Douglas Marshall (1918-1989)

Douglas Marshall (1918-1989) was demobbed in 1945 after spending six years as an electrician in the Royal Air Force, stationed at various air bases in  Great Britain.  On returning home to Saltburn in North Yorkshire, with his wife and two small children, he started work at what was then Dorman Long Works near Southbank as an electrician.

Doug had always been very keen on tuning and riding motorcycles and had a passion for riding them fast, so in 1946 he decided to start racing. He raced at all the short circuits throughout the North of England, places like Brough, Silloth, Cadwell Park and made his debut at Oliver’s Mount in September 1947 riding a 498cc Triumph twin, lining up against house-hold names such as Denis Parkinson, Bill Doran, George Brown, Jack Brett and Maurice Cann. In the first 500cc heat final, he was reported by the ‘Motor Cycling’ magazine to be “lapping very nicely”, but then “ran out of clutch”, a common problem at Scarborough’s tight and hilly track, he finished a very creditable eighth.

At the July 1948 Scarborough meeting he made the news once again, with the “Motor Cycling” magazine reporting on his performance during the first 20-lap heat, for 351 to 1000cc machines: “A very game show was put up by D. Marshall who finished fourth, on the same girder-fork Triumph ‘Tiger 100’ on which he performs so well at Cadwell Park.”

Besides Oliver’s Mount, his favourite hunting ground was Cadwell Park, where he started to beat established riders like Syd Barnett and Bill Lomas and picking up decent amounts of prize money with several first places. He also took part in various local grass track, sprints and sand racing events.

He now needed a bigger challenge and where better than the Isle of Man. So in September 1948 he was entered by Middlesbrough Motor Club, for the Manx GP Senior event on his Triumph 500 GP machine (engine number T100.97021.R.), which he had bought new in July that same year.

He travelled over to the island with his family and close friend Bill Zealand, who was also competing on a Norton in the Junior race, in Bill’s removal van, which doubled as a workshop and sleeping quarters for Doug, and his family. Everything was going fine until practice when he crashed 13 miles from the start and suffered face abrasions and concussion.

Fortunately his machine was not damaged and he was passed fit to race the following week. Doug went on to finish the senior race with an impressive 20th place, just missing out on a replica. Not bad for a first outing around the tough mountain circuit.

Doug’s next trip to the Island was for the 1949 Senior Clubmans TT, entered this time on a home tuned Triumph 500. The Middlesbrough Motor Club had already entered two riders for that year’s competition and with each club restricted to just two riders, Scarborough and District Motor Club entered him.

Unfortunately Doug didn’t have as much luck as the previous year and retired at Ramsey due to clutch failure. He faced the long journey home very disappointed, but with some hope for the forthcoming September Manx Grand Prix.

At the July 1949 Oliver’s Mount meeting, Doug was featuring in the results, finishing runner-up in Heat 1 of the Mere “25” 500cc event to Dickie Dale.

In the 500c Tesseyman Trophy Final, Doug was lying second to Dale on the fifteenth lap, when he lost control of his machine on the fast bottom straight. The ‘Motor Cycling’ magazine described the incident: “D. Marshall got out of control on the fast, shallow curves approaching the start. “Something locked up,” he said afterwards, rubbing a sore shoulder, the only injury he suffered from somersaulting his machine all along the road at approaching “full chat.” His rev counter was stuck at 7,000.”

While the Scarborough Evening News said: "The luckiest rider of the meet­ing was Douglas Marshall (Saltburn), who came off his machine at about 90mph on the bottom straight. Both, rider and machine were hurled onto the grass verge out of the path of incoming machines. Marshall was unhurt except for a severe shaking”

Apparently one of the spectators watching his tumble, fell off the fence in amazement and broke his leg, whereas Doug who went flying down the road, was completely unhurt !

Doug made the trip across the Irish Sea, with his family and Triumph 500 GP-twin for the 1949 September Manx Grand Prix. Doug’s hard work and competitive spirit hadn’t gone un-noticed over his last two visits to the Island and also his varied success around the northern short circuits. Unknown to Doug the Norton bosses had shown a great deal of interest in him. They had told his wife before the start of the Senior race, that he was to be given a works ride with the Norton Team for the 1950 season. Doug’s wife Bess, was worried by this news and decided not to tell him about the Norton offer until after the race, fearing that if he was told and he knew they were watching, then he would try too hard and push his luck.

During the weeks leading up to the races and during practice week, a disagreement had developed between Doug and Avon tyres. They had been developing a new style of racing tyre for which they recommended a particularly high pressure, which Doug considered to be way too high for racing. Despite Doug’s reservations, Avon insisted that this new tyre had to be used with the specific high pressure, so he finally relented and agreed to inflate his tyres to their recommended setting.

