Shunt

by Tom Rubython

  The truth is that Sarah’s description of “humble” does not match what actually defined Hunt. Hunt himself believed he suffered from something he called “arrested emotional development”.

  It must also be said that Hunt was not a particularly truthful person in private. Although he never told what are best described as ‘evil lies’, although some could be hurtful if repeated, he frequently told lies to ease his passage in life.

  In one instance, he wrote to his last girlfriend, Helen Dyson, and told her that his parents had never loved him. Astonishingly, he used that as an excuse for infidelity throughout his life, and it almost became a private joke in its absurdity. Years later, the comedian Larry David would pick up on the same theme for his hit US cult series called ‘Curb Your Enthusiasm’, but with comedic treatment. Hunt particularly tended to use this fib on his girlfriends when they caught him out. He found it worked most of the time and, privately, it was just as funny to him as it was to Larry David 30 years later. Hunt demonstrated no insight into the pain it would inevitably cause his parents when the stories got back to them. Nor, indeed, for the hurt it would eventually inflict upon them when it was published in Gerald Donaldson’s biography after he died. For Hunt, the prospect of being caught for being unfaithful – be it by Dyson, Birbeck or whomever he was with at the time – simply necessitated an excuse. That was just the way he was.

  But Peter Collins points out that his propensity for being economical with the truth mustn’t be read as a mark of his dishonesty. Collins says he was a scrupulously honest individual: “James was a very correct man, but seemed to feel that convention did not have to be applied to everybody. And when he felt convention was being forced on him, he may have had a tendency to rebel. James was definitely a little eccentric, very individual and he did not suffer fools.” But as Collins ruefully admits, sometimes his rebelliousness against convention may have gone too far.

  That rebelliousness often manifested itself in Hunt’s choice of attire. There were always issues with his wardrobe, or lack of it. Whenever possible, and with little excuse, Hunt would strip off the top half of his clothing and his jeans, and often get down to the skimpiest underwear or swimming trunks. He would often walk around the Formula One paddock in his trunks, showing not the slightest discomfiture. Sometimes, he might as well have been naked. But most times, he would be in a sleeveless vest-type shirt with shorts, no shoes and no socks – sometimes even on live television as he walked around the starting grid.

  There was one very embarrassing moment for Brabham-Ford driver Nelson Piquet on the starting grid at the Monaco Grand Prix in 1981, which Piquet found highly amusing. Piquet was on pole, and Hunt, wearing his shorts, leaned over the car to say something to Piquet. When the Brazilian looked up, as he recounts, all he could see was: “...a pair of bollocks, hanging out of his shorts, and James’ voice.”

  Aside from his wardrobe and the incidents in his love life, the worst examples of Hunt’s lack of the embarrassment gene came in three ‘urinating incidents.’ Many of his close friends, including Chris Jones, found the incidents amusing when they were witnessed or retold later. But they were far from funny. Jones, in particular, could undoubtedly have done more to correct his friend.

  Jones was involved in an early urinating incident when, in his teenage years, he organised a birthday party involving a coach trip. Jones’ parents were also on the trip and they allowed a makeshift bar to be set up in the coach, which Hunt naturally made full use of. So much so, that the coach regularly had to be halted mid-journey so that Hunt, who had over indulged, could go to the toilet.

  At such stops, James simply jumped out and faced the coach’s side windows and, in full view of his friends and Jones’ parents, unzipped his trousers and urinated. Unfortunately, Jones thought it was highly amusing, and his amusement set an unfortunate precedent for other such occasions, all of which were far from innocently comedic.

  When Jones spoke with Gerald Donaldson 17 years ago, after Hunt’s death, he told him he didn’t think his friend was an “an exhibitionist by nature”, just “unconventional.” He said: “He always did exactly what he wanted to do. And you could never argue with him. You might suggest something, but he’d do it his own way.” Today, Jones seems embarrassed about it all and won’t speak about his friend.

