3 replies to this topic

[Jagracer]

Hi, In 1970 When I was working as a racing mechanic for "Mo" Skailes on his Chevron B16 there was a freelance racing photographer by the name of I think Jeff Hutchenson (not sure if I've spelt it right ) He used to "Bum" a lift with me & any of the other racing mechanics to cover the 2ltr. sports car series all over Europe & write the reports for the likes of Outosport etc. Sometimes we would sneak him into our hotel bedroom if there was a spare bed in it, if we did get him in the room you would get a mention in his write up like "Mo Skailes's car once again beautifully prepared by Phil Bradford" (which was me) or one of the other mechanic's & he would give us some of the pictures he had taken of our car etc.
Would love to get in touch with him again to have a chat about the old days etc. Last I heard he was living in Austrailia & still doing race reports
If anyone can let me know on my E Mail address at phil@jagracer.wanadoo.co.uk I would be very grateful

Many Thanks (in anticipation) Phil Bradford

[Tim Murray]

I'm sure our forum moderator Twin Window (Stuart Dent), who is a good mate of Jeff's, will chip in when he spots this. In the meantime, you might enjoy this post mentioning Jeff and what life was like at Autosport in the good old days, from the 'Autosport' magazine thread:

I can answer this, because I was the Editor of Autosport at the time. (Goodness, it was over 40 years ago!) In 1969, after struggling with dreadful print quality from our letterpress printers, we changed to the then new-fangled offset litho process. This was not only to improve quality (in theory, at least) but also to allow us to get the magazine distributed on Wednesday for a Thursday day of sale, without compromising our Tuesday evening close for press. That way we'd able to scoop our deadly rival, Motoring News, which came out on Thursday then, but went to press on Monday night.

The first issue of Autosport printed offset was dated September 12th 1969. That was actually a Friday, because we weren't sure if our new distribution would work. It did, so we felt brave enough to date the next issue September 18th 1969, a Thursday. However I forgot to change the small print on the editorial page that said "Published every Friday" to "Published every Thursday" until the September 25th issue. My excuse was that I was rather busy.....

Despite the rather grandiose list of personnel on the masthead - including people like Paddy McNally, John Bolster and John Davenport - and a faithful band of keen but negligibly paid weekend reporters, the magazine itself was actually produced by just four people. In 1969 those four were Deputy Editor Quentin Spurring, Assistant Editors Jeff Hutchinson and Justin Haler, and me, each of us producing many thousands of words a week. At 25 years of age, I was the oldest, and as the Editor I was the best paid: after deductions I took home £26 a week. There were no computers, no e-mail, no mobile phones, no digital cameras, even the fax machine hadn't been invented. Our only high-tech gadget was the portable typewriter. The logistical dramas of pulling in the stories and the pictures each week could fill a book, and probably would if I thought anybody would want to read it. But the only way to make the magazine happen, without publishing software and e-mail, was to work round the clock in a little cabin next to the print works, so that we could write our copy and proof and pass pages on the spot.

So we would all cover race meetings around Britain and Europe on Saturday and Sunday, rush back from wherever to London on Sunday night in our standard-issue 850 Minis and write our reports, then work at the printers from 8am Monday through Monday night to 6pm Tuesday. We would often work through without a break, writing Pit & Paddock news stories, subbing ropey copy from those faithful weekenders, chasing stories on the phone (you could ring up World Champions for a chat in those days, and there were no PR men), doing our own layouts and passing page proofs. We subsisted on bought-in fish-and-chips, and if the issue was going well we might snatch a kip in our standard-issue 850 Minis in the car park. We laughed a lot because, if you're tired enough, your sense of humour becomes gradually more and more juvenile. I know we had an Editorial Team Fart Graph on the wall, which was kept scrupulously up to date.

On Tuesday night, when it was all over, we'd all fall into the nearest pub and get drunk. Wednesday was our sabbath, when I went to the laundrette and watched my socks going round. Thursday we had a meeting with the Haymarket suits to thrash out the ed/ad (editorial/adverting) page ratio, and read our newly-minted issue and groan at all the mistakes. Friday we wrote Features (and Readers' Letters under assumed names if a page's-worth of decent letters hadn't come in), and Saturday the cycle started again, at anywhere from Montlhery to Mallory Park. For five years I was permanently tired, and I'm not sure if the magazine was any good, but I've never had so much fun in my life.

[Jagracer]

I'm sure our forum moderator Twin Window (Stuart Dent), who is a good mate of Jeff's, will chip in when he spots this. In the meantime, you might enjoy this post mentioning Jeff and what life was like at Autosport in the good old days, from the 'Autosport' magazine thread:

Yep sounds about right as Jeff never had any money & we would all at some time buy him a meal & a drink and if my memory serves me right we sometimes smuggled him onto the ferry in our transport vehicle to save him the cost of the fare. Those were the days

Phil Bradford

[EDWARD FITZGERALD]

Yep sounds about right as Jeff never had any money & we would all at some time buy him a meal & a drink and if my memory serves me right we sometimes smuggled him onto the ferry in our transport vehicle to save him the cost of the fare. Those were the days

Phil Bradford

about 5 years ago I was chatting to Jeff Bloxham about Jeff Hutchinson and he told me he was at that time based in Switzerland , so em Mr Bloxham via his web site