IN 1978 jokes about women drivers were still told by comedians with frilly shirtfronts and bow ties like black velvet bats.

Women in motorsport were few and far between.

Divina Galica, formerly of Malmesbury, had competed in Formula One a few years before, and remains one of only a handful of women to do so.

Even in banger racing, perhaps the most inclusive of all motor sports, female competitors were still scarce enough to be news.

We told the story of one of them 38 years ago.

“For Cricklade waitress June Allen, 37,” we said, “a Sunday afternoon drive means donning a crash helmet and climbing through the window of a car which would be at home in a scrap yard.

“Gentle weekend trips through winding country lanes are much too tame for this blonde mother of four.

“June prefers careering around a rough track towards a chequered flag – and she doesn’t mind what she hits along the way.

“She’s one of the area’s top banger race drivers and current holder of the Swindon Banger Club’s Ladies Trophy.

“At her home in Pikehouse Close, it dominates a shelf crowded with cups and plaques.”

Jean, who worked at the White Hart Hotel, laughed at suggestions that motor sport was an unusual choice for a woman.

She also revealed that she wouldn’t have been a competitor at all, had a fool in a car on the road not knocked her from her moped.

Frightened to ride the fragile machine again, Jean learned to drive and passed her test in the mid-1960s while eight months pregnant.

In 1974 she and husband Lance were spectators at a banger race in Blunsdon, and both decided to become drivers.

By the time we interviewed her, the couple had got through about a dozen cars, mostly Austin Cambridges and similar saloons bought for £5 as MOT failures and stripped of fittings.

June had seen her share of crashes on the track, but her first, at Faringdon, was the worst.

“I went round a corner and the steering knuckle broke. The car just nose-dived and rolled over and over.

“I was just sitting there a bit dazed when the marshal came over. He said: ‘Are you all right, love?’ “When I said, ‘Yes, I think so,’ he yelled, ‘Well bloody well get off, then.’”