Joe Carstairs

Marion Barbara Carstairs, known as Joe, was born in London, the daughter of an American heiress to a Standard Oil fortune and a Scottish army officer. Her mother, an alcoholic and drug addict, sent her to boarding school in the United States at eleven. Carstairs usually dressed as a man, had tattooed arms and loved machines, adventure and speed.

In the First World War she drove ambulances in France for the American Red Cross, where she began an affair with Dolly Wilde, Oscar Wilde’s niece. Openly lesbian, she later had relationships with many women, reportedly including the actresses Tallulah Bankhead and Marlene Dietrich. In 1918 she married a childhood friend purely in order to gain access to her trust fund; the marriage was annulled. In 1920 she and three women friends founded the X-Garage in London, a car hire and chauffeur service staffed only by women.

In 1925 she inherited a fortune and began racing powerboats. She won major trophies, including the Duke of York’s Trophy in 1926, and became known as the “fastest woman on water”. She always kept with her a doll named Lord Tod Wadley, a gift from her girlfriend Ruth Baldwin.

In 1934 she bought Whale Cay, an island in the Bahamas, where she ruled for decades as a kind of benevolent despot, built houses, a school and a church and entertained famous friends. She died in 1993, aged 93.