Tom Pryce - Personal and Early Life

Personal and Early Life

Tom Pryce was born on 11 June 1949 in Ruthin, Denbighshire, Wales to Jack and Gwyneth Pryce. Jack had served in the Royal Air Force, as a tailgunner on a Lancaster bomber, before joining the local police force. Gwyneth was a district nurse. Pryce's older brother, David, died at the age of three leaving Tom an only child for much of the time he was growing up, although his parents did foster a young girl called Sandra for a while.

Pryce took an interest in cars while driving a baker's van at the age of 10, before informing his parents that he wanted to be a racing driver. However, during an interview with Alan Henry in 1975, he stated that he had wanted to become a pilot, but thought he was not intelligent enough. Like many future Formula One drivers, Pryce had a childhood racing hero. In his case it was Lotus' Scottish driver Jim Clark. Pryce's mother recalled that he was very upset when Clark died at the Hockenheimring in April 1968. His father also noted that "he was very upset when Jochen Rindt was killed, too". After he left school at 16, Pryce's mother insisted on him taking an apprenticeship as a tractor mechanic at Llandrillo Technical College, giving him "something to fall back on", as she put it, if his career as a racing driver was not successful.

In 1975 Pryce married Fenella, more commonly known as Nella, whom he met at a disco in Otford in 1973. Following the death of her husband, Nella went on to run an antiques store in Fulham with Janet Brise, Tony Brise's widow.