Giving You F1 Legend Jim Clark.

Jim Clark Lotus 1967

This was another ornimental gem that I could not resist. Jim Clark's Lotus stand proudly on the side board. Little nostalgic memories of my boyhood.

From the mind of a seven year old boy

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v62StJvxLu8

My only memory of Jim Clark, as a young seven year old, was from his prestigious reputation. I did not know what F1 racing meant, but I knew what racing cars looked liked. Racing cars were different from ordinary cars. Even though ordinary cars did race if they had stripes, and numbers painted on them, and were put on racing tracks or in fields. They still were not proper racing cars though.

Real racing cars were different and they went faster and you only saw them on television because they did not drive on streets. I also had hundreds of toy cars and knew what racing cars looked like. I knew the name Jim Clark because he raced such cars. The UK in the 1960s decade was full of names in various and exciting iconic interests. Interests that came to us from pop stars, film stars, football stars, comics of great British war heroes - we were fed on a diet of great heroes.

In school, or somewhere, I knew of Jim Clark. He drove racing cars and won trophies of great prestige because he was a champion racing car driver. I had no idea what he looked like. But when we kids played motor racing cars in the school playground or out on the streets, everyone argued over who was Jim Clark.

"I'm Jim Clark."

"No, I'm Jim Clark."

Needless to say the toughest kid in the group was usually Jim Clark.

It was in the summer of 1968 when I went on holiday with my cousins, who were a little older then me. We were playing in the garden of a guest house, where we were staying, and decided to play racing cars around this huge boat that was being made in the garden. I'm not sure if it was in Margate, Ramsgate or Broadstairs because we always seemed to go to one of these places every year. This boat looked like a miniature ark and someone was in the process of building it. While we were at the guest house; whoever was trying to construct the boat, must have left the project, because we never saw anyone working on the partly completed boat. All the wood was new and I remembered wondering how they would get such a big boat off of its stands and to the sea.

We were running around this partly constructed boat playing and laughing. Then decided we were racing cars, and around the boat was the racing track.

"I'm Jim Clark," I shouted enthusiastically. My elder cousins were very tolerant and not like the kids in the playground and in the street. I had a good chance of being indulged and getting my way.

"You can't," replied my cousin Danny. "Jim Clark is dead."

"No he's not - he's a racing car driver."

He went on to tell me that Jim Clark was killed in a racing car crash, in a real racing car race, only a short time ago. I was stunned and shocked. Jim Clark was dead and I never even knew it, or what he looked like.

As years rolled by and other F1 names came and went from the sport, I learnt more of Jim Clark through watching interviews with Jackie Stewart and Graham Hill. He was a very special champion that was liked and respected in the F1 sport across the world.

Below is a link to a documentary of Jim Clark that is on YouTube. It's a very moving documentary.

Driving Jim Clark's Lotus

Driving Jim Clark's Lotus 25 would be a dream come true for anyone who enjoys formula one and its high octane, fuel injected, excitingly dangerous history. Where the thin line between winning glory and devastating acceleration into the afterlife can happen in the flicker of a blink.

Jim Clark tasted both sides - the euphoric adulation of winning while skimming the danger of death and finally the flip side of the formula one coin. His name now echoes in eternity and the thought of driving one of his actual cars is something close to the legend he has become. I would be too terrified to even contemplate racing in formula one, but to take one on a spin on an empty open track? Oh yes! I think I could manage that.

David Coulthard got to do just that, but then he is one of the many who have tweaked the nose of Formula one danger. I have a Lotus 25 diecast 1:18 of Jim Clark's 1967 Dutch Grand Prix car. It has pride of place in my little office room. I enjoy watching Formula One, but I get this interest in fads. I am going through such a fad of interest at the moment. It will settle down, but its Ron Howard, the late James Hunt and Nikki Lauda's fault.

For now, I'm enjoying going through a retro buzz  and the great Retro Brit names of the 50s and 60s are compelling me to look at the sport. Jim Clark, Mike Hawthorn, Peter Collins, Graham Hill, John Surtees and Jackie Stewart. That fifteen years was a golden age for British Formula One. Great days with only some of the vehicles of some of the ghosts that have left us.


Interview with the Legend

Jim Clark won the Formula One Championship on two occasions. 1963 and 1965. He was killed during a minor none F1 race in Germany 1968. Had he lived beyond his 32 years, I believe he would have undoubtedly gone on to win at least one other championship.

