21 replies to this topic

[john aston]

DSJ and Pete Lyons up there in journalistic pantheon.Also loved Setright ,Manney,Bulgin et al. All late but PL. Curious to learn current whereabouts/employment of two journos who illuminated my adolesence - Doug Blain of Car fame-wrote some savage stuff on GPs of the 60s and RAB Cook , who didn't , but wrote beautifully in Motor.

Roebuck, BTW still writes superbly but ..ermm ..bit of stuck record thematically.Who else is out there who I'm missing who can illuminate GPs like Lyons did ? Not Mark Hughes thanks - he can write but a little contrived sometimes.Does Saward still write ?

[David McKinney]

Douglas Blain is still around - racing Morgans in European historic events
I know his name from the Australian publication Sports Car World in the very early '60s

[Graham Gauld]

Doug is very much alive and well and involved with The Automobile magazine in the UK. I see him every year at the Goodwood Revival.

[Ray Bell]

Originally posted by David McKinney
Douglas Blain is still around - racing Morgans in European historic events
I know his name from the Australian publication Sports Car World in the very early '60s

Wasn't Auto News also his baby?

A great magazine for nine weeks...

[Rainer Nyberg]

Originally posted by john aston
Does Saward still write ?

Joe Saward writes for grandprix.com (he might contribute elsewhere as well).

Sample article here.

[Bernard]

Bill Gavin ? and a guy used to write for Motoring News on European Hill Climbs under the pseudonym Berguize

[Ray Bell]

By the way, through the Atlas F1 e.mail system this week came an e.mail in the manner of 'a letter unexpected' from Clancy of the Overflow...

No thumbnail dipped in tar, however. The signatory was Peter Bakalor, former Autosport correspondent from our shores.

[David McKinney]

Bill Gavin is (or has been till recently) a mover and shaker in the film business

[Ray Bell]

David, if you're interested in catching up with Peter Bakalor, he's in England at the moment and will be for a few months before returning to America... I'm sure you'd love to have some first hand accounts of those Tasman events on our side of the Tasman?

If you want, just e.mail me ( r@ybell.net ) and I'll see if I can put you in touch...

[Terry Walker]

Rab Cook emigrated to Australia in the late 60s or thereabouts, and he wrote occasionally in motor magazines here around that time. After that I don't know.

[HDonaldCapps]

Pretty much a complete unknown to this crowd, but Joe Whitlock is still one of my favorite Scribes, rest his soul. Helluva guy and a great writer to boot. Nothing like having Joe transport you to the Rosewood Lounge in style in a Hemi -- one that he had for an article he was doing for C/D. It was Something when he did that -- still one of my Better Moments.....

I always appreciated his taking time with me and also for taking me along on some of his expeditions throughout the Southeast. Nothing like having "access" when you were with Joe -- you were part of the crowd. And that crowd was about everyone in GN racing in those days. Too bad he never wrote that book he kept talking about since it would make the sanitized version of history that NASCAR look a bit pale -- the NASCAR which has the curious and often silly inclusion of 'Runners as the backbone of the sport while otherwise ignoring not only them, but also ignoring the blue-collar, dirty fingernails types that really were the true heart and soul of the revival of racing in late 40s and early 50s in the South and Southeast and NASCAR. Lord, but Joe knew no end of stories....

[David Lawson]

Perhaps going a little off this thread but in my opinion Mark Hughes "Inside Line" column in this weeks Autosport was a well written piece about the phsical and mental exertions of an F1 driver at a winter test, it certainly did the job of putting me in the cockpit of the car.

David

[Alan Cox]

Harking back a post or two, I believe Douglas Blain is actually publisher of "The Automobile".

[ian senior]

Originally posted by Terry Walker
Rab Cook emigrated to Australia in the late 60s or thereabouts, and he wrote occasionally in motor magazines here around that time. After that I don't know.

Rab went to Ceylon (now Sri Lanka, of course) in late 1969 - I remember him signing his last "Private View" column with his real name rather than the usual Ralph Thoresby (and why did he use that name, I wonder?). He took a Hillman Imp with him and I recall he wrote back a year or so later, reporting how things were going in his new homeland. So did he move on to Australia?

[Terry Walker]

"Ralph Thorseby" was one of those curious English "house" columnists who might have several different writers over time. When I was getting Motor years ago, it was pretty obvious to me that Cook was Thorseby, the writing style was unmistakeable.

I knew Ceylon came into it, but wasn't sure if it came before or after Oz. I remember one or two articles in the Oz motoring press - Wheels? Modern Motor? - and after that silence. I haven't tried Google. Can't be too many R A B Cooks.

[ian senior]

Originally posted by Terry Walker
"Ralph Thorseby" was one of those curious English "house" columnists who might have several different writers over time. When I was getting Motor years ago, it was pretty obvious to me that Cook was Thorseby, the writing style was unmistakeable.

Absolutely, it stood out a mile. They were interchangeable. It always amused me when I moved to Leeds in the late 1970s that one of the local schools was called Ralph Thoresby High - and then I discovered that the "real" Mr Thoresby was actually the first historian to specialise in Leeds. Bubble burst.

[Rockford]

Originally posted by john aston
Roebuck, BTW still writes superbly but ..ermm ..bit of stuck record thematically.

Stuck record full stop. He can't complete an article anymore without a reference to "political correctness". We hear you Nigel. Get over it.

[JohnS]

Originally posted by Rockford


Stuck record full stop. He can't complete an article anymore without a reference to "political correctness". We hear you Nigel. Get over it.

There's a letter in this month's Motor Sport making a very similar point.

John

[275 GTB-4]

Originally posted by Ray Bell
By the way, through the Atlas F1 e.mail system this week came an e.mail in the manner of 'a letter unexpected' from Clancy of the Overflow...

No thumbnail dipped in tar, however. The signatory was Peter Bakalor, former Autosport correspondent from our shores.

So did the NY telephone directory entry I sent you work???

and

I don't suppose Romsey Quince is still around

[Ray Bell]

Originally posted by 275 GTB-4
So did the NY telephone directory entry I sent you work?

No... he's been in England for a couple of years...

.....I don't suppose Romsey Quints is still around

Yeah, he's out there, but I don't think he's writing under that name any more (even though he sometimes wrote similarly under his own name)... he's very much a senior citizen these days.

[Falcadore]

Originally posted by Rainer Nyberg



Joe Saward writes for grandprix.com (he might contribute elsewhere as well).

Sample article here.

Joe Saward also writes Formula One for Melbourne based publication Australasian Motorsport News. So his primary client is a website today? Intesesting compared to a remark I heard attributed to him a few years ago dissing the internet motorsport media.

[275 GTB-4]

Originally posted by Ray Bell
Yeah, he's out there, but I don't think he's writing under that name any more (even though he sometimes wrote similarly under his own name)... he's very much a senior citizen these days.

Well give him my thanks and regards for entertaining us so well over so many years