'A playboy? On our first date, James said he bred budgies...'
I went from being the happiest girl on the planet, to...’ Helen Dyson pauses. She is sitting in her pretty south London home, her beautiful schnauzer, Katy, at her feet, telling me about the day James Hunt asked her to marry him. She was on holiday, on the Greek island of Lesbos, and the iconic racing driver telephoned to propose.
‘We had discussed it, and he was very keen that we have our own family together, so he had treated my friend Chris and me to a last “girls’ holiday” before we settled down. It was while I was away, in this beautiful, secluded hotel, that he asked me to marry him in the autumn.’
But within just 24 hours, Helen’s happiest moment would be overtaken by tragedy. For the next evening, she received a call informing her that her fiancé had died of a heart attack. ‘I hadn’t been away from James once in the five years we were together, and it’s almost like some higher power – God, fate, whatever – was protecting me in some way. I lost the love of my life. My future. It was just beyond…’
Helen with her schnauzer, Katy
That was June 1993, and it is clear that the memory of that terrible day remains raw. Twenty years on, a picture of a grinning James still takes pride of place in her dining room, and Helen, now a successful artist, speaks about him with genuine, unbridled affection.
‘The five years we had together was like a whole lifetime together, the amount of love and happiness and joy we shared… I am keen that people know what an amazing man he was.’ The life of this ‘amazing man’ is the subject of a new film, Rush, directed by Ron Howard. Hunt is played by Chris Hemsworth, and the action follows Hunt’s legendary Formula 1 rivalry with Austrian driver Niki Lauda (played by Daniel Brühl), which came to a dramatic, near lethal, head in 1976. With a reputation, at least back then, as a hard-drinking, womanising hedonist, the Hunt of Rush will doubtless be an enigmatic but highly controversial live wire, half hero, half villain. This is certainly the James Hunt many remember.
But Helen’s James Hunt comes over as a very different character, a man who had confronted his demons, was ashamed of his ‘seedy past’, and had become a consummate – and rather sensitive – letter writer.
‘I will cherish his letters forever,’ she tells me. ‘He wrote extensively while we were together. That was his way. It was really cathartic for him. He was facing who he was for the first time. It was the unravelling of him, of his life, of all his protective walls that he had built and used in the past to shield people from the real him. And underneath it all he was the most beautiful, beautiful person.’
Of course, James Hunt’s wildest racing days were already behind him when he first met Helen in the late 1980s. She was much younger than Hunt, and was studying at art college and waitressing at weekends in a restaurant in Wimbledon village.
‘James used to come in all the time, and I thought he was another one of those friendly, nice, familiar faces. And then one day he asked me out. I told him I was going to be in the print room at college for the next two weeks, and on our first date my arms were black with dye. But then I had no idea who he was at the time, and it wouldn’t have meant anything to me anyway. I do remember asking him what he did, and he said he bred budgies.’
If the countless stories are to be believed, James Hunt was an infamous lothario, so was Helen immediately swept away by his potent charisma? ‘Well, he had a nice spark,’ she says. ‘But initially I thought of him as old. He also wore white socks, which was very off-putting.
Chris Hemsworth as James Hunt in Rush
‘I tried very hard not to get involved with James because of the age gap and because he had already been married [in fact, his wife, Suzy Miller, left him for Richard Burton]. I was Catholic, so that wasn’t in my world at all and I didn’t really want it to be. I tried to leave him and started seeing someone else my own age. But he started camping outside my house, and in the end he persuaded me to move in with him.’
Helen moved into James’s south London home and life went happily on. She got him into cycling and they went on long rides together. They had a German shepherd, Jackson, and a Jack Russell called Muffy. It was almost suburban.
‘He was really ashamed of his partying ways,’ she reveals. ‘He didn’t want me to witness that or know anything about it. No, he wasn’t happy about it. It was his own choice to give up drinking, but I made him stop smoking after a doctor friend lectured me on my own habit. The next day, I said, “I’m really sorry, James, but if you carry on smoking, I can’t see you because I’ve given up, and I know I won’t have the willpower.”
‘So he just gave up!’
James was also hugely supportive of Helen’s art, and he converted a space above his snooker room into a studio for her.
‘He was so respectful of my space,’ she says. ‘He would never just walk in. If he wanted me, he’d phone me first because my studio was my space. James didn’t really know much about art. He was out of his depth, but he wanted to learn. At my degree show, right at the beginning of our relationship, he came along, and you’ve never seen someone look so uncomfortable. He’d say that he’d had his career and now it was my turn, and he used to drive me around to shows in his Mercedes. He was a very careful driver,’ she adds. ‘He used to say I was zippy.
‘James was incredibly sensitive. He was loving and generous from the heart. And we had such a laugh together. He was a commentator for Formula 1 at the time, and he’d check that I was watching him by putting code words into his commentary.’
Helen and James at a private view of her large, still-life paintings
After James’s tragic death – ‘he was so healthy, it was a complete shock’ – Helen threw herself into her art.
‘I stayed on at the house for nearly nine months, and I just painted and painted. The whole house was being dismantled around me [it was being sold], and I kept painting. I felt James was with me, and I just had to paint. That was my way of dealing with that time. It’s an awful, awful thing to experience.’
But is the new film going to bring back raw memories? ‘I will be going to the premiere, but it will just be like I am seeing a racing film. There is no way that they could capture the James I knew. For a start, it’s all set in the 1970s and I don’t think that I am going to know the person in the film.
