Soapboxes

In the introduction to this website on the Home page, I said, “As a child, I can remember the cycle races we organised around the estate, the soap boxes we built to run down the hill in front of our house...”. This page is about soapboxes. In March 2018 Edward Gilbert, who ran the All About Tunbridge Wells website, was writing an article for his site about soapboxes and, knowing of my childhood interest in them, asked me for a contribution towards it. Edward retired in 1998 and devoted his life as a researcher and writer of articles and books. He sadly died on 28 May 2022 at the age of 72 and his wonderful website is no more. He never married and had no living family at the time of his death.

Edward’s obituary, published on the TBnewswatch.com website, includes the following:

“His great passion was researching and writing articles about the history of Tunbridge Wells, Kent, England, a place in which three generations of his family had lived and from where his branch of the family moved to Canada from in the 1920s. Edward created a website (www.allabouttunbridgewells.com) on which he posted his articles and had many articles published in various magazines, journals and newsletters in England, such as Postcard Monthy, This is Kent, The British Clematis Society, The Tunbridge Well Family History Society, and others. His work was held as a historical record by the Tunbridge Wells Reference Library, The Tunbridge Wells Civic Society and the Tunbridge Wells Museum. Edward was a prolific writer, having published several thousand articles since 1998. He became very well known and established a reputation as both a thorough researcher and excellent writer. He was a member of the Tunbridge Wells Family History Society and a contributor to their research

Edward James Gilbert (1950-2022)

and excellent writer. He was a member of the Tunbridge Wells Family History Society and a contributor to their research activities. He was also a contributor to various books about the History of Tunbridge Wells such as The Shock of War published November 2014. In October 2014 Edward was presented with a Community Contribution Award by the Tunbridge Wells Civic Society for his website and work in researching and writing about the history of Tunbridge Wells. ”

As a tribute to Edward, and his research work about Tunbridge Wells, I am re-publishing his article about soapboxes, that includes my contribution, and this website page is dedicated to him.

A HISTORY OF SOAPBOX DERBYS

by Edward James Gilbert, Thunder Bay, Ontario, Canada, 18 March 2018

Introduction

The term ‘soapbox derby’ derives its name from the crude contraptions banged together typically by fathers and sons out of whatever materials were at hand. Any old set of wheels from a small wagon or pram with scavenged axles and bits of wood, rope and metal and of course an old soapbox, apple or orange crate that the child sat in. When assembled these gravity propelled cars, made loosely in the image of full size racing cars, could be seen racing down any hill available, much to the amusement of the children racing them and spectators alike. These crude contraptions could be put together at little cost and many children enjoyed making and riding in them. Groups of children would assemble in evenings and weekends with their soapbox cars for a little competitive racing to see who could arrive at the bottom of the hill first. Collisions, breakdowns and other mishaps, with the occasion cuts and bruises, were commonplace but that was all part of the fun.

As a boy growing up in Canada I have fond memories as a cub scout putting one together with the other boys and we used to compete with our soapbox cars regularly. My dad and I built one together. Well I should say he built it and I painted and supervised its construction. My dad was a hoarder of just about everything, having grown up during the depression and having experienced tough times. His motto, which he related to me on many occasions, was ‘waste not want not’, and fortunately for me he had plenty of materials on hand to build a soapbox car for me.

Organised soapbox derbies, on a grand scale, with rules and sponsors and prizes, and sometimes conducted on specially built courses, did not begin in England, Canada and the USA until the early 1930s , and these races can be found held in many other countries as well. In England soapbox derbies began in London and were held annually and viewed by thousands of spectators who cheered the children on. The appeal of this event spread quickly to other parts of England, including the children of Tunbridge Wells. Soapbox racing in England was very popular throughout the 1930s to 1980s and although some events continued, many fell by the wayside. In the 21st century there was a resurgence of interest in the sport and one can find many references on the internet of these races being reinstated. In 2016 for example some 33 derbies took place scattered about in Essex, Gloucestershire, Lancashire, Yorkshire and many other ‘shires’, but none were found listed for the counties of Kent or Sussex.

