Nigel Mansell - Mansell - My Autobiography

Rosanne was so strong. She was just as committed to my racing career as I was, even though she had no family background in racing and had only become aware of it properly when she met me. She did not regard my goal of winning the World Championship as a pipe dream, as I’m sure many wives would have done under the circumstances. She believed in my talent and she knew as well as I did that if I could just get one decent shot at it, I would make good. We had only been married for three years, but she gave me all the support a man could reasonably ask of his wife and far more besides. It makes us appreciate what we have now all the more, because we have not forgotten those times when we had nothing.

Rosanne came into my life when I was seventeen. She is a year younger than me and we were both students at Solihull Technical College near Birmingham. Although we were not in any of the same classes, I had seen her around the college and she had really caught my eye. She looked bright, confident and strong and I knew that I wanted to meet her.

My chance came one morning while I was driving to college. I had passed my driving test and bought a second-hand Mini van. I saw her walking along the road, so I pulled over.

‘Hey, you’re going to the college, aren’t you? Do you want a lift?’

She hopped straight into the car. She told me later that she only did that because she thought I was somebody else – a neighbour of hers – and that if she had realised it was a total stranger offering her a lift she would never have got in. As she has said since, ‘It’s funny how things happen in life, isn’t it?’

It was only a short drive and we talked in general terms about this and that, but she made a major impression on me. We ran into each other more and more frequently at the college and before long we started going out together. It was a good relationship from the start and we made sure that we saw each other every day.

She was the youngest of three children from a loving family. She knew nothing about motor racing when I met her. Her brother watched the occasional Grand Prix on television, but didn’t consider himself a fan.

I introduced her to karting and I think she could see immediately how important it was to me. What impressed me about her was how willing she was to muck in. Although I took her on some exciting nights out, we also had plenty of long nights in working on the kart and she became quite handy with the sandpaper and the plug spanner. She always used to stick around and help me and we developed a deep bond. Although karting was thrust upon her and she much preferred horse riding, she was behind me from the start and came to almost every race with my family.

Then came the Morecambe accident and she began to see the other side of racing. She was always nervous about watching me race – she is to this day – but Morecambe gave her a nasty shock. She was there when the priest gave me the last rites. She had never seen anything like that before, let alone when someone she cared for was the victim. It was her first experience of the dangers which motor sport can bring. It was a worrying time for her and, being fairly young at the time, she found that she was having to be very mature when dealing with a different side of life.

She could have tried to persuade me to stop after that, I’m sure many girlfriends would have done, but she could see how much it mattered to me and I suppose she could also see that my competitive instinct would always need an outlet. If it wasn’t karting it would have been something else.

As well as being highly competitive, I have always been very aggressive and very physical. As I matured as a racing driver I channelled these characteristics into positive aspects of my driving, but before I met Rosanne I used to like raising hell with my male friends.

I don’t scare easily and I was never afraid to get into something with someone bigger than me. Having said that I was pretty large myself at that time. As we all know, beer is very fattening and by indulging my taste for it my weight shot up to almost 200lbs, which is a lot for a man of 5ft 10in. It was all pretty pointless, but when you’re a teenage male there is always pressure to be tough and to look after yourself. We used to dare each other to do daft things like jump off motor bikes at 30mph. That escapade landed one of my friends in hospital.

Rosanne was always a cut above all of that and I did not want her to get involved with that group of friends. In the early days of our relationship I would enjoy a civilised evening with her and then after I dropped her off I would go out again and hit the town with my friends. Gradually I changed, broadened my horizons and took more of an interest in the things which interested her. We would go on day trips in the car with a picnic, or visit stately homes and art galleries. She was really into horse riding, so I went along with her on rides. We enjoyed each other’s company so much that it became second nature to me to want to do these things. After all it was only fair; she supported my karting and helped me work on the karts. We were happy and very much in love.

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