WHAT baby boomer can forget Gelignite Jack Murray? Mr Perpetual Motion himself, Murray was best known as the rally driver who, in 1954, won the REDEX Round Australia Reliability Trial in a Ford ex-taxi dubbed the Grey Ghost without the loss of a single point.
His name came from his habit of using “jelly” to clear impassable roads and to mark his arrival and departure from towns (among other things), occasionally earning the wrath of the law.
But as his son Phil says in his biography of his dad, Gelignite Jack: An Aussie Larrikin Legend, there was more to him than this.
As he writes: “Jack’s sporting interests and achievements were eclectic and far-ranging ... Throughout his life he engaged in various sports including cycling, football, stock car racing, hill climbing races, circuit car racing, car endurance events, grand prix racing, international and Australian rally driving, wrestling, boxing, hunting, ocean boat racing and waterskiing.”
In a life made for headlines he also witnessed the nazification of motorsport in Germany, served on US small ships in WWII, fathered two sons, and shared his life, intriguingly, with two women.
“My father crammed the experiences of travel, sports and sheer zest for life of at least two men into his 76 years,” Phil says.
This book is a wonderful tribute to a dizzying, high-speed, athletic life.
- Gelignite Jack: An Aussie Larrikin Legend (New Holland), $22.99.
