John Barber

Barber, a Billingsgate fish merchant, went racing with a Cooper-JAP before purchasing a Formula 2 Cooper-Bristol Mk1 for the 1952 season. He won a minor Libre race at Snetterton, but crashed the car badly at season’s end.

He ventured to Argentina at the start of 1953 and drove steadily to eighth in the championship Grand Prix followed by a 12th place in the Buenos Aires Libre race. On his return to home shores he briefly raced the flying saucer-shaped Golding-Cooper, which is believed to have been built on the frame of his damaged Mk1. It was racing this car in the British Empire Trophy at the Isle of Man that he was innocently involved in the aftermath of a fatal accident which befell James Neilson. Barber soon dispensed with the car and was not seen in action again until a brief return to racing in 1955 with a Jaguar C-Type at national level.