  Perhaps the most outrageous urinating incident came at a restaurant in France, during Hunt’s Formula 3 days in 1971. Patrons in a bistro at Pau were subject to an awful demonstration from Hunt as he left an establishment in which drivers and mechanics were dining after the race. It began when one of the journalists at Hunt’s table bet him 100 francs that he wouldn’t relieve himself on the restaurant floor. The challenge, according to driver Brendan McInerney, was met. As he recalls: “It produced two inevitable results. One was that James pissed on the floor as he was leaving the restaurant, reversing out the door and laughing uproariously as he went about his business, and the other was that the guy who bet him wouldn’t pay up. James was extremely upset that he didn’t get paid.”

  But the worst example, and the most damaging to his reputation, came in 1987 – a few months after the birth of his second son, Freddie. Hunt was on a British Airways flight to Adelaide for the Australian Grand Prix. He had, as usual, consumed the maximum amount of alcohol he could tolerate. When he could drink no more beer, or the stocks had run out, he slumped in his seat and went straight to sleep.

  The sheer volume of beer he had consumed meant he soon needed to go to the toilet urgently. So he got up and wandered down the aisle but, in his stupor, couldn’t find the toilets. As he got to the curtain that separates the first and business class sections of a Boeing 747, he simply unzipped his jeans and relieved himself against the curtain until urine ran down the aisle. It lasted a minute or more. His conduct was in full view of the passengers, which included the BBC television presenter Esther Rantzen. He then returned to his seat, leaving bemused passengers and stewards wondering what to do.

  Knowing who he was, the crew let him sleep it off. But, as it had been witnessed by so many people, it was not an incident that could be covered up and it was recorded in the plane’s incident log. Inevitably, one of the passengers told the story to a newspaper, and it was then written up by Reuters journalists and put out on its news service. Typically, the headlines in the newspapers read: ‘Hunt For Relief ’ and ‘Drunken Shame of the Speed Ace.’ The story travelled all over the world, doubtless embellished with every telling. One embellishment described how Esther Rantzen’s daughter had been “splashed.” Rantzen was forced to issue a denial, saying that she had not noticed the incident and that what was described had “not happened.” In his book about Hunt, Gerald Donaldson was moved to call it “an act of considerable irresponsibility.”

  In the end, British Airways was forced to issue a statement, in which it simply confirmed the incident and offered their regret, stating baldly: “Mr Hunt had problems controlling his bodily functions during the flight.”

  With the story continuing to run in the newspapers, it eventually sparked a national discussion about the yobbish behaviour of celebrities. Back at his home in Wimbledon, Hunt was eagerly anticipated by journalists keeping vigil for his return from Adelaide. There was also talk he would be sent home in disgrace by the BBC and his contract torn up. When Hunt finally returned home a week later, the journalists were still there. It was then that the magnitude of the story and the full ramifications of what he had done finally hit home.

  In the end, Hunt was forced to respond to the furore, saying that he had been “sleepwalking”, which he said he tended to do, especially when he was drunk. Again, some of his more irresponsible friends, and he had many of them, thought the incident was terribly funny. But not Bubbles Horsley, who was stunned by what had happened. He warned Hunt of the likely consequences and told him that that he had gone too far this time. In so many words, Horsley told him he didn’t want to be the godfather to a son of a man who behaved as he had done. They were strong wor
ds from a friend, but words Hunt needed to hear. Horsley remembered as much later: “I thought that business on the aeroplane was very sad. He made the rather half-hearted excuse about sleepwalking, but I said: ‘Well, you were sleepwalking because you were behaving like an asshole. And you know you do that and you shouldn’t have done it on the aeroplane. So don’t go making half-baked excuses. If you want to go and piss in the cupboards at home, that’s another matter’, and James took my point. He was contrite and said: ‘You’re absolutely right’”

  But this time the damage was done could not be offset by a stern talking to from his ex team manager. There were no immediate repercussions but the long terms effects on Hunt were catastrophic and unpredictable. It was an event that ultimately caused his financial demise and one that his second wife’s solicitors would later exploit to the fullest in his divorce. They ultimately used it to threaten him with the loss of custody of his children. The extra UK£1 million they squeezed out of him, directly because of that aeroplane incident, eventually broke him.

