A fast prince in Pattaya and eleven other Siamese

Prince Bira at Zandvoort (Photo: Wikipedia CC0 1.0 Universal)

During the last stop of the car rally we ended up at the Bira Race Circuit. Bira? Who is that? Last week this question was answered in detail in an extremely interesting and appetizingly written book by Teddy Spha Palasthira, titled The last Siamese, journeys in war and peace.

Prince Bira, in full HRH Prince Birabongse Bhanubandh, was born in 1914 as the grandson of King Mongkut (Rama IV). During his studies in London (visual arts!) he became addicted to fast cars and started a career as a racing driver. Between 1935 and 1955 he took part in hundreds of races on every track imaginable in Europe and elsewhere. There he drove his English Racing Automobile (ERA), a souped-up six-cylinder, and won very regularly. He was not driving on behalf of any car factory, but on behalf of an independent team, the White Mouse team, founded by his nephew, Prince Chula Chakrabongse, grandson of King Chulalongkorn. After the war, his ERA was no longer able to compete with the racing cars of Maserati and Alfa Romeo. In January 1955 he won the New Zealand Grand Prix in Ardmore and the next day he put an end to his racing career.

He was also the first Thai to fly from Europe to Thailand on his own and the first Thai to waterski on the river in Bangkok. Bira also became, after a first marriage to an Englishman (Ceril) and a second to an Argentinean (Chelita), a compulsive womanizer who lived in a beautiful villa called Les Faunes near Cannes, where his sailing yacht was moored. His friend and driver Prasom collected the ladies in his Aston Martin and later returned them in his Buick. According to Teddy, Bira slept with hundreds of women. His second marriage collapsed and so did his budget. In 1956 he divorced Chelita and returned to Thailand broke.

"Life begins at sixty," Bira told friends at the Royal Varuna Yacht Club in Pattaya. He was a very important and eventually a legendary member there. His libido was exhausted and he now led a quiet life with two Thai women, Lom and Lek. But he still had a sense of speed and turned out to be a very good sailor, winning many races. He was part of the Thai national teams that participated in the Olympic Games in 1956, 1960, 1964 and 1972. He brought important sailing competitions to Pattaya, such as the 1978 world championship. the club.

His business adventures invariably ended catastrophically, so his friends always had to help out financially. He was happy in love and in games (sports), but not in business. In 1985, two days before Christmas, he died on a bench in the London Underground, apparently of a heart attack. An extraordinary and remarkable life silently came to an end!

I'll summarize dryly for now, but Teddy dresses up his biographical sketch with all sorts of juicy and entertaining anecdotes. It's a pleasure to read.

And that's not all, because in addition to Prince Bira, Teddy also treats eleven other Siamese who led a remarkable life in the last century (often in connection with WWII). To name just a few: So Sethaputra, who compiled the first English-Thai dictionary as a political prisoner, Plaek Pibulsongkram, the dictator who tried to protect Thai interests during WWII, Nai Lert (Lert Sreshthaputra), the first real Thai large-scale entrepreneur. And so eight other Siamese who each definitely deserve the biographical sketch that Teddy has included of them in his beautiful book. His book is introduced by Anand Panyarachun, a former Prime Minister of Thailand. Teddy concludes his own introduction with the words 'if you want to find out who your true friends are and you want to enjoy your old age, write a book'. A touching piece of advice….

I can only wholeheartedly recommend this fascinating and tasty book.