Not your average Fiesta
Country Life UK|September 06, 2023
As more than 150,000 fans of a bygone age of cars and fashion descend on Goodwood for its annual Revival, Octavia Pollock talks to the Duke of Richmond about 75 years of motorsport on his West Sussex estate
Octavia Pollock
Not your average Fiesta

I HAD my first driving lesson from Sir Stirling Moss at the Festival of Speed: brake into a corner and accelerate through, treat a fast car like a fast horse. I was 11 and we were at Goodwood House, where the then Earl of March had brought the roar of engines back to his West Sussex estate after a break of 27 years. It was his grandfather, the 9th Duke of Richmond, who had founded the grand tradition of motorsport at Goodwood, when RAF Westhamp- nett, the estate’s Battle of Britain base, was being decommissioned and Sqd Ldr Tony Gaze suggested that the 2.4-mile perimeter road would make rather a good racetrack. The Duke, a distinguished racing driver, leapt at the idea and, on September 18, 1948, the austerity of post-war Britain was lit up by the inaugural motor-racing meeting.

Some 15,000 people arrived, to a track with barely any fencing, wheat on the infield and an old Austin Six ambulance. Eighty-five drivers—including Moss, who won—contested eight races, heralding a countrywide resurgence of motorsport. ‘You have to consider it against years of rationing, a public deprived of spectacle,’ says motoring historian Doug Nye. ‘It is a beautiful place, below the Downs near the sea with salt in the air and the track is undulating, so has extra character.’

Bu hikaye Country Life UK dergisinin September 06, 2023 sayısından alınmıştır.

Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.

Bu hikaye Country Life UK dergisinin September 06, 2023 sayısından alınmıştır.

Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.

COUNTRY LIFE UK DERGISINDEN DAHA FAZLA HIKAYETümünü görüntüle
Save our family farms
Country Life UK

Save our family farms

IT Tremains to be seen whether the Government will listen to the more than 20,000 farming people who thronged Whitehall in central London on November 19 to protest against changes to inheritance tax that could destroy countless family farms, but the impact of the good-hearted, sombre crowds was immediate and positive.

time-read
1 min  |
November 27, 2024
A very good dog
Country Life UK

A very good dog

THE Spanish Pointer (1766–68) by Stubbs, a landmark painting in that it is the artist’s first depiction of a dog, has only been exhibited once in the 250 years since it was painted.

time-read
1 min  |
November 27, 2024
The great astral sneeze
Country Life UK

The great astral sneeze

Aurora Borealis, linked to celestial reindeer, firefoxes and assassinations, is one of Nature's most mesmerising, if fickle displays and has made headlines this year. Harry Pearson finds out why

time-read
3 dak  |
November 27, 2024
'What a good boy am I'
Country Life UK

'What a good boy am I'

We think of them as the stuff of childhood, but nursery rhymes such as Little Jack Horner tell tales of decidedly adult carryings-on, discovers Ian Morton

time-read
3 dak  |
November 27, 2024
Forever a chorister
Country Life UK

Forever a chorister

The music-and way of living-of the cabaret performer Kit Hesketh-Harvey was rooted in his upbringing as a cathedral chorister, as his sister, Sarah Sands, discovered after his death

time-read
4 dak  |
November 27, 2024
Best of British
Country Life UK

Best of British

In this collection of short (5,000-6,000-word) pen portraits, writes the author, 'I wanted to present a number of \"Great British Commanders\" as individuals; not because I am a devotee of the \"great man, or woman, school of history\", but simply because the task is interesting.' It is, and so are Michael Clarke's choices.

time-read
3 dak  |
November 27, 2024
Old habits die hard
Country Life UK

Old habits die hard

Once an antique dealer, always an antique dealer, even well into retirement age, as a crop of interesting sales past and future proves

time-read
4 dak  |
November 27, 2024
It takes the biscuit
Country Life UK

It takes the biscuit

Biscuit tins, with their whimsical shapes and delightful motifs, spark nostalgic memories of grandmother's sweet tea, but they are a remarkably recent invention. Matthew Dennison pays tribute to the ingenious Victorians who devised them

time-read
3 dak  |
November 27, 2024
It's always darkest before the dawn
Country Life UK

It's always darkest before the dawn

After witnessing a particularly lacklustre and insipid dawn on a leaden November day, John Lewis-Stempel takes solace in the fleeting appearance of a rare black fox and a kestrel in hot pursuit of a pipistrelle bat

time-read
4 dak  |
November 27, 2024
Tarrying in the mulberry shade
Country Life UK

Tarrying in the mulberry shade

On a visit to the Gainsborough Museum in Sudbury, Suffolk, in August, I lost my husband for half an hour and began to get nervous. Fortunately, an attendant had spotted him vanishing under the cloak of the old mulberry tree in the garden.

time-read
3 dak  |
November 27, 2024