Although soapbox racing in a less formal manner among children dates back to the 1930s in Tunbridge Wells, it was not unit 2018 that the first organised race was held called the Crazy Jeans Soapbox Derby. This extravaganza was held at Dunorlan Park, Tunbridge Wells with some 50 soapbox racers going head to head in a time trial challenge to help raise funds for a charity. It was expected that the event would draw as many as 10,000 spectators. Reports after the event certainly state that it was a great success. One hopes that future events like this one will take place. One of the posters is shown opposite.

[The 2018 event at Dunorlan park, Tunbridge Wells referred to by Edward was repeated in 2019 and again in 2022 (2020 and 2021 were not held due to Covid). The 2023 event will be held on 24 June and the poster for it is shown opposite - Chris Page.]

The soapbox cars that began being constructed crudely from bits and pieces have greatly evolved over the years. Certainly in the 1950s kits could be bought containing all the parts needed, and magazines such as Popular Mechanics often included construction plans and instructions. The design and construction of them became more sophisticated over time and of course more costly. As the 21st century arrived modern materials such as fibreglass appeared, and what began as a simple car has been transformed into wild contraptions that very little resemble their namesake. Shown right is a photo of a modern soapbox car in the 2013 Red Bull Derby held in London, in the form of a London bus.

What began as a cheap and fun event on a small scale has evolved into something entirely different, much to the consternation of ‘purists’ who remember much simpler times and cars from their childhood. However, it’s still great fun, and events like that held at Dunorlan Park not only provide an enjoyable day out for families, but help to raise much needed funds for charity. In this article I provide a brief history of soapbox cars and racing with a concentration on its history in England and more specifically in Tunbridge Wells.

My childhood memories

I was born in 1950 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada and after moving around for the first eight years of my life we settled in the town of Richmond Hill, about 25 miles north of Toronto. While there I attended the Walter Scott Public School that was right across the road from our house. I became a cub scout and our meetings were held in the gymnasium of that school. We were called the Wolf Pack and among other activities we used to stand at attention giving the boy scout salute and recited the boy scout pledge (something to do with God, country and The Queen). We would sit in a circle and at our cub master’s instructions we would howl like a pack of wolves. I remember him as a big man with hairy legs and nobby knees who was always blowing his whistle. Shown right is a photograph of our wolf cub pack in which I am standing in the middle of the third row taken in the late 1950s. I believe the photograph was taken at the cub master’s house. He is shown in the back row.

One day in 1958 the cub master announced that every cub pack in the town was to build a soapbox racer in preparation for a race in the town park. The town park was an ideal place for a race as the land sloped down from west to east providing a good hill where we could pick up speed, and the paved lane that ran through the park was quite straight. It was a safe place to race away from traffic. He handed out a set of plans we could follow and all the members of the cub pack were to work together on it. We made up a list of the materials we would need and went home to scavenge what we could find. On the following weekend we met at one of the boy’s homes and worked on the racer in his dad’s garage, with his dad supervising and directing us and cutting the wood for us. When it was finished one of the boys brought some paint and brushes and we all had a go at painting it. It was finished in cub scout green, with a number of our cub pack painted on the side. About a week later all the cubs met at the town park for the race. Lots of other people were there to watch the event and I seem to remember that a photograph and article about it appeared in the local newspaper. The boys competed in twos and it was great fun.

I of course wanted to have my own soapbox racer and so I asked my dad if he would help me build it. We had a set of wheels, axles and steering mechanism from my old red wagon and my dad being a man who seldom threw anything away (waste not want not was his expression), we had all the wood and paint we needed. Dad did all the cutting and assembly of the parts while I supervised and got to paint it. Dad had a can of grey paint left over from some home project that I painted the body with. The wheels were already red and there was just enough red paint to put a racing stripe on the front and to do the lettering on the side. Dad did the lettering for me using a stencil he made, and I called it the ‘Red Rocket’ even though there wasn’t much red on it. Shown right is a photo of my soapbox racer with me sitting in it. My mother insisted that I wear a helmet. Standing beside me is my friend Billy who I sometimes let ride in the car. The photograph was taken at Billy’s house just up the road from where I lived.

