Jim was pioneering engineer

Jim was pioneering engineer

3 March 2021

A CROSSGAR man is hoping that a book will be written chronicling the life of a Ballynahinch businessman who featured in a recent novel written by his daughter.

The Settlement — penned by writer Ruth Kirby-Smith — was inspired by her garage owner father Jim Brown whose business was based in Dromore Street.

The book is based on a fictional Armagh village, but features a number of local locations including The Spa, the Mournes and a former rectory which is now the Millbrook Lodge Hotel.

The novelist is also the sister of John and Junior Brown who are friends with Alan Lyons, well known in local motorsport circles.

Alan, who is also one of the driving forces behind the campaign for new memorials in Killyleagh and Crossgar to mark the achievements of former road racer Brian Steenson who lost his life following a crash while competing at the Isle of Man TT in 1970, is looking forward to reading the new novel as it covers a period in Ireland which for him is an “intriguing part of history that not much has been written about”.

Describing James Brown as a “remarkable man”, Mr Lyons said it would be fitting if a book was written about him and the impact that he had on so many people. While friends with John and Junior,  Alan said he was also proud to have known their father very well.

“To say that Jim was an acknowledged engineering genius is no overstatement,” he continued.

“Jim told me that he served his apprenticeship at Stewart’s Motor Works in Downpatrick before World War Two and thought the world of James Stewart whom he referred to as ‘golden hands’ because he could turn his hand to anything. 

“Jim then worked for the former Ulster Transport Authority during the war and opened his Antrim Road Garage in Ballynahinch in late 1945 which he purchased with a loan from a family friend.”

Alan also revealed that Jim and his son John sponsored him when he used to race cars. 

He continued: “Once Jim, or JN as he was known, started to help me with mechanical development, I quickly moved from being a back marker to a front runner in no amount of time. Jim always said that 90% of winning was done in the workshop before the race meetings.

“Jim was very much a self-made man with an independent pattern of thought and kept his motorcycling hobby quite separate from his business interests,” Alan explained.

“While he preferred not to align himself with any dealership other than David Brown Tractors, for whom he did development work and sold numerous new and second-hand tractors, he steadfastly refused to repair road going motorcycles.”

Alan revealed that it was Jim’s love of motorcycles and an interest in tuning and modifying British machines, a process later adopted by manufacturers like BSA, Norton and Triumph in the 1950s that earned him a much-envied reputation. 

He said  James was “always extremely modest” about his dramatic successes as he was happy developing innovation after innovation in his own workshop.

“Jim was certainly well ahead of his time when explaining in simple terms that engines had to be enabled to breathe easily to make them perform better,” Alan explained.

“His new thinking about breathing, valve and camshaft design, carbureation and compression ratios brought phenomenal output at 9,500 rpm from an ordinary production BSA machine when the company was the world’s biggest motorcycle producers in the mid-1960s, long before the surge of Japanese two-strokes.”

Many years later, Alan said he still finds it hard to understand that Jim Brown was given motorcycles by leading manufacturers with an instruction to keep them winning at world class level, which is exactly what he did. 

He also revealed that a lot of Jim’s ideas were incorporated into the BSA 440cc Victor machine that Jeff Smith used to win the motocross world championship in 1964 and 65.

Alan revealed that in earlier years, Jim provided Irish champion road-racer Wilfie Herron with a race-bike, as he did for Ian McGregor, Campbell Gorman and Tom Herron. 

“Hailed as a wizard, he personally tailored the BSA bikes which brought Mervyn McConkey so much success on grass tracks and motocross events throughout Ireland,” he continued.

The Crossgar man said that when Jim lost interest in the motorcycle industry because of its domination by Japanese-built machines, he turned to Cosworth, who employed him as a consultant.

“Jim became great friends with Keith Duckworth, the English mechanical engineer famous for designing the Cosworth double four valve cylinder engine and cylinder head, and was also great friends with Sir Frank Williams and Sir Patrick Head from the Williams Formula One team,” said Alan.

“Through my friendship with Jim and his wife Minnie and their sons John and Junior, I met some wonderful people. Jim was great friends with the Rev Harold Good who latter became the Moderator of the Methodist Church in Ireland, while I helped the Brown family run motorsport events in the Martin and McCormick’s quarries in the eighties in aid of the Ballynahinch Methodist Church building fund.”

Mr Brown passed away in 1993 with a huge number of mourners making their way to Ballynahinch’s Lough Inch cemetery, including leading names from the world of motorsport including Frank Williams, Patrick Head and Keith Duckworth.

“I will always remember Jim as a great innovative, pioneering engineer who was fired by his own initiative. He is someone the like of which we will never see again,” said Alan.

“I’m sure that Ruth will know that her two brothers and I are working on an article on the life and works of her famous father which we have substantially completed and hope to feature in the Down Recorder over the coming weeks, illustrated with a number of photos taken by the paper’s former photographer and Ballynahinch man Jim Miskimmin.

Alan also confirmed that the Brian Steenson Memorial Group is planning to have a chat show and talk about the life and work of J N Brown later this year when lockdown restrictions have eased.  He also revealed that the group will also have a new cup to hand present this year called the J N  Brown Memorial Cup donated by his son Junior.

The Crossgar man is also appealing to anyone who may have any photos or memorabilia about Jim Brown or Mervyn McConkey to email him at alan-lyons@hotmail.co.uk and has also wished Ruth every success with her new book which he thinks will be a best seller.