Speed Jumper: how biker Beryl Swain became a Scandinavian sweater-wearing icon
It’s not very often that you get to celebrate someone’s life through knitwear, but this is one of those moments … the Museum Knits pattern ‘Beryl’ was inspired by an unlikely pairing of motorbike leathers and a 1960s Scandinavian influenced sweater worn by biker Beryl Swain, an updated version of which I created for display in the Isle of Man’s Manx Museum.
Beryl is a little-known legend who put Walthamstow in East London on the biking map back in 1962. Her origins story is of its time and involves a man with a motorcycle repair business, but it’s where she took it (and how far beyond she could have gone) that is this tale’s hook.
The history of women motorcyclists in the early-mid 20th century would not fill a large tome, but those who did break through really stand out in this male-dominated field: Dot Robinson, founder of the Motor Maids of America, springs to mind. In 1939 she joined forces with Linda Dugeau and rode around America looking for like-minded female motorbike enthusiasts – they were so successful their 51-strong club became a movement, connecting women ranging from grandmothers to teenagers, east coast to west coast. ‘Love of the open road’ was such a male-related phrase – how could women roam the country alone? Far too dangerous on every level – this felt like an anomaly rather than the norm, yet these women’s stories grew and grew and continue to inspire today.
Before her, Fay Taylour (aka Flying Fay) dominated the dirt-tracks and speedways in the late 1920s/early 30s, making her name in the UK and Australia along with Evelyn Askquith, her main female competitor (they both regularly beat men in mixed races). Unfortunately, Fay’s choice of politics was less inspiring and her reputation never quite recovered post-WW2 after she backed fascist Oswald Mosely (we never said our female heroes were perfect).
So when Beryl Tolman was born in 1936, there were already a few women blazing a trail and inspiring young girls to follow in their footsteps. Hard to know if she’d heard of them or if their stories had an impact on her formative years, but when she met and married motorcycle garage owner Eddie Swain in 1952, a fuse was lit.
With Eddie’s encouragement she took to racing 50cc bikes which suited her slight frame, with Eddie’s friend Bob Summerill as her mechanic. She tried her hand at speedway racing at the local Hackney track but decided tarmac surfaces suited her best and aimed her hat at one of the most well-known and perilous race courses in the world … the TT on the Isle of Man. The TT has a dangerous reputation for a reason: from its inaugural race in 1907 to 2023, there have been 296 fatalities – bad enough for men to face the dangers, but for women it seemed unthinkable. Yet when the TT included its first 50cc round in 1962, there was Beryl, donning a diver’s leaden belt to bring her weight up to the requisite entry requirements, and completing the race on her Itom (she came 22nd out of 25).
The press loved her of course, albeit briefly. The most well-known pictures of her feature this fabulous Scandinavian style jumper; lots of things are unclear about the knitwear. Who knitted it? What colour was it? Was she wearing it on practice runs? Was she wearing it to bring her weight up or just due to the temperature (the race takes place in late May/early June so it can’t have been too cold). Then came the inevitable images of her in her London kitchen wearing a pinny and cat’s eyes glasses. One archive news footage report ends with the quote ‘Slowly but surely the weaker sex are muscling in on men’s domain. Practically no spot is sacred. Thank goodness for Rugby League.’ I’m not even going to include those pictures here, we’re way past such reductive imagery (aren’t we?).
Beryl’s racing future looked bright – she was a guest at the Motorcycle Show that year (where she chose to announce her plans to enter the TT again, possibly on a 500cc bike) and Honda came calling about a possible sponsorship. But that well-worn narrative surrounding women in sport had already decided to stick to its familiar trope – the Fédération Internationale de Motocyclisme revoked her international licence on the grounds that ‘racing is too dangerous for women’. True to her fighting spirit, Beryl did not take this lying down and sent out a flurry of letters to people in positions to influence the ruling, including the Queen and Lieutenant Governor of the Isle of Man. As far as I’m aware there’s no record of their reply, but it did her no good, the decision was upheld. She applied the following year anyway but was rejected as a weight limit was introduced which she could not meet (the ban on female entrants persisted until Hilary Musson competed in 1978). Shortly afterwards her marriage broke down and somewhere along the line she made the sad decision to put this chapter in her life behind her, even shunning it as a topic of conversation in future life.
She remained in East London/Essex and became a personnel manager for Sainsbury’s, which I hope with all my heart was a fulfilling career and one that she was proud of. The TT organisers did not include her in its 2007 centenary celebrations – she died in May 2007, so this would have been the perfect opportunity to pay tribute to her extraordinary achievements. Happily, in 2023 the Manx Museum undertook a huge project to build a permanent display devoted to the TT, with Beryl featured large in mannequin form wearing the Museum Knits recreated jumper over the top of her racing leathers. Zenzie Tinker Conservation spent many months conserving the leathers and textiles, with Mike Penwolf building the dynamic mannequins and working with the team to mount the figures in race-appropriate poses – it’s a really great exhibition!
So to the jumper itself … all images of Beryl wearing this sweater are in black and white and there are no eye-witness accounts that can attest to the colour, but some photography colourisation tests suggest it may have been blue so that was the main colour chosen for the museum display. There are two yarn options suggested in the pattern: the moth-averse Stylecraft Special DK worn by the mannequin in the museum, and a King Cole 100% wool version which knits up to the same tension/gauge. Both yarns have a wide range of colours so you can have fun changing it up.
Beryl was also celebrated in her birthplace of Walthamstow – in 2019 an exhibition ‘Need for Speed’ was held at the 1B Window Gallery telling her story, a part of which included a huge mural which was painted overlooking Wood Street where she was born.
