135 replies to this topic

[Derwent Motorsport]

How many times have you bought issue 1 of a new magazine and it has a letters page? So who wrote the letters?

Really we could say much the same for all the press releases that make up the bulk of MSN's pages there days. Most of the PRs are much faster than the drivers they are promoting! Fiction in most cases!

[RCH]

How did/do you feel about the readers, paying the cover price in good faith but being duped into wasting time reading faked letters from GW Smith and secondhand (and presumably uncredited) race reports from other publications? Did you pay the French writer of the L'Equipe reports you ripped off on a 'most common' basis and added fake reporters' names to? I ask because you sound all giggly about it, journos getting one over the reader/a french journo, whereas I'd feel quite contrite about it and certainly never admit to doing it in public.

Does it really matter about "faked" letters? It would seem like a good device to keep an interesting controversy going or for a journo to have his say unofficially about something. How many people buy a magazine for the letters page?

As for "borrowing" copy, what is more important, myself as Mr Average-Punter gets to read race reports that he never would have done otherwise, or a French journo missed out on being credited in a British mag that he would never have appeared in otherwise? He was probably writing his report basking in the sun at Reims with a glass of champers in one hand and a French floozy in the other anyway so serve him jolly well right!

Well maybe not but do we really live in such a PC dominated world these days that some people cannot see the funny side?

[ensign14]

Does it really matter about "faked" letters?

It can do, a friend of mine at work was somewhat startled to find he had a letter printed in F1 Racing, when he didn't even read the magazine. But he did have a friend on the editorial staff...

[sterling49]

For crying out loud.

[tokyonagaremono]

GW Smith from Brighton, is that you?

Regards Mike

No, it's Nagaremono (The Drifter) from Tokyo. And sometimes The Telegraph.

I pose the questions only half tongue-in-cheek. I would very definitely be concerned to hear that the making up of readers' letters and so on still occurs - these publications are not cheap - and a journo who has opinions should put them in his copy (or write a letter in his name). I guess, ultimately, it's a thin-end-of-the-wedge thing, that if they're making up letters, are they making up anything else, do we have any equivalent(s) to the odious leftist Johann Hari in the motorsport field?. I do feel journalism should be 'clean' - that if a particular publication in the motor sport arena is messing about a la Private Eye with spoof letters and articles, even if very rarely, then it really should be acknowledged, else the feeling is that innocent punters are being laughed at by the editorial team.

As regards B), it's bluntly conveyed, perhaps, but as far as the particular 'crime' of ripping off reports from other places goes, I'd imagine the original writer, in whatever language, would be glad just to get acknowledgement and possibly not even want paying if it meant he got his name into a Brit publication, or was paid a nominal fee, or a subscription to the mag/paper his work is appearing in (hey, he might even be capable of supplying race reports in good English without needing translation!) Plagiarism. I certainly wouldn't be happy if my writings were being passed off as someone else's, particularly in a commercial magazine. There is a victim out there somewhere, even if he's six feet under by now. And I do think my advice to the guy owning up to all this (who, embarrassingly, I've just realised is the same man who's kindly answered a query I left in another thread!) is pretty good; namely, we all make mistakes, but it's not usually a good idea to broadcast them in public! You never know who's listening/reading. Yes, I doubt there's any tabloid journo out there interested in dragging Simon Taylor though the mud, but what if it were a slightly better-known name, would a muck-raker be interested in a Roebuck (probably not) or a Kravitz (perhaps) or a Brundle (probably) owning up like this?

[Gregor Marshall]

Forty years or more ago, pseudonyms were common when staff journalists freelanced elsewhere. When Richard Feast left Autosport for the sworn rival Motoring News, he continued to write on occasion for Autosport. We used to tease him about his small bladder capacity after we'd been to the pub while waiting at the printers for the final page proofs on press day, so we gave him the by-line "I.P.Standing." But when I saw it on the page I thought it looked a bit obvious, so I changed it to "Ian Standing." .

When the Readers' Letters page was short of copy one or other of us would hastily write a letter whinging about something or other to fill the hole. These letters always came from a Mr G.W. Smith of Brighton, who had he really existed would have been a curmudgeonly and argumentative fellow.

There were other pseudonyms which I've now forgotten. And of course we were proud to have the immortal Edgar Jessop, originated by the wonderful and sadly missed Ian Norris, then of Dunlop, as a contributor from time to time....

50 years ago...;) Not sure how qualified I am to comment, but this is my take before people get too prescious about magazine articles...

I think this became more previlant in the 50/60s when there was a massive increase/interest (a question for someone more knowledgable than me, was this due to WWII?) in motorsport and it's coverage of events, as A there were a heck of a lot of events all over the country and B there were only so many publications and therefore reporters to cover and produce copy and not necessarily any money to do it. I only quote Simon as I know he was around then (sorry!!) but can also because he comment on my next statements and also what he has said is how it happened back then.