Soapbox racing was popular among the boys in our neighbourhood in the 1950s and 1960s and we used to get together with our cars on the weekend for a race. The roads in our neighbourhood were quite flat and unsuitable for racing, but at the south end of the subdivision was the property of the local horse riding club which we called the ‘horse field’. This site had a steep and long hill on it and although the path we raced on was dirt instead of paved at least there was no traffic to worry about. This path was wide enough for two racers at a time. It was a rather rough ride down the hill at times and it certainly put our driving skills and the quality of construction of our racers to the test. There were of course several spills and sad faces when wheels fell of or something else came loose. One day while competing in a race my steering mechanism broke and my racer went off course and smashed into a fence post breaking the front end. That helmet my mum insisted I wear came in handy after all. I gathered up the pieces and piled them into the racer and dragged it home. Dad said he would see if he could fix it for me but he never seemed to get around to it and so ended my racing career, and the ‘Red Rocket’ was taken apart and repurposed.

Soapbox racing events, similar to those I experienced, were played out all across Canada and organised derbies on a large scale were conducted. Boys magazines, like ‘Popular Mechanics’, sometimes included articles about soapbox racing, and sometimes plans and instructions on how to build a racer. In 1946 the town of Mission, British Columbia acquire the rights to the Western Canada Soapbox Derby Championships, which event continued annually until 1973.

Television programs often included something about soapbox racing. In a 1959 episode of ‘Dennis the Menace’ Dennis entered a soapbox derby but Mr Wilson (his neighbour)ended up riding it instead of Dennis. A ‘Bewitched’ episode of 1966 also featured a soapbox derby event. Watching anything to do with soapbox racing on television or at the cinema encouraged boys to build one and do some racing.

Soapbox racing is still popular in Canada. The Globe and Mail of Toronto dated September 6,2014 for example had an article entitled ‘Soap box racing alive and well and drawing thousands’ with comments by Serge Bouthillette, president of the Canadian Soap Box Racing Association at a recent race in Oshawa, Ontario. In part it stated, “Soap box racing is alive and well across Canada, the United States and even in Europe. All across the continent, thousands of kids from 6 to 20 have been competing for points in weekend races, all in the hope of winning trophies or securing an invitation to the world championships in Akron, Ohio.” The article went on to give a list of past and future Derby events in Canada.

The American experience

In the wake of the first car races, local youth races took place in the USA at a very early stage. In 1914 the motion picture Kid Auto Races at Venice starring Charlie Chaplin was shown in the cinemas. The Saturday Evening Post of 9 January 1926 featured on the cover a comical image (see right) of children in a soapbox racer by the well-known artist Norman Rockwell. This image has been reproduced over and over in the form of prints, figurines, and on glassware, plates, and all things imaginable.

The idea of the Soap Box Derby in American grew out of photographic assignment of Dayton, Ohio, newsman Myron Scott who came across a group of boys racing their homemade cars in the summer of 1933, and was so impressed with the event that he acquired a copyright to Soap Box Derby and went in search of a corporate sponsor to establish a national program. Chevrolet (the car maker) agreed to sponsor the first All-American Soap Box Derby in Dayton in 1934 and the following year the event was moved to Akron, Ohio. This derby ran continuously until the onset of WW II. The derby resumed at Akron in 1946 and has been held at Derby Downs every year since. Until 1970 it was open to boys only and it was not until 1972 that girls were allowed to race. Shown opposie is a postcard view of the impressive derby site, an event that attracted thousands of people and a large number of boys and girls with their racers. In some years the derby attracted upwards of 70,000 spectators.

As was the case around most of the world, boys and girls and their fathers in the USA banged together out of bits and pieces their homemade soapbox cars, with most of them having some fun on a local hill and never made it to the national derby. Shown right is a photo of George Nelson and his car for a New York soap box derby in 1936.

The British experience

Boys and girls in England were just as interested in soapbox cars as anywhere else and children with the help of their father put together their cars from whatever materials were available. In the UK a gravity racer car has been called a buggy, trolley, cart. It is currently popularly called a soapbox. In Scotland and northern England it has also been called a bogie, cartie/cairtie, guider or piller. In Wales it is often referred to as a gambo and in Australia they have been called billy-carts. Whatever you called them, making and racing them captured the imagination of boys and girls alike. Children with their homemake contraptions could be found on any hill having some fun. Shown right are three photographs of British children racing in 1957.

