Lofty England and Duncan Hamilton

[TimD]

Sadly, both of these wonderful characters are no longer with us to tell us the gossip, but we do have plenty of archived stuff to get an idea of what they had to say.

My dilemma is this - I recently watched a Neville Hay interview with Lofty, probably from about 5 years ago. He reminded the viewers that the famous story of Rolt and Hamilton getting utterly ratted on brandy before the '53 Le Mans is somewhat exaggerated. His comment was "you've been listening to my good friend Duncan, haven't you."

Thing is - I was reading a feature about Duncan Hamilton in a 1983 magazine this morning, and he seems very vitriolic about Lofty's capability as a team manager. Examples cited were the alleged failure to put oil in the C-Types during the '53 Goodwood 9 hours, specifying and fitting useless and untested fuel filters in the D during the '54 Le Mans. Things like that.

So what did Duncan and Lofty really think of one another? Was Lofty being sarcastic when he talks about his "good friend", or was Duncan shooting a line about his own mechanical sympathy?

Incidentally, any great Duncan Hamilton stories most gratefully received.