My late father started racing in '61, but had been going to races since '55 as a fan and a supporter of his father's racing.
Motor racing was still really in it's in infancy to the masses (i dont think pre-war reporting counts as WBB and friends had it all covered ;)) and if you ask me, the way you got yourself noticed was by talking to the reporters (if there were any!!) at each event and a Sprint was as equally as important as a Hillclimb, which was as equally important as a race in the racing press (why was a Cambridge University Sprint or Harrow Car Club Sprint worthy of a page report?! When was the last club sprint report you read?? ) and from my knowledge this changed mid '60, when circuit racing really took over? I digress....

In the '60s teams became important (Speedwell, Alan Mann, Newtune, Broadspeed, etc), when in reality they were backstreet garages who pretended to be the likes of Ferrari, but if you wanted to join a "team" or make sure your profile was "rising" you had to get reports in the specialised press, MN or AS or MS, and to do that was to speak to their "fleet" of writers or make it happen yourself... alcohol and more importantly wit helped massively!!

Quite clearly I'm named after the founder of Autosport and there is a very good reason for that (you guys can decide why...) but I also know there are a lot of race reports in the '60s submitted by my late father, either with his name, his initials, his initials with an extra letter (which he thn became known by!!) and his name but with my mother's maiden name as his surname - I dread to think which other variations he used that I have missed, but now I will never know - unless Simon has any others??

Basically, what I'm trying to say is that there are a lot of great writers out there, but there aren't enough to cover every race (no matter what Simon Arron and Matt James try and do), and I don't mind the odd report from "another" writer; if its factually correct that's all we can ask for.

You would be surprised how many magazines cry out for letters/emails (now), they need them, but if not received they need to fill page(s). Personally I really dislike AS and MN letter pages, and I wouldn't be surprised if they were made up, but MS letters I turn to first every month!!

[RS2000]

Always suspicious of the number of times I had letters published in MN. There couldn't have been too many others submitted. Stuart Turner admitted in his autobiography to creating readers' letters when at MN.
MN reached a low point, around the time I stopped buying it, when it started printing personal adds more than once in a single edition to fill up the gaps on those pages. I originally thought it was composition error but it continued.
The end for me followed three separate items of grossly incompetent journalism that caused a lot of damage within the sport and for which the Editor and Publisher failed to apologise when called to account.

[Mallory Dan]

Ok some more initials from those '78 MNs.

Anyone know who the following were and if they're still around or even contribute on here - CAW, TT, IMB. Is the latter Ian Bamsey perchance? And 'TT' Tim Tyler? There is a TT doing Croft reports, also the Euro F3 series, same chap or just a coincidence? And AVL, Andy Leeder I guess, does the Snett races, didn't he also write for the Big Rival? No sign of MLC yet, JCT's doing Sportscars.

[Simon Arron]

Correct on Tim, Ian and Andy, Dan. I think Chris Witty was just CW, so need to stir the memory cells on CAW. Which circuits did they cover? MLC is Mike Cotton and JCT the late John Teague.

[Mallory Dan]

I'll check later, Simon (also on a wll-researched T492...). Was it allowed to write for both MN and AS? And was TT one and the same?

[Simon Arron]

Quite a few regional contributors wrote for both - and still do, come to that. I'm fairly sure the Croft and European F3 TTs were one and the same, although this was a couple of years before I became involved, so my memory might be playing tricks.

[MCS]

Quite a few regional contributors wrote for both - and still do, come to that. I'm fairly sure the Croft and European F3 TTs were one and the same, although this was a couple of years before I became involved, so my memory might be playing tricks.

TT from Croft was Tony Todd, who also took the pictures. Tim Tyler did the Euro F3 series (he also took pictures). CAW was either Chris Walker or Chris Wilson, then the Mallory Park press officer, I think.

Didn't realise John Teague was no longer with us. I thought of him only the other day when I saw him stood alongside Teddy Pillette in a picture from Snetterton. He can't have been that old.

Edited by MCS, 01 May 2013 - 17:02.

[Mallory Dan]

Some others quoted were BRP at Brands meets, CAW Mallory and Donny, C (Chris Mason?) Donny, RF in Scotland and PLB at a Longrdige race.

[Tim Murray]

RF was Ross Finlay, IIRC.

[Simon Arron]

Thanks, Mark, for correcting my failure to dot Is and cross TTs. I think you're right about CAW being Chris Walker, too. And yes, Tim, RF was Ross Finlay.

I was going to reply to this last night, but dropped some Sauvignon Blanc on my keyboard and for some reason my laptop has since failed to function sensibly.

Other SA-period MN freelances included:

PAR (Rainford, obviously)
ASDC (Alan Cox)
IAS (Ian Smith)
PSB (Paul Boothroyd)
AW (Alan Wooding)
BRP (Brian Phillips)
DEC (Dud Candler)
GN (Graham Nightingale)
RW (Richard Wright)
ML (Mike Lawrence)
BLOB (Bill Boddy - he used to submit occasional VSCC reports)
DF (David Finlay, son of Ross)
SST (Sarah Taylor)
AVL (Andy Leeder)
MOIDF (Many others I've doubtless forgotten)

Names began to replace initials circa 1983-84.