The earliest found reference to a soapbox conveyance was one reported on in The Canterbury Journal of 16 July 1892 which in part gave, “The chariet by which Elijah ascended into heaven resembled a soap-box mounted on small wheels, and Jonah is represented as being swallowed by a whale with immense teeth”. As was the case in Canada and the USA, formal derbies in England came about in the 1930s most notably in London, but local events on a smaller scale were conducted in the towns and villages throughout the country. They were entered into in a spirit of fun rather than serious competition. Often they were fund-raisers for a charity.

Online one can find a British Pathe film of a soapbox derby held at Wembly London in 1953, which event was an all boy scouts event. There was also a British film in 1958 entitled Soapbox Derby showing boys competing in a homemade derby race. Shown below are two more British images. The first is dated 1960 and the second shows a boy scout of the 7th Stockport troupe in his car which he drove to victory in the Boy Scouts Soapbox Derby at Weston -Super-Mare, Somerset, on 9 September 1956.

On 23 March 1959 a rehearsal was held for the ‘Gravity Power Grand Prix’ between former debutantes and racing drivers that was held at Brand’s Hatch. Shown in Susan Hampshire, Glaria Kindersley, Rosalind Watkins and Jennifer Osborn with Amanda Legge as the starter. This image is shown below right. The next three images below that show a race at Hunstanton, Norfolk around the same time. An announcement of the Hunstanton Derby was made 27 June 2017 by the Borough Council who said they were reviving this once popular event and that the race was scheduled to take place 17 September 2017.

In the 21st century there has been a resurgence of interest in soapbox racing and communities throughout England have brought local derbies back. The Aldington Soapbox Derby was brought back to Forge Hill on the August bank holiday in 2015. Shown below right is a photograph from the early 1900s of a soapbox race in Leighton Buzzard, and in contrast below it is a photograph from the 2013 Grand Prix race in London. The Telegraph of 17 March 2018 published an article entitled ‘How to build a soapbox car with the kids’ demonstrating the interest in this activity is still high.

On the internet can be found a list of the soapbox derby races held in England in 2016. On the list are 33 events in Essex, Gloucestershire, Lancashire, Yorkshire and many other ‘shires’ but none were found listed for the counties of Kent or Sussex. The first organised derby in Tunbridge Wells was held at Dunorlan Park on 5 May 2018, details of which are given later in this article.

Poster for the Crazy Jeans Soapbox Derby held in 2018 at Dunorlan Park, Tunbridge Wells.

A poster for a 2012 soapbox race, family fund day and live music .

Poster for the 2023 Crazy Jeans Soapbox Derby.

A soapbox in the form of a London bus at the 2013 Red Bull Derby in London.

Edward with his cub pack, middle of third row.

Edward’s ‘Red Rocket’soapbox his dad built for him.

A soapbox from the 1950s.

The front cover of the 9 January 1926 Saturday Evening Post.

Postcard view of the All-American Soapbox Derby.

George Nelson and his soapbox in 1936.

Three pictures of British children racing in 1957.

Rehearsal for the Gravity Power Grand Prix in 1959.

Three photographs racing at Hunstanton, Norfolk about 1959.

Two boys in 1960.

A boy scout racer at Weston-Super-Mare, Somerset in 1956

The Tunbridge Wells scene

One thing I noticed during my visit to Tunbridge Wells in the summer of 2015 was just how hilly it was, a paradise if you will for any boy or girl interested in soapbox racing and no doubt, as was the case in the rest of England, local boys and sometimes girls would work with the guidance of their father in building a soapbox racer and take to the hills. Unfortunately, photographic records of these events has proven to be illusive although a few photographs and postcard views showing children in the streets of the town exist, but none have been found to date of any with a soapbox racer in the image.

The Kent & Sussex Courier and the Sevenoaks Chronicle of 23 June 1939 reported in part, “The soapbox derby at Brooklands on Saturday attracted 17 members of the 1st Hurst Green Scouts, who spent an entertaining time at the race”. The Kent & Sussex Courier and the Sevenoaks Chronicle of 25 August 1939 reported in part, “Boy scouts are helping with a show and will provide one of the best turns of the afternoon in the form of a soap-box derby”.

