Off-side wheels

Birkin’s eccentric patron

The daughter of Lord Queensborough and American heiress Pauline Whitney, Dorothy Wyndham Paget was one of Britain’s best-known racehorse owners, winning 1,532 races with a number of trainers. She was also highly eccentric; in later life she became entirely nocturnal, eating breakfast at 6.30pm, lunch at 10.00pm and a large dinner in the early morning. But as a young woman in the late 1920s, a visit to Brooklands kindled her interest in motor racing. She took driving lessons from Tim Birkin and, it’s claimed, competed under the pseudonym ‘Miss Wyndham’. Birkin described her as one of the finest women drivers of fast cars he had ever come across. Without her sponsorship, the Blower Bentley would never have entered racing legend.