Virginia Williams with Pamela Cockrill

On a spring afternoon in 1986 the racing car constructor Frank Williams
crashed While *driving to Nice Airport. He suffered appalling injuries and was
left severely disabled. For his wife, Ginny, it was the beginning of a
nightmare in which her husband’s life, and the lives of all those around him,
were changed forever. This is Ginny’s story.

Ginny had fallen in love with Frank Williams at first sight, but, when they
married, she quickly discovered that she had wed not only Frank, but also
his intense passion for motor racing and for his business. Just as the Williams
team seemed on the verge of winning the Formula One World Championship
for the third time, Ginny and her family were catapulted into an era of pain and
uncertainty. Suddenly Ginny was compelled to take on roles she neither wanted or
expected: head of the family, organizer, decision-maker. She had to learn to
cope with the needs of a very sick and disabled man. She also had to make the
difficult adjustment to living with someone who, though physically reliant
on her, was still mentally independent.

Set against the glamorous World of motor racing, and told with honesty and
humour, A Different Kind of Life is one woman’s story of her struggle to overcome her fear and anger about her
husband’s accident, and her fight to learn compassion and tolerance.