Christopher J Page, on his website about the Ferndale Park Estate, stated in part, “I lived in Ravenswood Avenue (at number 40) for the first 19 years of my life between 1944 and 1963. I can remember the cycle races we organised around the estate, the soap boxes we built to run down the hill in front of our house...” I contacted Chris to see if he could elaborate on his experiences of soapbox racing and to obtain a photograph, but sadly he had no photograph to offer. He did however provide the excellent account of his experiences, which I present in its entirety in the last section of this article, input which I was most grateful to receive.

On 11 January 2018 and article by Will Harrison appeared in Kent Live announcing, “A soapbox race is coming to Tunbridge Wells and will be one of the biggest events the town has ever seen”. In part the article announced that, “Crazy Jeans will see 50 carts go head to head in Dunorlan Park, with as many as 10,000 spectators expected”. The charity soapbox race was coming to the town in the summer of 2018. The race was in the form of a time trial challenge to help raise funds for Hospice in the Weald. The carts were each to be sponsored and manned by local businesses and community groups, with a separate race being held in the morning to see local schools go head to head. The schools race was for children aged 16-18. The event, as announced by the poster shown right, was held on 5 May. The race was conducted on the paved path leading down towards Dunorlan Lake, shown in part by the photograph right. The start of the race was close to the top car park, near the café, and the finish line by the boat hut at the edge of the lake. A grand final was to be held at the end of the day, with the top teams from both the schools and public competitions going head to head to determine the final winner.

Other events of the day included a music stage, food village, children’s entertainment with inflatables, zip wire and a supercar display. The 50 cars in the event were put together by members of the West Kent College (photographs right). Images of the cars from the aforementioned article are also shown below it. The event was a great success and as expected well attended. One hopes that this type of event will continue for many years and perhaps Jean’s Kitchen & Wine Bar on St John’s Road, who came up with the idea, will make plans for another one next year.

Soapbox carts in Tunbridge Wells in the 1950s

This entire section is by Christopher J Page, dated 4 April 2018, who I referred to in the previous section, and who submitted it to me after I asked for more details about his adventures soapbox racing.

(Author’s note: The facts related here are as I remember them, but as this happened a very long time ago, and memories fade with time, they may not be entirely accurate. I would welcome any corrections, etc from those with better memories than me. I can be contacted by email at <chris@g4bue.com>)

I was born in 1944 and grew up in Tunbridge Wells with my younger sister Gillian born in 1946 and brother Timothy born in 1948. When my parents married in 1939 they bought one of the new houses on the Ferndale Park Estate at 40 Ravenswood Avenue. It was situated on the south-east corner of the estate just above the junction of Ravenswood Avenue and Pinewood Road, and at the bottom of a small hill that became ideal for ‘soapboxing’. Shown bottom right is a map of Ferndale Park identifying the area used for soapboxing. The hill started outside 23 Ravenswood Avenue and turned 90 degrees to the left (north) just past our house at the bottom at the junction with Pinewood Road, that in turn continued downhill but with less gradient, to the field at the bottom. There were only houses on the south side of Pinewood Road in those days (numbers 2, 4, 6, 12 and 14), the houses on the north side were not built until 1959 and those at the bottom later than that.

I don’t remember how we got started on ‘soapboxing’, or how we got our first ‘soapbox’ cart, and can only think now it must have been built by one of our fathers or an older brother. Also, I don’t know now how or where we got the idea from. There was no television (or internet!) in those days and so it must have been from either the comics we read and exchanged between us, ‘Saturday Morning’ cinema, or one of us seeing them being used by boys in another part of Tunbridge Wells.

The ‘we’ was just the boys because we were never able to persuade the girls to ride on the soap boxes. They would stand and watch, act as ‘lookouts’ and help pick us up when we fell off, which was frequent! The ‘us’ in those days was Peter Young at number 25 Ravenswood Avenue at the top of the hill, Tony McQueen next door at 27, the Larkin brothers Gerald and Keith at number 29, John Heasman who always seemed to be visiting his grandparents at 42 Ravenswood Avenue, Gregory and Cedric Novis at number 54, next door Graham and Stuart Heasman at 56 who, I believe, were cousins of John at 42, and Malcom Foy opposite at number 45 in one of the two new ‘police houses’ that were built about 1952. The present day houses at 33 to 39 Ravenswood Avenue on the inside of the turn at the bottom of the hill had not been built, the land being a rough field.

