13 Nov RIP MERVIN GIBBONS
The world seems a little quieter, a little duller without Merv the Swerve – racing driver, pub owner, party animal of note, a man who could make you smile even when you were annoyed with him.
Mervin Gibbons left us quietly, in the early hours of Thursday 6 November, after 72 years of living life to the full.
As a young man, his day job in the automotive parts industry led him naturally to motorsport. In the late 1970s he experimented with drag racing on the back straight at Killarney in a black Ford Fairmont, before moving to the four-cylinder class at Cape Helldrivers at Goodwood, first in an Anglia, then a Renault R8 and finally a Ford Escort Mk1.
He returned to Killarney in the mid-1980s, joining the Clubman category in a Nissan pulsar 1400 sponsored by his then employer, Valeo Clutches. That was followed by a Ford Cortina MK1, and finally by the car for which he is best remembered at Killarney, a fast but wayward Nissan Skyline.
After taking an early retirement, Mervin found a rundown old bar and grill in Table View and over a period of years revived it as The Swerve Pub – a home from home for motorsport people, with live music and hugely successful karaoke evenings twice a week.
Merve the Swerve never won any championships; he only raced for the fun of it. And it was that sense of fun, of never taking himself too seriously, that has created his legacy, in memories of warm smiles and cold beers in equal measure.
We extend our sincere condolences to his daughter Alisha, his brother David, cousin Gary and the Gibbons family in this difficult time.
