Collectible good condition the jacket is tatty. 1943 edition
Forward by H.RH. PRINCE CHULA CHAKRABONGSE OF THAILAND
D URING his five years of motor racing my cousin Bira
was often asked to write his own story ot reminiscences,
but he had consistently refused to do so, as in those happy
days there was a far more appealing way of spending his time
than to sit down at a table with a typewriter. With motor
racing having been stopped, temporatily as we all hope, by
the present conflict, and with a "Bira-blue " typewriter in
front of him, the situation is quite different, and Bira has now
written his story.
To those who may complain of the lack of chronological
continuity, I should like to say that Bira's book is exactly
what he has called it, " Bits and Pieces", being a series of
recollections put dowa on paper as they came into his mind.
We all know that as we look back into the past different in-
cidents loom up more bightly than others, yet they never
come in the proper order, and as we survey our past, we do
not necessarily begin with thbe period of childhood, and then
work our way forward correctly through the years. So it has
been with Bira, as with all of us, and he has put his thoughts
down as they occurred to him, hence the story may be said
to begin almost with the end.ak
For the benefit of readers who do not know about Bira as
much as perhaps they would like to do, a very brief biographical
sketch may be found useful. Bira was born in Bangkok, the
capital of Thailand, on July Isth, 1914. He is the third sur-
viving son of His Royal Highness Prince Bhanurangsri Bhanu-
bandh. Soon after his birth the boy was named Birabongse
Bhanutej Bhanubandh.
His father was the younger brother of King Chulalongkorn,
the fifth and greatest sovereign of the present dynasty of Chalkri,
who ruled Thailand for forty-two years till his death in 1910…