DOUBLE SUCCESS FOR GOLDIE GARDNER
John Mayhead’s MSMT-supported biography wins two prestigious awards
Twice in the space of five weeks first-time author John Mayhead has stepped up to collect an award for his book Goldie: The Amazing Story of Alfred Goldie Gardner, the World’s Most Successful Speed-Record Driver, which is supported by the Michael Sedgwick Memorial Trust and published by National Motor Museum Publishing at a most affordable £20.
In front of his peers at the Guild of Motoring Writers’ Annual Dinner and Awards on 5 December, John received the Suzuki Award for the Montagu of Beaulieu Trophy. The Guild describes this as one of its ‘blue riband’ awards and it is one of the few honours open to both Guild members and non-Guild members alike, catering exclusively for books. The entry list, states the Guild, reflected ‘an interesting and eclectic mix of submissions’. Seen in Jakob Ebrey’s photo below, Suzuki’s Head of Press and PR, Alun Parry (left), presented the award to the author for what the Guild described as a ‘remarkable first book’. As well as a trophy, John received £500 and two years’ free Guild membership.
John was also successful at the Royal Automobile Club’s Motoring Book of the Year Awards, held on 30 October. Here the format comprises an overall winner and four category winners, one of which – ‘Books on a motor sporting subject, costing no more than £50.00’ – saw Goldie beat some strong rivals. One of the six-strong judging panel, Gordon Cruickshank of Motor Sport magazine, gave this verdict: ‘This is a searching and long-overdue portrait of the injured MG speed king whose relentless record-breaking has unfairly faded from history.’
After collecting his Royal Automobile Club award, John, a former soldier who served in Iraq and Afghanistan, explained to the audience how Goldie Gardner’s wartime heroism had been one aspect of the man that he had been particularly keen to explore when researching the biography.
‘I found Goldie completely by accident,’ he said. ‘I had been writing about the Jabbeke speed trials and learned about this chap who was far too big to fit in his car, severely injured, yet he was still doing these extraordinary speeds in an extraordinary car all the way into his 50s.
‘The book was a very personal trip. I got to know Goldie’s daughter, Rosalind, very well indeed, and she had never previously spoken to anybody about her father. The 35 boxes of archive records at the National Motor Museum were invaluable and Patrick Collins [an MSMT Trustee] escorted me through all this material. Yes, I did get slightly obsessed!’
SELF-PUBLISHING: A PRIME EXAMPLE
Ray Hutton reviews a Formula 1 boffin’s memoir
Authors considering self-publishing could be encouraged by How Did I Get Here? Memories of Six Decades of Motorsport, a new book by the distinguished race car engineer Peter Wright. The Michael Sedgwick Memorial Trust was not asked to support this book but we can claim a peripheral connection as the author is kind enough to acknowledge attending the Trust’s 2023 Self-Publishing Workshop as the inspiration to ‘go it alone’.
Wright developed the aerodynamic ‘ground-effect’ Lotus 79 that won the 1978 Formula 1 World Championships and, as managing director of Lotus Engineering, went on to produce computer-controlled active suspension for race and road cars as well as a host of other projects dreamt up by Lotus founder Colin Chapman. In 1995 he joined the FIA, the controlling body of motor sport, as technical consultant working on regulations for all classes of racing and safety improvements for race and road cars.
(L to R): Mario Andretti (USA) Lotus, who spun out of the race on lap 2, talks with Colin Chapman (GBR) Lotus Team Owner and Peter Wright (GBR) Lotus Designer in the pits.
Formula One World Championship, Rd2, Brazilian Grand Prix, Interlagos, Brazil, 27 January 1980.
Pictured above with Mario Andretti (left) and Colin Chapman (centre), Wright describes his varied career at the heart of racing in technical detail, often accompanied by amusing anecdotes. It is all fascinating stuff, providing a unique insight to Formula 1 in the 1970s and 1980s and how motor sport was made safer for the 21st century.
Wright is not a first-time author: he has two books and more than 100 technical articles to his credit. An established motoring publisher probably would have accepted this autobiography but would have wanted it to concentrate on his work in motor racing and include less personal and family material. If you self-publish, what is included is up to you. In recent years, Wright has focused on the science of the environment and his book concludes with his musings on the future of Formula 1 and the planet in the face of climate change.
The result is a well-produced 360-page hardback book, printed on high-quality paper that does justice to the 140 illustrations. It was produced using the design and editing skills found locally to Wright’s rural home on the English-Welsh border. He is handling the book’s distribution himself. It is available, priced at a reasonable £30, from the website www.howdidigethere.co.uk.
ROVER/HONDA BOOK WINS MICHAEL SEDGWICK AWARD
An insider’s account of an untold industry story
For the past 13 years the Michael Sedgwick Memorial Trust has teamed up with the Society of Automotive Historians in Britain (SAHB) to award an annual book prize, comprising a trophy and £250. This year’s winner of the Michael Sedgwick Award, presented at the Autumn Seminar of the SAHB on 20 October, is The Viking and The Samurai: The inside story of the collaboration between British Leyland/Rover and Honda by John Bacchus.
This is very much a first-hand account, written by the man who was at the sharp end of the story. Immediately after his retirement in 1995 from the position of Director, Honda Collaboration, Rover Group, John Bacchus wrote the book with events still fresh in his mind, but only now, nearly 30 years later, has it been published. Its historical importance has grown during the intervening years.