He’d been going well and during practice for the Senior, on Saturday 10 th September, he set the third fastest lap with a time of 33m 1s, an average speed of 68.58 mph. Doug was given good marks for neatness around Signpost bend by a reporter from the Motor Cycling magazine. Cromie McCandless was fastest with 31m 46s and H.J. Kemp second with 32m 4s.

During Monday’s session he finished sixth fastest in a time of 29m 47s with a speed of 76.02 mph. Denis Parkinson topped the leader board with a time of 28m 10s. Doug’s speed along the fast Sulby Straight section was recorded at 98.92mph, which put him equal 11th in the speed-stakes, the fastest being that of A.W. Dobbs who reached an impressive 106.52mph. A practice official described Doug through Braddan Bridge as ‘loud and fast!’

Doug lined up for the Thursday morning Senior race still not knowing about the Norton offer. At the end of the first lap Doug lay in sixth position with Geoff Duke 1st, Cromie McCandless 2nd, Denis Parkinson 3rd, Chris Horn 4th and Don Crossley 5th, but Doug sped back over the following three laps.

As he climbed the mountain mile for the fifth lap his back tyre blew at over 90 mph, throwing him off the machine into a wire fence. As he went through the fence his helmet got caught under the wire and broke his neck. Un-aware of his injury he stood up in a half conscious daze and wandered very close to the edge of the steep mountain mile.

Another rider who was passing the scene of the crash, spotted Doug and noticed him wandering aimlessly near the steep drop and went to help. Saying later, that if he hadn’t seen him, Doug would have gone over the edge to certain death.

Doug was rushed to Nobles Hospital and x-rayed to find the extent of his injury. Apart from the broken neck, which was bad enough, he sustained no other injuries except the usual skin abrasions. Doctors were amazed to find he had a fractured odontoid but were unsure how to treat it, as they had never seen this kind of fracture on a living person before, usually people with this kind of injury were killed outright!

The doctors decided that the best action to take was to fit Doug with a full cast from the stomach to the top of his head and hope for the best. If they could minimise movement then it would have a chance of healing. Doug wore the cast for several months (see photo) which was very uncomfortable as you can imagine, finding it very difficult to sleep and having to use two knitting needles taped together when he needed to reach an itch under the cast!

Doug recovered from his injuries and was advised by the doctors at Nobles Hospital that it would be very foolish to ever consider racing at the Manx or any other motorcycle race, as the next time he might not be so lucky. Doug took no notice of this good advice and within two years was back on the bike and racing again at all his favourite circuits. However, he never did go back the Isle of Man to race and said in his own words: '' I’d lost my edge.”

He set up his own motorcycle repair business about this time, which made it a lot easier to put his design ideas into motion as well as making a living doing something he enjoyed.

Although concentrating more on the tuning side, his many innovative projects included improving frame & suspension designs, a parallelogram swinging arm (which he took out a patent on in 1954), anti-dive forks, central damping forks, gas flowing, fuel injection and so on. He carried on racing bikes on the short circuits throughout the 1950’s, but only using racing as a way of testing his designs and ideas.

In a recent article penned on specialist frame maker and bike builder Roger Titchmarsh in the ‘Classic Racer’ magazine entitled ‘ Framework to the Stars’, Titchmarsh reminisced about Doug’s influence : “ As an adolescent I spent most of my weekends in the workshop of Doug Marshall's motorcycle shop. He was a great lateral thinker. He'd never tell me anything but always asked me how I'd do something or other. If I didn't know he'd say: 'Go home and think about it.' In hindsight he taught me a great deal."

Doug retired from motorcycle racing at the end of 1958 season due to headaches from a trapped nerve in his neck, caused by the 1949 crash which were becoming more troublesome. He was also finding it difficult to adopt the low down position required for racing.
 
A friend suggested he should give car racing a try, as it wasn't as harsh on the body and a more comfortable position as you would expect. In the early 1960’s, Doug attended the Jim Clark motor racing school and after several sessions his headaches just disappeared. The only explanation the doctors could offer was that the hard suspension along with the bouncing about and pulling on the steering wheel had just un-trapped the nerve.

Doug found car racing no substitute for bike racing and returned to it again in 1963. He was apparently heart broken when he had to dig-deep to replace his two piece leathers with a one piece Aviakit leather race suit, due to new racing legislation.

He raced throughout the late 1960’s having dropped the 500 Triumph in favour of 250cc Cotton and 348cc Triumph machines.

Doug finally hung-up his leathers in 1971 after 25 years of almost continuous racing (except the two years out with his broken neck) and took up flying in 1975 and went on to acquire his licence in 1977. He managed to crash twice during his flying career... but that's another story for another day.

Thanks to Phil Marshall for providing all information and pictures.