A look back more than 90 years to the TT of 1922 - or is it?

A look back more than 90 years to the TT of 1922 - or is it? - Printable Version

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A look back more than 90 years to the TT of 1922 - or is it? - Malcolm - 09-10-2013

This grand old image was doing the rounds on Twitter last week, when it received a lot of interest and re-Tweets.

It is simply captioned ‘1922 TT’, and to all intents and purposes that appeared to be quite feasible.

At first glance it looks like the rider is negotiating the section of the Mountain Course between Hillberry and Cronk-ny-Mona. But is it?

The road is extremely rough, conducive with the condition of the un-metalled roads of the early 1920s, but were they really that bad - considering the fastest lap of the 1922 Senior (over six laps) was 59.99mph?

The contours of the land in the top right-handside of the picture look too lumpy for the Clypse/Kerrowdhoo area around Honey Hill and Gorse Tips.

The corner in the background, what you would loosely describe as the ‘old Brandish Corner’, is lower than you’d expect and the kink quarter-mile or so before at the end of the cutting leading down from Creg-ny-Baa appears to be at too much of an angle.

The land beyond that in the top left-hand corner of the picture also appears too flat.

The biggest question mark is on the angle and position of the rider/machine, clearly banking to the right on a section of the TT Course where the bends are all left-handers.

For the first four years of the Mountain Course, before the Great War, the TT Course did not include the Signpost Corner, Bedstead and Governor’s Bridge segment, which was only introduced for the first post-War event in 1920.

If this picture was taken in 1914, for argument’s sake, it is possible that the rider would have been banking right to turn down towards Johnny Watterson’s Lane which was the route then, but quite whether it was a sharp turn (as at present), or simply a fork in the road, is unknown.

I am not the only individual doubting the details relating to the picture, which links back to Vintage Norton Motorcycles website accompanied by the following caption: Contributed by George - ‘Above is a picture, from Roger Cawthorne of his dad Ralph at Cronky Mona at the IoM; look at the condition of the road and the casual position of the spectators?’

Now, there is another picture of Ralph Cawthorne in the paddock on a machine at the 1922 event and it is definitely not the same bike - as alluded to in a further line to the caption: ‘Clearly not the machine he entered for the Senior in 1922 or 1923; perhaps a practice lap on a side-valve machine?’

Chris Williamson of Matlock, who spends a lot of time in the island and is a keen follower of the TT, agrees with much of the aforementioned and is also quite doubtful that the picture was in fact taken in the Isle of Man.

He has studied an old one-inch map of the island – dated 1921 – which apparently shows the road as being a straight line from the Creg down to Brandish and straight between Brandish and Hillberry (not as pictured here).

He, like me, wonders if it was taken at a hill climb type of event in the UK on semi-dirt roads (probably open to the public, as they would have been). That would also answer why there is a line of cars at roughly the-centre point of the picture in what was possibly a paddock.

The more I study the image, the less convinced I am that it is what I first thought it was, although I admit there is an uncanny resemblence to the Cronk-ny-Mona stretch of the current course.

It’s a fascinating topic, but what do you think?

Email john.watterson@newsiom.co.im or phone 01624 695654.

John Watterson