John, now aged 87, spent 25 years with Rover Group and its predecessor businesses. In a company notorious for what he calls ‘Management by upheaval’, he played a pivotal role in making a complex and difficult Anglo-Japanese marriage work far better than many insiders thought possible. Internal conflicts and dilemmas are discussed, while the mutual respect that developed between John and his Honda counterparts is obvious throughout. The products resulting from this unlikely union are also described, including their reception in the marketplace.
Published by The Rover 200 and 400 Club, the book is available at £15 plus carriage from https://rover200.org.uk/shop. At the request of the Bacchus family, all profits from sales of the book are being donated to Dementia Research UK.
There is also a runner-up for the Michael Sedgwick Award. True to its title, Citroën Traction: The Numbers by Jens Møller Nicolaisen presents the history of Citroën’s front-wheel-drive pioneers through their four principal numbers: serial number, factory number, body number and engine number. Most of the huge amount of new information comes direct from factory ledgers listing every single car that left the Citroën factory at Quai de Javel in Paris. Costing £58, the book can be ordered from https://citrovisie.nl/en/products/tractionnumbers.
A FINE MOTORING LIBRARY IN THE MIDLANDS
As Anders Clausager explains, the VSCC library is open to all researchers
In 2024, the Vintage Sports-Car Club moved to new premises at Hockley Heath in Warwickshire, including of course the library. The VSCC library is an excellent resource, and welcomes visits from bona fide researchers, even if you are not a member of the VSCC. It is undoubtedly one of the finest publicly available libraries of early motoring literature in the country.
A major attraction is the collection of bound motoring journals, including complete or near-complete runs of many titles, obviously The Autocar and The Motor, but also many others. There is a large collection of reference books on many different marques and models – not necessarily all from the vintage period – and general motoring history. The VSCC website lists nearly 4,000 titles. There are handbooks, manuals, sales brochures and motor show catalogues, to name but a few categories.
The library was established in its present form by the late Nick Walker and since his passing has been run by Ian Ferguson as the senior librarian, now joined by Sue Darbyshire. All members of the library team are volunteers. ‘Open days’ are Wednesdays and Thursdays, when volunteers are present, from 9.00am to 5.00pm, but the library may be available on other weekdays by appointment. As well as assistance with research, the team offers to help with scanning items, and there is a photocopier. The team will deal with enquiries by post, telephone or email. Charges are made for some library services, but VSCC members are not charged for responses to many minor queries. If you do write a book having used the VSCC library for research, they would love a copy!
As of January 2025 the VSCC will be hosting a Library Visitor Day on the third Thursday of each month when visitors can browse and enjoy coffee and biscuits. Non-members will be very welcome. Hockley Heath is on the main A3400 from Birmingham to Stratford, a few miles south of junction 4 of the M42 motorway. Parking spaces are available in the grounds of Hockley Court. There are several pubs in the village for lunch, but you are welcome to bring your own packed lunch.
The address is 1 Hockley Court, 2401 Stratford Road, Hockley Heath, Warwickshire B94 6NW; tel 01608 644777 (extension 7); e-mail library@vscc.co.uk; and website https://www.vscc.co.uk/page/library.
BOOKS SUPPORTED IN 2024
A varied trio
Three books supported by the Trust were published in 2024, all in the first half of the year. For the record, they are:
WOULD YOU LIKE TO MEET OUR AUTHORS?
A possible MSMT event
Our Self-Publishing Workshop at the British Motor Museum at Gaydon in September 2023 brought together a huge number of people interested in seeing their ideas turned into their books.
Here at the Trust, we suspected it was a great success, and then lots of potential authors, printers, publishers and associated book people independently told us… it actually was!
As a follow-up – with a twist – we’re now planning to fill a room with motoring authors who have actually achieved their book-publishing dreams, with a little help from the MSMT, to give us chapter and verse on their valuable experiences.
We intend to have writers on all kinds of motoring history topics, and in all manner of book formats, to take part in some relaxed conversation about the process itself: the burning passion to begin with, trials and tribulations of getting going, challenges along the way, maybe a few pointers about research and, for sure, recalling the wonderful feeling of achievement when the book is finally printed and on sale.
We’re aiming for a fun and convivial atmosphere at this one-off event, some interesting speakers, and quite a lot of valuable insight you simply won’t get anywhere else.
Arrangements are at an early stage, but we’d love to hear from you if you like the sound of it – either to take part or just enjoy the audience experience. Do give us your thoughts in an email to msedgwickmt@gmail.com.
WHAT IS THE MICHAEL SEDGWICK MEMORIAL TRUST?
The Michael Sedgwick Memorial Trust is a charity, not a membership organisation, run by volunteer Trustees who between them have huge experience of writing and publishing books. The Trust exists to encourage new and original research into any aspect of motoring history and to offer financial and other assistance to authors and publishers.
The Trust wishes to see research into motoring history reach the public domain, through publication as books, other printed media or on the internet. The Trust gives advice to would-be authors and tries to ‘connect’ authors and publishers. The Trust believes that even books with very limited sales potential should be published if the subject matter is worthy and the research is new and comprehensive.
In cases where a publisher or author believes that a subject merits publication but is unlikely to be a viable commercial proposition, the Trust can often offer some financial help to bridge the gap or enable an author to self-publish.
Where research is of a very specialist nature and not commercially viable, the Trust may offer funding to assist with research provided that copies of resulting texts are lodged in selected specialist libraries, County Record Offices and possibly published on the internet.
michaelsedgwicktrust.co.uk
