privacy. His cubicle contained only a bed and a bedside cabinet. He was to spend five years there, from age 12 to 17. His parents hoped that entry to Wellington would mark a change in him, but there was simply no hiding the fact that he was useless academically. He simply had no aptitude for it – sport dominated his being.
Wellington was an all boys college with 750 pupils, and it was very difficult for boys who were not academically minded to function there. They existed under a shadow. Hunt continually
struggled and simply could not apply himself to conventional studies unless it was a subject that interested him. He did not have the disciplinary capacity; it was just one of those things.
He was saved by his ability at sports and was protected by the sports masters who wanted him to stay the course. Had he dropped out, it is likely he would have been sent to the local grammar school, which is what normally happened to such students. Hunt actually found the latter option more desirable and tried to manipulate the situation. But his parents would have none of it. They told their son that he was to remain at Wellington for the duration, and any thought he had of transferring to the local grammar school was to be a nonstarter. Hunt briefly tried and failed to get himself expelled, but thought better of it afterwards as he realised just how much it would have disappointed his parents.
Instead, he spent long hours arguing with his father, telling him how much money he could save if he sent him to the local state-funded grammar school, but Wallis wouldn’t listen. He was determined to do the best for his son.
The public school system required pupils to choose their potential careers very early so that the academic curriculum could be geared around it. Hunt didn’t like any of his choices and initially thought that he might follow his father into an army career. It took him all of 30 seconds to reject that notion and he plumped for becoming a doctor, simply because he had to put something on the form in order to choose a curriculum. He noted that becoming ‘Dr Hunt’ was “the least of the evils in the unimaginative list of careers” presented to him by Wellington’s careers department. But by opting for a medical career, he had de facto chosen to complete the physics, chemistry and biology courses at Wellington, and they were the most difficult subjects possible.
When Wallis and Sue learned of his chosen career path, they could have been forgiven for breaking out the champagne. Needless to say, his parents got right behind his choice and looked forward to their son going into general practice one day. An air of unreality descended on the Hunt home at Sutton – the notion of Dr James Hunt truly was daft.
Inevitably, it was soon revealed to be a hopeless choice. Hunt had an inbuilt dislike of studying for anything, and he was not able to apply himself to physics and chemistry at all, although he quite liked biology for reasons that were nothing to do with learning. Predictably, he ended up with the minimum number of O-levels and only one A-level when he left Wellington. His parents made him attend a special school in London so that he could at least attempt to qualify for medical school.
But his entire life at college was devoted to avoiding academia. He joined the school orchestra to avoid homework in the evenings. A side effect of that notion was that he became rather an accomplished trumpet player and often played solo at public events. He said later that he found it “oddly relaxing.”
Interestingly, upon hearing him play during the school holidays, all three of his brothers – Peter, Tim and David – also took up playing wind instruments when they attended Wellington.
At Wellington, Hunt had the good fortune to have as his music teacher the great Nigel Davison. Davison was a living legend and musical director of Wellington between 1957 and 1967. Davison, who undoubtedly knew his stuff, was extremely complimentary about Hunt’s musical prowess: “If James had decided to give trumpet playing the single-minded concentration that he lavished on his sporting activities, I have no doubt that he could have become a professional, perhaps a virtuoso, trumpeter.” His former teacher took charge of the music for both of James’ weddings and was an important mentor throughout this life; so much so that Davison spoke at his memorial service after his death. The two formed a strong bond. Through his life, Hunt was to have the good fortune to meet remarkable people like Davison. Each one contributed something good to him. Davison died on 26th October 2009, aged 79, and, in his obituary, The Times called him: “One of Europe’s most distinguished musical scholars and editors of Renaissance polyphony.”
After a year at Wellington, Hunt started dating his first girlfriend, Taormina Rich. They were both 15. As they gradually became close, romance eventually ensued. The relationship would last beyond his schooldays. Taormina’s presence during the school holidays made James’ return to school at the beginning of each term even more fraught.
Aside from his obvious learning difficulties, there is no question that Wellington College brought out the best in James, as it enabled him to pursue sport every day for the five years he was there. Every afternoon, the pupils were required to participate in sports; but Hunt never needed to be ‘required.’ He represented Wellington’s first teams in squash, tennis and crosscountry running. Soccer and cricket fell by the wayside as he simply did not like team games; they didn’t bring out the best in him.