Although I cannot now recall the exact sizes and measurements of our first ‘soap box’, it followed the traditional design, except that it did not have a ‘soapbox’ to sit in but a short edged part of the ‘chassis’, similar to that shown in the photograph below right. The ‘chassis’ consisted of the main chassis member which was a piece of approximately three inch square wood about four feet long on which was fixed a piece of wooden board at one end, slightly less than the two feet width of a traditional pram of that time, and about two feet long. The rear wheels, which were quite large and from an old pram, were fitted on an axel fixed to the bottom of a cross-arm underneath the rear of the chassis member. Fitted underneath the front of the main chassis member was another cross-arm for the front wheels. These were smaller than the rear wheels, probably from the same pram, and also fitted to an axel on the bottom of the front cross-arm. A length of rope was attached a couple of inches from each end of the front cross-arm to assist steering and to pull the soapbox along.

The most critical part of the construction was joining the front cross-arm to the main chassis member with a long bolt. Whilst it had to be tight enough not to come undone it also had to be loose enough to enable the front cross-member to swivel and thereby steer the soapbox. This was achieved by using a bolt with thread only at the end, placing two washers on the bolt and lots of grease between the main chassis member and the front cross-arm, and two nuts on the end to ‘lock nut’ it.

We rode the soapbox by sitting on the board with our legs on each side of the front cross-arm as shown in the photograph of the two boys bottom right. Although the rope helped to steer, this was mainly achieved by pushing with our leg on the side of the cross-arm that you wanted to turn to. We started off taking turns to push each other in the soapbox along the straight part of Ravenswood Avenue between Pinewood Road and Lipscombe Road, but soon realised we could have more turns by doubling up on the soapbox. If the ‘driver’ sat forward, there was room for another one to ride behind and so two of us rode on it while a third pushed. I think we may also have tried to get three on at one time, but never four as shown in the photograph bottom right of some other boys managing to do that. The road surface on the estate in those days was concrete and quite smooth, which made it ideal for our soapboxes. The pavements were made from ordinary housebricks laid side to side and were a little uneven in places and so we kept to the road.

We then realised that if we started from part way up the hill outside our house and rolled down, we gained enough momentum to ride some distance along the straight stretch without anyone having to push the soapbox. Gradually we became braver and started from further up the hill until we were starting from the top. At the bottom of the hill we had to turn 90 degrees to the left along the straight stretch of road and this is where the majority of accidents occurred. As our speeds increased it became more difficult to stay on the soapbox and stop it overturning on the corner, despite us leaning to the left as far as we could to try and keep the wheels on the road. When we did stay on, we managed to travel quite a long way towards Lipscombe Road before gradually slowing down and coming to a stop. Very few of the families living in that part of Ravenswood Avenue and Pinewood Road owned cars in those days. I can only remember Mr Young at 25 Ravenswood Avenue, Mr Foy at 45 (whose car index number was AMO 206 that I can still remember!) and Mr Savage at 48. Mr Pentecost at 58 owned a motor cycle and side-car and another man, who lived round the other side of the estate, worked for the Baltic Saw Mills and drove his open back lorry home to lunch each day past our house. I remember my mother saying he always drove it too fast!

Therefore the roads on the estate were almost completely empty and traffic almost non-existent, unlike today! Nevertheless, because of the absence of any braking system on our soapbox, and the speeds we were starting to achieve, we had a ‘look-out’, usually one of the girls, at the bottom of the hill. From where we were starting on the hill we could look across the field on the inside of the corner to the straight stretch, but only as far as the new police houses at 45 and 47 Ravenswood Avenue, the rest was out of sight. When we were ready to start, the ‘lookout’ would look along the straight stretch and shout if it was safe to go. Obviously if a car was coming, we waited until it had driven past us. Looking back now, I would like to think that the few regular drivers soon came to know what we were doing and used a little extra caution when driving round that part of the estate, even the man who drove the Baltic Saw Mills lorry!

When the second soapbox appeared, and again I cannot now recall how we got it, we were able to hold races and then the fun really started as we tried different ways of modifying them to go faster! The first thing we found was by using smaller wheels, the soapbox was closer to the ground, less likely to turn over on the bend and was less wind resistant. Secondly we could lower the wind resistance even more by laying on the soapbox on our tummy instead of sitting on it, and steering it with our hands holding the front cross-arm instead of our feet, like the boy in the photograph right. This in turn made the construction of the soapbox simpler because we didn’t have to provide seating. The most difficult part of building these faster ‘racing’ soapboxes was acquiring the small wheels and axels.