  At the time, Hunt was extremely lucky to get away with what he had done; if it were to happen today, he would undoubtedly have been restrained in his seat by the crew, who would then have radioed ahead to the police to arrest him when the plane landed at Adelaide airport, and he would have served at least three months in a foreign jail. But that was then, and there was no police reception at Adelaide airport. But he did suffer a huge reputational backlash from the incident, which some say he never fully recovered from. Stirling Moss says: “He did create a lot of damage to his own reputation overall. But that was so James and there wasn’t anything he seemed to be bitter about.”

  Hunt never urinated in public again after that, but he carried on drinking. Horsley was never able to tackle the root cause of Hunt’s problems; that only came about when Hunt lost all his money and could no longer afford to drink.

  And Hunt’s propensity for alcohol was, of course, legendary. But Hunt was never an alcoholic. All his drinking was done for leisure purposes; he simply enjoyed it greatly. And it never in itself caused any particular problems, except of course when he needed to urinate urgently. Drink did not change his personality at all, and he was certainly never an unpleasant drunk. In fact, it was quite the opposite – he was in fact a very, very pleasant drunk.

  And some of his drinking adventures were admittedly very funny. Professor Sid Watkins often observed Hunt’s strange habit of dragging around behind him, one in each hand, two black bin liner-type plastic bags after races. In one bag would be full cans of beer, and in the other, the empties. As Watkins recalls: “I always remember when he finished a race, he used to have two black bags – one was full of tins of beer and one was full of the empties – and he used to drag them round, have one, put one in the bag. I mean he was really enjoying himself.”

  Watkins remembers another occasion, flying back to London from a race: “We’d fly back and, when the luggage was coming out onto the carousel, instead of the luggage coming out, it was James, sitting crossed legged, going round and round on the carousel.”

  Away from Formula One and in the world of his second great passion, budgerigars, there was also trouble. There was a potentially serious incident on a visit to a budgerigar show in Doncaster, Yorkshire, in November 1989.

  At the show, one of Hunt’s budgies won first prize. This was as important to him as winning any Grand Prix, and Hunt went on a binge in Doncaster to celebrate. After a meal at Doncaster’s Swallow Hotel, he and his budgerigar enthusiast friends decided to go to a nightclub, one recommended by the hotel manager who had unfortunately forgotten to tell him about the club’s dress standards. Hunt, dressed in denim jeans and running shoes, went ahead to smooth the way. But at the nightclub, he came up against a doorman called Ian Butterfield. The doorman informed him of his incorrect attire and told him he would not be admitted. Hunt was having none of it and asked the doorman, quite reasonably, to talk to the manager to see if an exception could be made. Butterfield told him there was no point, as there were no exceptions. Hunt asked him again and he was again refused. Frustrated by the doorman’s obtuse attitude, Hunt was angry but polite. Unfortunately, Butterfield was holding a paper cup of hot coffee and, as Hunt turned to leave, he flicked the cup of hot, but not scalding, coffee over the doorman in pure frustration. It could have been an accident or it could have been deliberate, it was not clear. Although it looked like an accident, it certainly did not appear that way to the doorman. A scuffle between Hunt and the club’s security staff ensued. They manhandled him to the ground and delivered him over to two nearby policemen on patrol. On the word of the nightclub’s security staff, Hunt was immediately arrested and taken to the Doncaster police station.

  Officers on duty at Doncaster police station couldn’t quite believe what they were seeing and wondered what on earth a former Formula One world champion was doing in Doncaster attending a budgerigar show. There was certainly much scratching of heads that night as Hunt languished in a room at the police station. Two hours later, at around midnight, Hunt was charged with assault on the available evidence and released after two hours on his own recognisance. But the first thing he did was return to the club where the doorman was still on duty and apologise to him. The evidence against Hunt was flimsy, especially when the police examined the nightclub’s security camera film footage. The charges were quietly dropped. 25 years later, that security film would be broadcast in a television documentary causing his family all sorts of embarrassment and anguish.

