First International Vice President
The following introduction to Theresa appeared in the American Weekly on 30th October 1949
“The sun-browned woman on a motorcycle waved down the cowboy who was riding fast in the opposite direction. ‘I say there,’ she called out as he pulled his horse up short in a cloud of dust. ‘How far is it to the nearest town?’ He gazed at her in amazement. ‘Holy mackerel, Ma’am,’ he said. ‘Are you alone, way out here in this desert?’ She nodded laughing. ‘But I’m alright. I’ve been all over the world alone – Africa, Europe and most of your United States.’ ‘Are you crazy, or rich?’ he wanted to know. ‘Maybe I’m crazy, but I’m not rich. I’m almost stone broke, but I’ll pick up a bit of money some place, this is my transport.’ She patted her bike. ‘And I don’t need much else.’
What Theresa Wallach didn’t mention, was that for such travel you need courage and ingenuity and a lively spirit of adventure. She has done what most of us only dream of doing – she’s gone where and when she wanted to. A motorcycle champion, Miss Wallach has been travelling for years with all her worries left behind her and all her earthly possessions boiled down to what she can carry on her trusty motorcycle. First, she toured Europe. Then made the hazardous 10,000-mile (6,093 km) trip from Algiers to Cape Town, South Africa. In recent weeks she has travelled more than 25,000 miles (40,233 km) in the United States. Expenses are almost nil. She can go a long way on her motorcycle on a gallon of gas. She doesn’t have to worry about hotel reservations or paying hotel bills. When she’s tired, or sees an attractive spot, she pitches her tent for the night. Food is her greatest expense and when she runs low on money, she stops and gets herself a job. Sometimes she picks fruit or works on a farm or in a garage or gives lectures about her adventures on the road. She went to motor and aircraft maintenance schools in London and is a licensed mechanic both in England and in the United States. She can always pick up a job as a mechanic and with a few dollars she takes off again.”
In the Pearl Booklet, Frances relates:
All sounds wonderful, doesn’t it? I feel that Theresa needs no introduction at all; in many ways she is responsible for my sitting down at the typewriter now. For ages, every time I opened a book or talked to anyone about women motorcyclists, the name Theresa Wallach kept coming to me. I shall list a few of her incredible achievements here: one of only three women to be awarded a Brooklands Gold Star (the Gold Star was awarded to any rider who managed to lap the Brooklands racetrack in England at over 100mph/160kph), made the first crossing on a motorcycle of the Sahara Desert, rode alone across America, started her own Norton importing business in America, wrote a book about learning to ride, started her own riding school, appeared on television, was one of the first women despatch riders in the Second World War and to cap it all from 1962 to 1977 she was International Vice-Captain of WIMA.
Theresa grew up in London. She used to watch the grown-up girls crowd out of the factories and rush off to queue for the cinemas and dance halls and Theresa used to shudder at the sight. ‘That’s not going to be the life for me,’ she said to herself. She also said it to her parents who thought she was a bit odd. To them the only way to live respectably was to stay at home, find a husband and settle down to a life of cooking and needlework. Theresa knew that she couldn’t do this. She told everyone that she was going to travel – to see Africa and the Sahara Desert, Hollywood, the Grand Canyon, New York and Paris.
She started doing something about this aim first by sneaking out on her brother’s pedal cycle and teaching herself to ride. Later she stood staring wide-eyed at motorcycles instead of at boys. She had to fight quite a bit at home to get her way. Soon her parents found out that she was actually riding. In 1926, when she was seventeen, they told her that unless she settled down, she would end up as nobody’s bride!
Between 1928 and 1932 Theresa studied engineering at the University of London and was an active member of a motorcycle club. She had competed in many types of sport, namely trials, scrambles and road racing. She felt she had the experience and confidence to look after a motorcycle in any circumstances. After another family argument about her life choices, Theresa went to her friend Florence Blenkiron’s house where she found her friend equally upset. Some of her family had moved to Capetown, South Africa and she missed them very much. ‘Cheer-up, said Theresa. ‘Suppose we use my bike and go and see them.’