Because these ‘racing’ type soapboxes went faster, they travelled further along the straight stretch of Ravenswood Avenue and sometimes even needed the small hill at the junction with Lipscombe Road to bring them to a halt. We then realised we could make them go even faster by not turning left at the bottom of the hill, but by turning slightly to the right on the corner and going down Pinewood Road. At first, we used this ‘course’ by starting part way up the hill, but as our experience and confidence grew, we gradually started higher up until eventually we finally started from the top.

By the time we reached the bottom of Pinewood Gardens by the circle, we were travelling very fast and had to negotiate the circle at the bottom to go down the grassy bank into the field in front of the wood, where the present day 18 and 20 Pinewood Road houses have been built. In addition to slowing the soapbox down, the grass provided a softish landing when we fell off. By keeping to the extreme left side of Pinewood Road, it was just possible to go through the circle on the extreme right side of the road with very little change of course, thus minimising the chances of falling off.

We were constantly repairing the soapboxes because crashes, which were very common, often caused damage which had to be repaired. We slowly became quite adept for our age in using spanners and basic carpentry tools. There was no health and safety rules in those days and I doubt today’s children would be able to get away with what we did for very long! Looking back on it now it is amazing that none of us got badly hurt. Whilst knocks and scrapes to our skin were quite common, nobody ever suffered a serious injury.

In 1949 Lesney, the English die-cast toy company, introduced the ‘Soapbox Racer’, a young boy sitting on a soapbox, as part of their Matchbox series of vehicles (photograph right). The soapbox had ‘Soap’ on one side and ‘Soda’ on the other side. Sadly, the racer was a flop for Lesney, the only flop they ever had, and very few were made, only about 1400. This has resulted in the model becoming the rarest of the early Lesney toys and is eagerly sought by collectors. There are believed to be less than about 20 known to exist today, resulting in them commanding a very high price when one comes to auction. In March 2003 a ‘fair’ condition ‘Soapbox Racer’ sold for £3200, in April 2006 a ‘nice example’ sold for £2700, and in 2017 one sold for £3400!

Poster for the 5 May 2018 Crazy Jeans soapbox race at Tunbridge Wells.

Photograph of the 2013 Grand Prix race in London.

Dunorlan Park, Tunbridge Wells.

The traditional design of a basic 1950s soapbox.

Two of the cars made for the 2018 Crazy Jeans soapbox race by members of the West Kent College.

Map of the Ferndale Park Estate showing the area where Chris and his friends raced their soapboxes.

A flat faster soapbox with smaller wheels on which the rider layed and steered with his hands

Three picturs of British children racing in 1957.

Four boys riding on one soapbox.

The rare ‘Soapbox Racer’ model introduced by Lesney Products in 1949.

A photograph from the early 1900s of a soapbox race at Leighton Buzzard, Bedfordshire.

In August 2016, Alan Dane who used to live at 70 Ravenswood Avenue, sent me some of his memories of living on the estate as a child. Among them, he wrote, “There were times when parts of Ravenswood became a veritable race-track. Four-wheel carts (fore-runners of go-carts) raced down the then, quiet hill zooming down, at break-neck speed around the bend and continuing more slowly along in the direction of Lipscombe Road. Occasionally carts toppled over on the bend or in negotiating the corner, crashed into an adjacent cart. The result was tears, bleeding knees, broken carts and angry words as the other was blamed (not me syndrome). The carts varied in shape, size and quality, depending on materials available or whether the cart was made by a parent or the user.”

Although not a resident of the Ferndale Park Estate, Chris Dann, writing on Facebook RTWPS in January 2014, said, “The best go cart run as follows: top of Stratford Street, past St Barnabas Hall, straight across St James’ Road, down into Grosvenor Park by the bridge holding enough speed into the park, left down towards the pond, right heading straight to the pond, now either right past the grottos or an impossible left turn that I never achieved and only ever ended in another soaking!” No doubt those of us who lived on the Ferndale Park Estate and knew that area, would not disagree with Chris that is was ‘the best go-cart run’ and better than anything we could achieve on the estate.