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It is all my parents fault that I got hooked into motor sport and they are proud to take the blame.
Dad used to cycle to Brands to watch the scrambling/grasstrack racing from Sidcup before the war and by the time he married and settled down he had been to Goodwood, Silverstone etc many times. Apparently I went to Silverstone for the 1956 GP at the tender age of ten months for my first motorsport experience but unsurprisingly cannot remember it (damn!).
During the sixties my parents helped out several friends who raced and ended up working for Alan Fraser at weekends with the Imps so that I was at a race meeting at least twice a month for club and international meetings. I probably talked to Andrew Kitson several times at the old drivers stand at Paddock bend at Brands whilst our respective parents were down in the pits.
Consequently we got to know many drivers of the time and at one film night run by the local motor club that my parents belonged to I sat on the knee of a young New Zealander who was going somewhere in Formula Junior. He had to put up with a lot of questions from an enquiring eight year old but was polite, friendly and very patient. In 1967 he became his country's first world champion and every time we saw him at a race meeting he would always stop and chat, ask how we all were etc. So much for the grizzly bear, a real hero of mine along with Jim Clark who we all thought was untouchable until 1968.
By the early seventies I was starting to collect models of my favourite cars and this has developed into a collection of over 400 1/43 kits covering Spa 24 hours, BTCC (preferably 1963-1973, when men were men and gfm was nervous!) and RAC rally.
I had a huge collection of programmes from the era but sadly they were lost during a house move when a helpful grandma put them out for the dustmen due to a misunderstanding (never know how she lived to 96 after that well meaning mistake) and I also had an autograph book to die for but someone pinched it at a race meeting in the early seventies and I am still simmering with rage over that loss. Some of the names included Neubaur, Clark, G Hill, P Hill, Fangio, Moss and included messages as well.
Still collecting today and that includes photos of my collecting themes and any dvd's and videos as well, but at a much reduced rate due to cost and three children who growing up very rapidly and costing me a fortune.
Other interests include cricket (still playing badly at 50!) historic aircraft (as I write a Spitfire from Goudhurst has just flown over the house on its way to Duxford I think) and developing my sons interests in the world of sport and collecting.
Glyn
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