Posted 12 December 2022 - 00:25
In early 1996 I was approached by the organisers of a Classic motorcycle extravaganza at Pukekohe. Their guest was John Surtees and would I like to spend the hour of my motor racing focussed radio show interviewing him. It was only after the phone call finished that i began to wonder what I'd just agreed to, given what I'd read.
I had no need for concern - he was magnificent. He had wonderful anecdotes and was charm personified and even complimented the interviewer at the end of the session. He was then on the cusp of his 62nd birthday and I could only conclude that if everything I'd heard and read was correct, then he must have mellowed significantly.
Fast forward 20 and a bit years and one of the weekly phone calls I would get from the man who eventually replaced 'Big John' at Ferrari. By mid 2016 Chris was starting to fade as the cancer took hold but he retained his fanatical interest in F1 (and cricket, politics...) so we always had plenty to chat about. This day was different - he'd just received a letter from John Surtees. Not an email - an old-fashioned hand-written letter posted in England and delivered to a post box in Kinloch, New Zealand. Chris read the letter to me - clearly JS had heard Chris wasn't well and penned what I can only describe as a warm and heartfelt letter that could only have been written by a person who knew compassion and empathy.
It was certainly touching and Chris was a tad emotional reading it over the phone. And then the familiar Amon chuckle before - "I must have told you about the time he and I went to Disneyland?" Ah no Chris, you hadn't...
"It was after the '66 Can-Am series - you should have seen him. He was like a little kid - running from ride to ride."
A month after interviewing Surtees I was in a very full tent at Melbourne ahead of the first GP there - waiting for Eddie Jordan to announce what everyone already knew, that his cars would carry the bronze/gold livery of a tobacco company. Eventually EJ and his entourage turned up that led one of the assembled to stand and belt out the opening line of 'Goldfinger'. I turned to discover the man with the quite decent singing voice was someone I's always read as being quiet and reserved - John Watson.
What was that about not believing everything you read?