On 11 December 1934, Lady Astor, the first woman to take her seat in Parliament, gave an official send-off speech to the two daring women as they rode off from Africa House in the Aldwych with about a thousand Londoners watching them! From this day onwards, Theresa and Florence’s address was just as likely to be Post Restante, Desert Edge Petrol Pump, Algiers or Albuquerque.
The bike was a 3 ½ horsepower Panther 600cc with a Watsonian sidecar and a six-foot trailer. They crossed Europe in a very cold December, took a boat across the Mediterranean, arrived in Algiers and set off to cross the Sahara. They were to meet with tribes who had never seen a motorcycle. As a discouragement to lions, they carried a powerful flashlamp and two business-like revolvers. For almost a year, they endured some difficult experiences, such as “running a big-end” in the desert, running out of petrol in the jungle, and eating bread so hard they had to chip the loaf with a hammer and screwdriver! They soon forgot the unpleasantness of these times at the sights and splendours of Africa and Table Mountain, which was their goal. It’s not known what happened to the bike; Theresa returned home by ship while Florence obtained another Panther with the intention of riding back to London. She made it as far as Nigeria but was forced to trailer it across the Sahara to Algiers and riding it home from Europe.
Although both girls missed their home and family, nothing could deter Theresa from wanting to see more of the world. Unfortunately, her ambitious intentions, as well as those of many others, took a setback at the outbreak of World War II. Despite the war, Theresa didn’t stop riding. She joined the Transport Corps as soon as the Women’s Auxiliary Territorial service (ATS) was mobilised. Thousands of miles of convoy work in air raids and blackouts meant special means of transport. Orders were released to issue Theresa with a motorcycle, and she thus became one of the first women despatch riders. For the first time, women motorcycle troops were able to compete against other army regiments in motorcycle competitions. Theresa spent seven years in active service during the war.
Towards the end of the war, the Transport Corps was absorbed into base workshops. Two years before she was released from the army, Theresa was transferred to a unit of the Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers, where she was the first woman to pass the mechanics fitters exam. She was very disappointed that women did not rally to the workshops quicker.
For Theresa, the return to ‘Civvy Street’ simply meant transfer to a white ration book and to controlled labour. In under a year, she was on the move again. She wanted to see America. Landing in New York with a new motorcycle, she wasn’t too bothered with reservations, finances, luggage or any of the other things most travellers concern themselves with. Equipped with sleeping bag and a pair of saddlebags, fuller of spanners and maps than clothes, she managed some interesting tours. Theresa stayed in America for two and a half years; in that time, she covered 32,000 miles (51,500 km) and at one time or another had 18 jobs!
At the end of her tours, Theresa’s bike was put on display on the Norton stand at a motorcycle show in New York and it was there in 1952 that Louise Scherbyn met her and introduced her to WIMA. After this, Theresa returned to England, rode her ‘cammy’ Norton to the factory in Birmingham and was presented with a new machine by the company.
Theresa, however, did not stay in England long. In less than a year, she returned to America, this time to start up a motorcycle business. After the war years, export was vital to British industry and their bikes were in great demand in the States, but few people knew very much about them. Theresa dealt especially in British bikes, mainly Norton and Triumph. At this time, she was the only woman to own and run her own motorcycle business. Her shop not only sold, serviced and repaired bikes, but Theresa also decided to start giving riding lessons as well. The business thrived for many years, but finally started to decline in the 1970’s, with the influx of Japanese machines on to the American market.