Giving You Hong Xiuquan and the Taiping Rebellion (1850 - 1864)



Hong Xiuquan

After the first opium war, Britain and France, plus other western nations, tried to make inroads into China. Protestant missionaries from Britain tried to Christianize many of the Chinese race, but this was largely unsuccessful because of Confucianism, Buddhism and Chinese folk religion.

However, one Chinese convert did corrupt and take on a form of heterodox Christianity that would shake China and the western traders to the core. It brought about the Taiping Rebellion - a civil war that would last for 14 years with a mopping up campaign that would last further years. The death toll from this horrendous venture is estimated at 25 million people.

It all started when a young scholar, named Hong Xiuquin, had to quit his education because his parents could not afford to pay for his continued schooling. He took up teaching in his local town to pay for his continued studies. Then in 1836 at age 22 he passed an exam that offered an opportunity for him to go to Guangzhou and take the Civil Service Examination. This was a highly prized award among China's elite, which was a gateway into the higher echelons of Qing dynastic power. However, this vexing examination had a pass rate of less than 5%.

Hong Xiuquan failed the examination and then several more attempts afterwards. Demoralised by the constant failure, Hong became embittered. He fell ill for some time and when he finally recovered he had changed. In his room, was a pamphlet of the local Protestant missionary church and he had been influenced by its teachings - misreading the doctrines and fashioning them to his way of thinking. 

He told friends, that during his illness, he had seen a vision and in this, he was the younger brother of Jesus Christ. He was able to instil this belief in many followers and managed to assemble an army of converts. At first, they were small in numbers fighting insurgents. They attacked small villages and found the minority population receptive to the idea of the new religion that promised them equality and salvation from the doctrines of the old imperial China. Hong had a blacksmith forge two huge swords that he welded as he rode into the villages. He became a symbol among the downtrodden peasants who were eager to destroy statues of Buddha and Confucius. 

The government Qing authorities tried to hunt these pirates and bandits as they called them. In an open battle, Hong's Taiping forces defeated the Qing government soldiers and from this moment in 1850, the fighting became a full blown war known as the Taiping Rebellion.

Hong's growing army drove back the government Qing forces all over Southern China and he used his generals to recruit more men and women from the surrounding farms and towns that fell to his forces. This was easy to do among many southern Chinese who were resentful of the unpopular Qing rulers of Manchu heritage.

The heterodox Christian rebels and their self-styled brother of Christ, Hong Xiuquan, formed an inner nation called the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom of Peace. They took Nanking as their major city and continued to expand deeper into China.

The fighting became horrendous as the heterodox Christians of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom took control of more territory. Confucianism, Buddhism and Chinese folk law were abolished. Any who tried to resist or would not conform were put to death. Some of the new religion's doctrines were very harsh, including the separation of men and women, even among married couples.

As the war progressed over the years, Hong Xiuquan tried to court the Chinese middle classes and the European powers to his cause but was unsuccessful. He retired from fighting and ruled from Nanking as a prophet and spiritual leader. He charged his Generals to the Heavenly Kingdom's cause and endeavours. He did have one important associate (Yang Xiuqing) killed. This man had been with him from the beginning and Hong was worried that he was slowly trying to take control.

Eventually, the Qing government had to go to the European powers for help. Great Britain along with France responded positively to the request. The Heavenly Kingdom tried to take the city of Shanghai in 1860 but were stopped by Chinese soldiers commanded by European officers. Among them was a British soldier nicknamed Chinese Gordan. He would also be known as Gordan of Khartoum in later years.
  

The European-led Qing government forces were named the Ever Victorious Army in future. Gradually, they pushed the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom forces back over the next four years. Eventually, the remnants of the defeated Heavenly Kingdom army fortified Nanking, where Hong Xiuquan proclaimed that God would protect all within Nanking's walls. He died from food poisoning just days before the city fell to Qing government forces in 1864.

His buried body was exhumed and burnt. Then his ashes and remains were put into a cannon and blasted from the city walls, scattering his remains far and wide - denying him a final resting place.

Some defeated remnants of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom went into remote areas to try and continue the strange Christian cult's campaign, but they were mopped up or fizzled out over a period of years.

It was one of the 19th century's most costly civil wars in terms of life and it was the start of China beginning to look in at itself. It was a nation ruled by archaic dynasties and it was crying out for change. The Heavenly Kingdom of heterodox Christians was one rebellion that failed. There would follow others in the near future.

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