‘I haven’t seen the film yet, but I can imagine they might make out that he was a bit egotistical, but the James I knew could not have been more humble and more totally selfless. He was the love of my life.’
Rush is on general release from 13 September.
‘We had discussed it, and he was very keen that we have our own family together, so he had treated my friend Chris and me to a last “girls’ holiday” before we settled down. It was while I was away, in this beautiful, secluded hotel, that he asked me to marry him in the autumn.’
But within just 24 hours, Helen’s happiest moment would be overtaken by tragedy. For the next evening, she received a call informing her that her fiancé had died of a heart attack. ‘I hadn’t been away from James once in the five years we were together, and it’s almost like some higher power – God, fate, whatever – was protecting me in some way. I lost the love of my life. My future. It was just beyond…’
Helen with her schnauzer, KatyThat was June 1993, and it is clear that the memory of that terrible day remains raw. Twenty years on, a picture of a grinning James still takes pride of place in her dining room, and Helen, now a successful artist, speaks about him with genuine, unbridled affection.
‘The five years we had together was like a whole lifetime together, the amount of love and happiness and joy we shared… I am keen that people know what an amazing man he was.’ The life of this ‘amazing man’ is the subject of a new film, Rush, directed by Ron Howard. Hunt is played by Chris Hemsworth, and the action follows Hunt’s legendary Formula 1 rivalry with Austrian driver Niki Lauda (played by Daniel Brühl), which came to a dramatic, near lethal, head in 1976. With a reputation, at least back then, as a hard-drinking, womanising hedonist, the Hunt of Rush will doubtless be an enigmatic but highly controversial live wire, half hero, half villain. This is certainly the James Hunt many remember.
But Helen’s James Hunt comes over as a very different character, a man who had confronted his demons, was ashamed of his ‘seedy past’, and had become a consummate – and rather sensitive – letter writer.
‘I will cherish his letters forever,’ she tells me. ‘He wrote extensively while we were together. That was his way. It was really cathartic for him. He was facing who he was for the first time. It was the unravelling of him, of his life, of all his protective walls that he had built and used in the past to shield people from the real him. And underneath it all he was the most beautiful, beautiful person.’
Of course, James Hunt’s wildest racing days were already behind him when he first met Helen in the late 1980s. She was much younger than Hunt, and was studying at art college and waitressing at weekends in a restaurant in Wimbledon village.
‘James used to come in all the time, and I thought he was another one of those friendly, nice, familiar faces. And then one day he asked me out. I told him I was going to be in the print room at college for the next two weeks, and on our first date my arms were black with dye. But then I had no idea who he was at the time, and it wouldn’t have meant anything to me anyway. I do remember asking him what he did, and he said he bred budgies.’
If the countless stories are to be believed, James Hunt was an infamous lothario, so was Helen immediately swept away by his potent charisma? ‘Well, he had a nice spark,’ she says. ‘But initially I thought of him as old. He also wore white socks, which was very off-putting.
Chris Hemsworth as James Hunt in Rush‘I tried very hard not to get involved with James because of the age gap and because he had already been married [in fact, his wife, Suzy Miller, left him for Richard Burton]. I was Catholic, so that wasn’t in my world at all and I didn’t really want it to be. I tried to leave him and started seeing someone else my own age. But he started camping outside my house, and in the end he persuaded me to move in with him.’
Helen moved into James’s south London home and life went happily on. She got him into cycling and they went on long rides together. They had a German shepherd, Jackson, and a Jack Russell called Muffy. It was almost suburban.
‘He was really ashamed of his partying ways,’ she reveals. ‘He didn’t want me to witness that or know anything about it. No, he wasn’t happy about it. It was his own choice to give up drinking, but I made him stop smoking after a doctor friend lectured me on my own habit. The next day, I said, “I’m really sorry, James, but if you carry on smoking, I can’t see you because I’ve given up, and I know I won’t have the willpower.”
‘So he just gave up!’
James was also hugely supportive of Helen’s art, and he converted a space above his snooker room into a studio for her.
‘He was so respectful of my space,’ she says. ‘He would never just walk in. If he wanted me, he’d phone me first because my studio was my space. James didn’t really know much about art. He was out of his depth, but he wanted to learn. At my degree show, right at the beginning of our relationship, he came along, and you’ve never seen someone look so uncomfortable. He’d say that he’d had his career and now it was my turn, and he used to drive me around to shows in his Mercedes. He was a very careful driver,’ she adds. ‘He used to say I was zippy.
‘James was incredibly sensitive. He was loving and generous from the heart. And we had such a laugh together. He was a commentator for Formula 1 at the time, and he’d check that I was watching him by putting code words into his commentary.’
Helen and James at a private view of her large, still-life paintingsAfter James’s tragic death – ‘he was so healthy, it was a complete shock’ – Helen threw herself into her art.
‘I stayed on at the house for nearly nine months, and I just painted and painted. The whole house was being dismantled around me [it was being sold], and I kept painting. I felt James was with me, and I just had to paint. That was my way of dealing with that time. It’s an awful, awful thing to experience.’
But is the new film going to bring back raw memories? ‘I will be going to the premiere, but it will just be like I am seeing a racing film. There is no way that they could capture the James I knew. For a start, it’s all set in the 1970s and I don’t think that I am going to know the person in the film.
‘I haven’t seen the film yet, but I can imagine they might make out that he was a bit egotistical, but the James I knew could not have been more humble and more totally selfless. He was the love of my life.’
Rush is on general release from 13 September.