A F P Fane was probably Frazer Nash’s most celebrated racing driver
having driven for the marque with great success throughout the 1930’s.
Alfred Fane Peers Agabeg was born in India the son of a wealthy
landowner and mining engineer. He was twelve when his father died, and
he came to England to live with his mother. Fane attended Clare College,
Cambridge when he entered his first motor race – at Brooklands in 1931.
He duly finished second beating several experienced drivers and later
that spring, he won his very next race at the Easter Monday Brooklands
meeting.
In 1932 Fane changed his surname from Agabeg to Fane and therefore
became Alfred Fane Peers Fane. In October 1932 Fane married Evelyn
Marriot. Evelyn encouraged his motor racing and Fane bought his first
Frazer Nash in 1932 He entered this car in a supporting sports car race
at the 1932 German Grand Prix, but he retired before the end owing to
a chassis failure which was almost certainly caused by a collision with a
tram in Brussels on the way to the Nürburgring!
In 1935 the Fane’s moved to Hedsor Priory near Bourne End in
Buckinghamshire. Fane belonged to the Reading-based Sporting Owner
Drivers Club as well as the Frazer Nash and BMW Car Club, so it was
quite natural for him to enter his local event, Great Auclum in 1939.
During 1936 Fane entered a number of big international sports car races
for the BMW factory team. He finished third in the 1936 RAC Tourist
Trophy race on the Ards road-circuit in Northern Ireland and scored a fine
win in the 1937 International Eifel Sports Car race at the Nürburgring. In
the late 1930’s Fane enjoyed great success in speed events and road
races.
Fane joined the RAF. In 1939. At almost 28, he was too old to be a
fighter pilot, even though he held a pilot’s licence and was in the RAF
Volunteer Reserve. Consequently, he joined as a Pilot Officer and was
posted to Photographic Reconnaissance Unit No.1 (PRU) at Benson near
Oxford in 1941. Photographic reconnaissance was in its infancy then and
required bravery as well as skill since the PRU Spitfires were unarmed (in
order to save weight). Fane flew several important missions between
1939 and 1942 and one such mission involved finding a German pocket
battleship called ‘Tirpitz’ which was considered a serious threat to allied
shipping. He successfully found and photographed the ‘Tirpitz’ and the
allies were able to use this intelligence to remove the threat that the ship
has posed. On July 18th 1942, Fane was returning from a mission in France
when he ran into bad visibility over East Anglia. He was flying at low
altitude to get his bearings when he clipped a telegraph pole with a wing,
and he crashed into an embankment. Fane died instantly.
Fane’s ashes were scattered in the grounds of Hedsor Priory and his
wife erected a stone seat in his memory. The seat was moved to Shelley
Walsh in 1992 where it proudly overlooks the Crossing and the scene of
Fane’s best-known triumph.
A F P Fane drove at Great Auclum just once – in 1939 – and set the
second-best time of the day. Without doubt, he was one of the most
stylish, charming and talented of drivers ever to grace the venue.