Edited by Simon Arron, 02 May 2013 - 13:55.

[MCS]

TT from Croft was Tony Todd, who also took the pictures...

I remember sharing this great picture of Jim Crawford with Simon and Phil a while back when I first discovered Tony Todd's website. This is Jim in the process of winning the Formula Libre race and thereby ostensibly beginning his career in motor racing, although he had produced a similar result with Steve Choularton's Lotus 69 twelve months before.

http://www.tonytodd....imCrawfPlus.jpg

Prizes on offer for the identities of those trying to keep up with Jim.

[arttidesco]

Names began to replace initials circa 1983-84.

You must be in need of another goggle of Sauvignon Blanc or two Simon, I was thumbing through the June 5th 1985 edition of MN, the one in which you wrote a two page report on the Spa F3000 race headed 'From Rags to Riches' and there is not the name of a single scribe to be seen in the whole issue, unless you count 'Track Topics'

BTW who was LK, MN's representative at the Willhire 24 hours ?

Long Knight perhaps ....

I'll get my coat ...

[Alan Cox]

BTW who was LK, MN's representative at the Willhire 24 hours ?

That would be Linda Keen, Ralph

[arttidesco]

That would be Linda Keen, Ralph

Thanks Alan

[Mallory Dan]

I remember sharing this great picture of Jim Crawford with Simon and Phil a while back when I first discovered Tony Todd's website. This is Jim in the process of winning the Formula Libre race and thereby ostensibly beginning his career in motor racing, although he had produced a similar result with Steve Choularton's Lotus 69 twelve months before.

http://www.tonytodd....imCrawfPlus.jpg

Prizes on offer for the identities of those trying to keep up with Jim.

John Calvert in the 722, Mark? Phil Barak in the Brabham, and Dzierzek in Ensign. Purely guesses, '73 a little early for me!!

[MCS]

John Calvert in the 722, Mark? Phil Barak in the Brabham, and Dzierzek in Ensign. Purely guesses, '73 a little early for me!!

Ha ha - I knew you would have a go Dan!

The white car is a March you say...

[alansart]

Ha ha - I knew you would have a go Dan!

The white car is a March you say...

...or a Brabham BT38. They look very similar from the front.

[Simon Arron]

My first thought was that the white car looked a bit like the ex-Chris Meek BT38. Who else drove that?

[terry mcgrath]

During our winter days I have been tidying up some of the library

I have a good run of the English motor sport newspaper "Motoring News" but would like to fill in some of the gaps.

I am chasing copies numbers 1 through to 94 which will be the last issue of 1958 so the newspaper will have stated early 1957.

I also need numbers 99 172 176 177 179 180 182 200 201 202 254 316 323 325 328 331 333 348 374 and all of 1965.

If anyone can help with any of these issues I would love to here from them.

I have a large number following copies from 647 through to 1099 that I am happy to get rid of

terry

[cooper997]

I think you will find it started with the July 1955 issue, Terry. It was a monthly at the beginning.

I have #2 & 4, being August & October 1955 issues in my collection. Best I can do is check through the 12 pages of each and see whether any Jaguar news appears. They are indeed 'motoring news' related news stories covered, not a lot of motor racing.

Stephen

[Rob29]

I think you will find it started with the July 1955 issue, Terry. It was a monthly at the beginning.

I have #2 & 4, being August & October 1955 issues in my collection. Best I can do is check through the 12 pages of each and see whether any Jaguar news appears. They are indeed 'motoring news' related news stories covered, not a lot of motor racing.

Stephen

Think I first saw it advertised in programme  at Crystal Palace meeting may 30 1955.Sadly no longer have issues back that far.

[cooper997]

Brilliant. You've just passed the memory test Rob. Do you want to guess the page number?

Said advert in the May 30, 1955 Crystal Palace programme.


uploading pictures

Stephen

[bigears]

Was there any mention about the possible change of law about street races in Britain in the recent Motorsport News?

So I can find a copy for myself for my research about the Birmingham Superprix.

[BRG]

Yes, there was a big spread about it several weeks ago, when the story broke.

[terry mcgrath]

great to find when it started in june 1955

all I need now is to find someone who will sell me issues 1-95

terry

[bigears]

Yes, there was a big spread about it several weeks ago, when the story broke.

Which date the story was published so I can find the correct copy. Thanks.

[BRG]

July 16 issue

[BRG]

The bumper 60th anniversary edition is in the shops today, price £3.99.  I might pick one up for old time's sake.

[john winfield]

I was just trying to identify the author 'JCB' of a 1977 MN test (of the Spartan), but instead ended up reading this thread from start to finish. Lots of fun, many interesting posts, including several of course from LWTNS, much-missed Simon A.

[Sterzo]

Thank you for reviving the thread, John, and yes, it makes a great read. And post 115 is a great example of Simon Arron's characteristic of being informative and entertaining at the same time.

Edited by Sterzo, 16 November 2022 - 13:40.

[Mallory Dan]

As above, John. A really interesting thread to be re-read. It really does show how much LWTNS is going to be missed.