4 replies to this topic

[Derwent Motorsport]

In my steady clearing out of my book collection I've come across one of the two books "written" by Mike Hawthorn for children which I was given when it was published. "Carlotti Takes the Wheel" is a very Boys Own type of story but there is no mention of anyone else being involved in the book which I presume there was with Mike just lending his name. Presumably Mike's death prevents any more of these books being written.

[speedman13]

In my steady clearing out of my book collection I've come across one of the two books "written" by Mike Hawthorn for children which I was given when it was published. "Carlotti Takes the Wheel" is a very Boys Own type of story but there is no mention of anyone else being involved in the book which I presume there was with Mike just lending his name. Presumably Mike's death prevents any more of these books being written.

There were 2 Carlotti books, the first was "Carlotti Joins The Team" and the second was "Carlotti Takes The Wheel.
I believe they were both Mike's work.

[D-Type]

The conclusion here was that he probably did write them, but on one of the other threads where the Carlotti books get a mention the suggestion is that a journalist friend wrote them (Gordon Wilkins was ghost writer for Challenge me the Race). I couldn't find any references in Mon ami Mate, but there may be something in Golden Boy which I don't have. Either way, Mikes death led to no more being written.

Edited by D-Type, 11 March 2013 - 22:37.

[kayemod]

We'll never really know of course, but either Gordon Wilkins was a remarkable skilled ghost writer, or Mike Hawthorn had a lot of input into both Challenge me the Race and Champion Year. I'm slightly too young to remember much about Mike when he was racing, most of what I know came from those two works, but the books are remarkably well written of their type, they have an authenticity that makes it possible to imagine much of the content coming from The Man himself. If as this suggests, Mike had some writing talent, I can well believe that he was largely responsible for the Carlotti books. I remember borrowing at least one of them from the local library in Hoylake and enjoying it. I was a voracious reader at that young short-trousered age, devouring the complete works of writers like Jules Verne, so possibly a bit of a literary snob, but I think they must have been competently written, though the fact that they were about motor racing would have excused a great deal.

[wenoopy]

We'll never really know of course, but either Gordon Wilkins was a remarkable skilled ghost writer, or Mike Hawthorn had a lot of input into both Challenge me the Race and Champion Year. I'm slightly too young to remember much about Mike when he was racing, most of what I know came from those two works, but the books are remarkably well written of their type, they have an authenticity that makes it possible to imagine much of the content coming from The Man himself. If as this suggests, Mike had some writing talent, I can well believe that he was largely responsible for the Carlotti books. I remember borrowing at least one of them from the local library in Hoylake and enjoying it. I was a voracious reader at that young short-trousered age, devouring the complete works of writers like Jules Verne, so possibly a bit of a literary snob, but I think they must have been competently written, though the fact that they were about motor racing would have excused a great deal.

Having read both Carlotti books for the first time a couple of years ago (my brother found them on the Internet), I couldn't honestly say that they were well-written, which suggests that they could well be mainly the work of Hawthorn himself. A good editor or a ghost-writer would surely have tidied them up.

If my memory serves me correctly, there was mention of Mike dabbling in fiction writing during 1958; I don't see it in 'Champion Year', it doesn't sound like Motor Sport's sort of journalism of the time, and I don't recall what other English magazines a 16-year-old in New Zealand might have found in 1958-59.

Stu Buchanan