Davison was also in charge of the Wellington cross-country running team. Hunt’s strongly individualistic nature meant he preferred to train on his own, at his own pace.
Davison wrote of Hunt’s performance in the team: “With one notable, if successful, exception, the team threw themselves wholeheartedly into the rigorous training programme. James, the notable exception, studiously avoided training with the team because it probably wasn’t rigorous enough. For he either won or came first equal in every race of that year, including a particularly gruesome and arduous inter-house match, whose finish involved wading through a large lake.”
But Hunt was potentially a county-class athlete and possibly a national-class performer. Although he was also an exceptional tennis player, Wellington was not really a tennis school. That was a shame as, just before he went to Wellington, at the age of 12, he had entered a tennis tournament for boys of up to 16 years. He made it to the final, but was beaten by a 16-year-old. Despite the four year age difference with his competitor, his mother says he was “inconsolable”. Showing an early tendency for emotions when things didn’t go his way, he cried for hours. As Sue Hunt told biographer Gerald Donaldson: “Only victory would do for James. He always had to win. If he didn’t, it was the greatest possible calamity as far as he was concerned.” His habit of crying like a baby when things went against him manifested itself time and again in his career, and should perhaps have been extinguished when he was a child. Occasionally, he exhibited a selfishness that was not attractive.
His time at Wellington only honed his competitiveness. But, despite all that, any impression that he enjoyed his time at Wellington was wholly wrong – he didn’t, and his vacation time couldn’t come soon enough.
When he finally left the college at the age of 17, he felt he had gained nothing from his five years there. As he said: “When I left college, I had nothing going for me. My heart was never in it.” It was a tremendous insult to his parents, who had lavished thousands of pounds on his education, as well as to his school, where the devotion of his masters was way beyond the salary they were paid.
Perhaps it was because he felt so oppressed by the Wellington atmosphere that James never formed lasting relationships with any of his school acquaintances. In fact, he only ever had about half a dozen close male friendships in his lifetime, and only a couple of them ever came close to even beginning to understand James Hunt.
But when he finally departed Wellington in July of 1966, he realised he would miss it as much as he had initially hated it. In an open air concert to mark the end of the summer term at Wellington, he performed one of Mozart’s horn concertos for the assembled crowd. That September, he played in the Junior Championships of Great Britain, at Wimbledon. No records exist of how he did.
CHAPTER 5
Metamorphosis – doctor to driver 1965 to 1967
The smell of petrol takes over
Back in 1965, an 18th birthday was not at all significant – nowhere near as significant as it is now due to changes in the law. Back then, 21 was the big birthday, when all sorts of legal privileges were bestowed upon a young man. Nowadays, the same privileges are bestowed at 18, which shows just how much the world has changed. And it was the 18th that proved to be the most significan
t birthday in James Hunt’s life.
Up until then, James’ important birthdays had been when he turned 16, when a boy could ride a motorbike up to 250cc, and when he turned 17, when it was legal to drive a car. Hunt did both, and with relish.
His parents struggled to cope with their eldest son’s new-found freedoms, and it was far from easy, after he left Wellington College in July 1965, when he returned to live at home again full-time.
Straightaway, he made it clear he had no intention of going to university. Despite that, a fictional spell of unreality pervaded the Hunt household. It was an air of unreality upheld by his parent’s conviction that young James was going to medical school. His parents certainly believed it, and had enrolled him at Bart’s medical school in anticipation. As far as they were concerned, he was all set to start there. And that was that.
After having left Wellington, James took special lessons to complete the missing A-levels he needed to qualify for medical school. Their completion proved to his parents that he could focus his mind on academic priorities if he really wanted to.
So, it was clear to both Wallis and Sue Hunt that their eldest son had a destiny, which was to be a doctor. But their son had very different ideas, although it was still unclear to him – at least until 29th August 1965 – exactly what that destiny might be.
Short of ideas on how to celebrate his 18th birthday, James Hunt and Christopher Ridge, a friend with whom he played tennis, decided to go out for the day to a race meeting at Silverstone.
Hunt had never before been to a race and thought it might be fun. He liked driving fast cars and was excited, especially as Ridge’s older brother Simon was competing in a club race in a Mini that he had modified himself. So they drove the two hours to Silverstone principally to watch Simon race.
