I spent much of my childhood in rural Lincolnshire and Wiltshire and during the 1950s that meant fields, woods, rivers and beaches were my playground.
I’d often return home scratched, cut, bruised, burnt or soaking wet after a day climbing trees, fording streams or lighting fires with my chums – all very ‘Swallows and Amazons’ but that’s how it was back then.
Or rather that’s how it was until one summer afternoon, when visiting an aunt and uncle in Kent, I borrowed a cousin’s bicycle and cycled off to a place called Brands Hatch and everything changed – my age of innocence was over, I’d discovered cars!
Although my Dad had owned a car since before WW2 (that’s me with his Austin 7) that visit to Brands Hatch and the pre-war sports cars I saw were a huge thrill for an eight year old.
That was over 60 years ago and though my interests have broadened since, ‘cars’ have always been there – owning, driving, modifying, writing about, photographing; they’ve been front and centre throughout the decades and still are, with my 70th birthday fast approaching.
Riley Blue 