high scores on the Star Wars Arcade game proved to me that my acceptance into the RAF was a mere formality. ‘Waive the vetting process, fellas, send this one straight up to splash Migs.’
Mum recommended I go for an eye test just to be sure.
I perched on a leather stool and after considerable winding it was high enough for me to view the testing screen. I stared at a sequence of glowing shapes inside a hooded computer, listening to the optician’s breathing as he tapped his keyboard. His swivel chair clattered across the floor and he whispered a string of impatient instructions.
The test was over after a few minutes. My stomach tightened with a flush of excitement. I had taken the first step on a greater path.
‘How did I do?’
The optician glanced briefly in my direction. ‘They wouldn’t even let you load the bombs, son, let alone fly one.’
If he had only known how close his crown jewels were to extinction, he might have shown some respect. In Han Solo’s vernacular, I had jumped out of warp speed straight into an asteroid belt. My hopes and dreams evaporated. I was grounded.
I hated being told what I couldn’t do, but it was a powerful tonic. The harder they push you down, the harder you come back up, overcome and overwhelm. Mind you, there was no overcoming my eyesight.
Mum tried to console me by suggesting other possible careers – the forestry commission perhaps? I sat in my room for hours surrounded by pictures of machines that I would never fly.
My competitive instinct discovered another outlet for my emotions. My introduction to swimming was not exactly of my own volition, but it was the best thing that could have happened.
The Collins family moved to California when I was five; my father had been hired to turn around a haulage firm. My parents took me to the local swimming club. The coach was a tanned surfer dude with sun-bleached locks and a ripped torso. I shivered at the side of the pool, looked at the other kids pounding lengths, and decided against it.
Dad had a temper that was even quicker than his wit and I went to great lengths to avoid it.
‘Ben, get in.’ He didn’t look pleased.
‘No,’ I replied anxiously.
He went for the grab and I dived for cover. I managed to hook my arm through a sun-lounger, which came with me as Dad lassoed my kicking legs and pulled them towards him. I knew I was safe as long as I could hold on to that lounger. Dad upped the ante. He picked up the lounger with me attached and threw the job lot into the pool. I was in at the deep end and it was a case of sink or swim or come up with an alternative cliché.
I was furious and puny and grew angrier still as Dad looked down at me, failing to restrain his laughter. I set off at a rate of knots to the other end of the pool. Reluctantly, I discovered I was quite a fast swimmer.
After my turbulent initiation, I enjoyed training with the club and began competing. The whole family turned out for my first appearance at a regional gala and my grandma wished me good luck. ‘Go and win all your races,’ she told me. To my astonishment, I did. Winning felt good; it gave me a sense of purpose.
The Ojai Valley swim team punched well above its regional weight and I was soon competing at Junior Olympic standard. Our coach wrote training exercises on a blackboard during our daily sessions and I learnt never to read too far down. If the top read ‘600m’, that was all that mattered, even if the next line read ‘1,000m through crocodile infested swamp’. Focusing on anything but the present only made life harder.
The techniques were challenging, sliding your arms in a controlled arc around your body to propel yourself through the water. Mastery over breathing was essential and it developed the cardio-vascular system. The controlled intake and release of air was calming and a vital element for keeping the body platform stable and fast.
I was good but I tended to get carried away trying to go too fast, spinning my arms through the water like a windmill.
The explosive nature of the races was all-consuming.
The word ‘can’t’ was banned by our coach, but regardless how hard I trained with him or how much I attacked the water, I felt unable to produce true excellence. Without that goal, swimming became a hobby rather than my sport. But it remained an invaluable introduction to the art of mental and physical conditioning that would prove essential in racing, and beyond.
Chapter 3
Winning
I wanted to be inspired by something I could excel at, consumed with a passion to succeed. I caught the first glimpse of the path I wanted to choose on my eighteenth birthday.
My father’s exceptional gift was a trial in a single-seat racing car at the Silverstone Grand Prix circuit. I had only been driving for a few months – around the country lanes in my mother’s L-plated 4x4, with her riding shotgun. Mum hit me so often with her handbag that she broke the handle. Apparently I ‘left no margin for error’.
Dad had been raving about his experiences of racing; he’d just started competing himself. After a tooth-jarring trip across the snaking stretches of the Cotswolds with him working the wheel, we arrived at the circuit gates.
The moment we pulled off the road, the tarmac inside became more generous. Grandstands grew skywards in preparation for a big event and the unusual barrier walls were painted in blue and white blocks. I caught glimpses of the track from behind the grass banks. The bare breadth of bitumen with no road markings was unlike anything I had ever seen.
I climbed into one of my old man’s racing suits and tied on what looked like blue ballet shoes. A man gave a briefing to a group of us that involved plenty of crashing and potential death. We were using the high-speed Grand Prix circuit and had to show it due consideration.
The racing car was nothing much to look at. It lacked Formula 1 wings and hardly made a sound as the mechanics fired it up, but every component had an essential purpose. Business-like wheels carrying ‘slick’ tyres with no tread on them were attached to bony steel suspension arms bolted to a slender steel frame tub, at the front of which sat the nose, honed like the tip of a rocket. The bodywork was trim and crafted purely for speed.
Standing off to one side, I raised my right leg over a sidepod containing the cooling system, and into the cockpit. I rested one arm on the highest point of the car, just 30 inches from the ground, then pulled in the other leg. Standing on the moulded seat, I gripped the sides and slid my feet forwards.
The rev counter, speedo, oil and water temperature gauges were hidden behind the small black steering wheel, along with numerous mysterious buttons. The stainless steel gear stick to the right was the size of a generous thumb. It shifted with a delicate ‘thunk’ from one gear to the next.
My feet touched the pedals jammed closely together ahead of me. The brake was solid as a brick, the throttle stiff until you applied pressure, when it responded precisely to tiny movements. The steering felt heavy with no power assistance, only the strength I applied to it transferring energy to the front wheels which I could see turning ahead of me.
I tightened the belts and they jammed me into the seat, connecting me to the car. The hard seat grated at the bones in my shoulders. Everything was so alien, yet I knew it then. I was home.
The instructor deftly turned a red lever a quarter turn clockwise, flicked a pair of switches