  John Hogan says he never found Hunt’s lack of embarrassment a problem, but admits it did exist. But in Hunt’s defence, he says most of the top drivers had “gaps” in their characters, and points to Niki Lauda’s callousness as a prime example of another driver with a character defect. Hogan explains: “I was with James at Brands Hatch, and it was a practice day and some little kid came up to Niki with a Lauda fan book and asked him to sign a picture. This little kid was wide-eyed and struggling with this book. And Niki said: ‘Where’s the pen?’, so the kid got out a pen and he was trying to keep the rain off the book and Niki grabbed it, signed it and just said: ‘Thank you, bye’ and looked away. James said to me: ‘Well, you see, that’s the callousness of the cunt.’ James hated it, hated that [sort of thing] – absolutely hated it.”

  Lauda’s attitude, of course, was completely the opposite to Hunt’s. Hunt’s brilliance in situations like that was the reasons he was so beloved by his British fans. Hunt genuinely loved people and he loved mixing with ordinary folk. He had no embarrassment about that either; something that a person with his background and upbringing might have had. His generosity of spirit went to the absolute core of his character.

  Many people who never saw the brighter side of Hunt thought his antics were just ‘bad behaviour’ stemming from his ten years at boarding school, where he had developed the tremendous self-confidence which enabled him to do anything he felt like doing in public without embarrassment. Certainly, it was there also that he had acquired his unfailing self-belief and determination to triumph over adversity. But, despite any obvious defects, Hunt had a very endearing and sincere side to him, although it was not a side that he revealed to everybody.

  Grahame White, now chief executive of the Historic Sports Car Club, recognises the validity of all the arguments regarding his friend’s lack of the ‘embarrassment gene’, but says there were times when Hunt could indeed become embarrassed about his behaviour, especially if it was in front of people he liked and respected. Hunt did like and respect White, who was head of the British Automobile Racing Club (BARC) when Hunt was racing in the junior formulae. BARC was the leading organiser of motorsport championships in those days and White was like a guardian angel to the then young, aspiring racing driver. As White recalls, Hunt did once embarrass himself by his behaviour with a woman: “I remember at one race meeting at Thruxton, he came in to sign on and noticed one of the young girls who was working for me. She just caught his eye. He asked me later in the day:
‘Who is that girl, what’s her name, does she work for you?’ I said: ‘Yes, she does.’ The following morning, she just didn’t turn up for work. We normally get ready about 7am, and she arrived at the circuit, very sheepish, at 10am. She came to me and said: ‘Sorry, I didn’t feel well.’ I guessed what had happened and, when I found James, I said: ‘James, were you out last night?’ I remember his face being an absolute picture, as he searched for his excuse.”

  Sometimes it seemed that his entire life was spent searching for excuses for his naughtiness.

  CHAPTER 9

  That fateful meeting as two paths cross 1971

  James Hunt and John Hogan get together

  John Hogan was sitting at his desk at Wasey’s, one of London’s top advertising agencies, when he received a telephone call that would change his life. It was early 1971 and on the line was George Pincus, with whom he had previously worked at Benton & Bowles.

  Pincus and Australian-born Hogan were close friends. Hogan was regarded in the agency world as somewhat of a motor racing expert, and Pincus said to him: “You know a bit about motor racing, don’t you?” “Yes,” replied Hogan. “Well,” said Pincus, “there’s this bloke called James Hunt who is looking for someone who knows a bit about sponsorship. Can he come talk to you?” Hogan said: “Yeah sure.” And that’s how it all began.

  Hogan didn’t think much of it at the time, but that short conversation kick-started a chain of events that, for two decades, would make Hogan the most powerful man in Formula One after Bernie Ecclestone, and ultimately lead to Hunt’s world championship in 1976. Hogan was 28 years old, and Hunt just 21.

  On the appointed day, Hunt turned up at Wasey’s offices in London with a young woman called Annabel Lamb. She introduced herself as the young driver’s manager.