Ginny Williams 1946 – 2013

Lady Ginny Williams. © Sutton Motorsport Images.

It is with enormous sadness that I must report the death of Lady Virginia Williams, the wife of Sir Frank Williams. She was 66.

Ginny had been suffering from cancer for some time and knew from an early stage that the disease was incurable. It was simply a matter of time. Characteristically, she looked at the situation in a positive way and set about enjoying whatever life she had left with courage and humour. She lived every day to the full and did things that she had always wanted to do, including getting Frank to buy her a house close to the sea, as she had always wanted to live in such a place. One of the best days was in Barcelona last year, when the Williams team finally won a race again, after years without success. Ginny was there to celebrate Frank’s 70th birthday, but was delighted to be able to enjoy Pastor Maldonado’s amazing victory as well.

Born soon after the war, Virginia Berry led a very conventional and comfortable life, marrying at 21. Her husband was a racing driver and as a result she soon met the ambitious young Frank Williams. After that her life changed completely. There was a divorce and she soon sold her maisonette in Knightsbridge in order to help fund Frank’s racing adventures and joined him in the struggle to be the best of the best. It was not easy. When they married in 1974 Williams was still the joke of the F1 paddock and there was never any money. The role that Ginny played in the Williams F1 story cannot be overlooked. She hid the bills so that Frank would not have to worry about them and juggled what little they had to make ends meet. She gave him strength. She was even responsible for finding the carpet warehouse in Station Road, Didcot, into which the team moved in 1977, beginning the team’s history in the Didcot area, where today the team employs more than 500 people. Ginny was always Frank’s biggest supporter and his closest advisor. He listened to her opinion on all things, whether it was a question of who to hire or what alliance to make. The expression “behind every great man, there is a great woman” was never more true than with the Williamses.

In addition to bringing up the family – Jonathan, Claire and Jaime – and running the large estates on which they eventually ended up lived, Ginny also proved herself to be an accomplished writer, with her book “A Different Kind if Life” detailing the struggles that they went through to make Williams F1 a success and then the experience of having to cope with her husband being paralysed. Her feisty nature and strength of character helped Frank through the ups and downs of life, with great courage and much humour.

She grew to hate the book, saying it was too honest and too painful, but it stands today as one of the greatest and most spellbinding books you will read about the sport – if you can find a copy.

As a measure of Ginny’s popularity, Sir Frank’s great rival Ron Dennis of McLaren, issued the following statement: “I’m extremely saddened to hear the news that Lady Virginia Williams has passed away. Ginny, as we always called her, was a truly great lady: friendly and fun, yet also a tower of strength and intelligence, she supported my old friend Frank through many triumphs and disasters, treating those two imposters just the same, over a long and happy marriage. She’ll be missed not only by the Williams family, to whom we offer our condolences at this very difficult time, but also by the entire motorsport community worldwide.”