In 1973, Theresa packed up the shop in Chicago and moved to Phoenix, Arizona where she started her own motorcycle riding school. Teaching riding was not a new venture for Theresa; she was already something of an expert. In 1970 she published a book ‘Easy Motorcycle Riding’ and in the following year she made several television appearances in which she talked about the need for young riders to take a course of proper instruction on two wheels. The book is a very comprehensive introduction to riding and is especially to be praised as most of the illustrations in it show women riders, which is rather unusual. Her book has been a great success and is now reprinted for the fourth time. When Theresa’s Riding Academy opened, nothing like it had been seen before in the States. Students come from all over the country. The students’ riding record is Theresa’s gratification; many of them write to tell of their five-figure mileage records, and still no problems. They are the ones who prove her work.
Frances concludes her piece on Theresa:
I want to repeat the very well-known story of how she achieved her Brooklands Gold Star in 1939. In his biography, Francis Beart, the ace Norton tuner, recalls how one day Theresa walked into his workshop at Brooklands and asked if she could borrow his 348cc International Norton for the next weekend’s British Motorcycle Racing Club (BEMSEE) meeting. Francis Beart told her it would cost a fiver! She hadn’t one, but returned later, having borrowed the money. When the day came, it was pouring with rain, but her lap was timed at 101.64mph! Theresa’s was one of the last Gold Stars to be awarded before Brooklands was closed down by the War. Around this time, Theresa was a regular attender at Brooklands along with her friends in the London Ladies Motorcycle Club in which she was a keen and active member.
Today (Frances wrote in 1980), Theresa is fully occupied with her riding school and had to drop the position of WIMA’s International Vice President, held until 1977, a post which Louise has yet to fill. However, Theresa has by no means hung up her helmet. She still makes occasional tours on her Honda 500/4 or uses one of her 100cc Kawasaki ‘trainer’ bikes for local trips. She lives in beautiful Arizona, on the doorstep of the Grand Canyon. She tells me the only way to penetrate the ramparts of the Grand Canyon is by mule! So, one fine day, Theresa hired such a beast, called ‘Daisie’ and rode the vertical mile down a three-foot ledge to the Colorado river! At the moment, (when not working in her riding school), Theresa is writing a book about her many adventures. Hurry up Theresa we can’t wait.
Current Members’ recollection
One GB member who travelled to the US, Sheila Whittingham, has added her memories of Theresa. “In 1995, I wrote to her before our trip and received a very friendly letter. She gave us directions and we spent a nice afternoon with her. She was very welcoming and gave us tea and biscuits – I remember a packet of real English ginger biscuits complete with a union jack emblem on the packet. She showed us her Gold Star and other photos and gave me two lovely gifts to take home, a signed copy of her book (Easy Motorcycle Riding) and a picture of a Navaho kachina doll, both of which I still have.” Sadly, she didn’t want her photograph taken and was more interested in finding out about Sheila’s life and travels than talking about herself!
Sheonagh Ravensdale’s postscript to the 1980 history: Theresa remained an active member of WIMA GB throughout her time in the USA, eagerly reading the monthly GB newsletter in Phoenix, until her death on her 90th birthday in 1999. As Captain of WIMA GB from 1993 to 1999, Sheonagh recalls getting regular letters from Theresa commenting on the newsletter, often complaining about the language in it! Theresa never managed to get the incredible tale of the Africa trip published during her lifetime. That task was taken up by editor Barry Jones of Panther Publishing after she died and ‘The Rugged Road’ was published in 2001 to immediate acclaim. A second edition with updated information was published in 2011. Theresa had made a 16mm cine film of the journey and gave many presentations using this footage during her travels in the USA. A video made from the film footage was launched in the UK around the time of the first edition of the book. You can see it here: https://www.brooklandsmuseum.com/explore/stories/brooklands-stories/from-brooklands-to-phoenix-arizona-via-capetown.
In 2003, four years after her death, Theresa was inducted into the AMA Motorcycle Hall of Fame. Because of ‘The Rugged Road’, Theresa is possibly better-known internationally than Louise, but both women have been an inspiration to us all ever since we first discovered them early in our riding careers. When travelling in remote places, with problems on the road, Sheonagh has found herself muttering “Now what would Theresa do?”
