Whilst my only spectator experience of Stirling Moss racing was in historic machinery there were several other occasions where our paths crossed, and it was always a thrill to meet, talk to, and interview a man of his astonishing talent.
It helped enormously too that he was easy to talk to, generous with his time and stories – all in all, a very, very nice guy.
I’ll relay two tales for the purposes of this article, both of which are only peripherally linked to motorsport, but both of which say a lot about his character I believe.
Rather oddly they both involve my children!
The Drink Driver
The actual date of this incident evades me but it came in the wake of an FIA GT Championship round at Silverstone in the mid-late 1990s with my then c.10 year old son and I en route home to South London.
For reasons lost in the mists of time we did not use the M25 but rather cut through central London.
It was a glorious summer evening with plenty of people still on the streets and the roads still pretty busy too.
In the very centre of the West End I realised that turning onto Oxford Street from Baker Street, the traffic had not moved with a full cycle of the traffic lights.
Ahead of us was a bus, halfway into our lane – and in front of that was a London Black cab.
At the drivers window was a man angrily shouting and gesticulating, with his car evidently ahead of the cab, its driver’s door open.
After some moments another car door opened, a Mercedes SL that I hadn’t, until that point, seen between the angry drivers Rover Montego and the cab.
Out stepped the unmistakable frame of Stirling Moss who moved to calm the angry driver and managed, almost, to defuse the situation, guiding the man back to his car before returning to his own vehicle.
Sadly though the man exploded again and wreaked a full scale attack on the cab, trying to pull open the drivers door, then the passenger door, breaking the lights, tearing off the wiper, kicking in the grille, and the doors.
By this point Stirling clearly realised that he was blocking the cab drivers escape and managed to manoeuvre his car out from between the two, the cab went to go around the Montego to turn into Oxford Street but was then, astonishingly, rammed by the Montego (which, it should be added, I later found had two children, aged 3 and 5, on the back seat!)
The hit was hard enough that the cab was lifted off the ground on the right side – but when all four wheels were back on the ground he hared off down towards Marble Arch with the Montego madman literally banging doors with him until I lost sight of the pair.
By now I’d called the Police – they finally caught up with the pair after three circuits of Marble Arch!
In the subsequent legal proceedings the errant driver, who, it emerged, was drunk, and had cut up the cab by driving through road works, received a lengthy driving ban and a short prison sentence.
He pled Guilty, which was probably smart as the four statements in his prosecution were from myself, then running the PR efforts for the Government’s road safety campaigns, the cab driver, who it emerged was a retired professional boxing referee (who had officiated at one of Frank Bruno’s World Heavyweight title fights amongst others), his passenger (a retired Barrister), and Stirling Moss!
The Chequered Flag
Next up in September 2011 was Sir Stirling’s first public engagement in as he recovered from an horrific accident at his home when he stepped into the lift, only to find that whilst the doors had opened, the lift wasn’t there – He fell three floors, suffering injuries to both ankles, a leg and to his back.
The comeback engagement was as Guest of Honour at the Chelsea Auto Legends Concours in the grounds of the Royal Hospital – home to the Chelsea Pensioners.
The event featured a Supercar road run through the streets of central London with an astounding array of classic and modern machinery.
I was there with a Corvette C6 drop-top, all in white with license plate 8 USA – courtesy of Mitch Millett from the now sadly defunct Bauer Millett company in Manchester.
Along for the ride was my then cute as a button 8 year old daughter who had a fabulous time waving to everyone that had stopped to watch the cavalcade pass.
On arrival at the Hospital grounds, each car was greeted by Stirling (to the right of the car) with a chequered flag.
I pulled in through the gate, the flag was dropped in front of the car and with a bit of gas played across the bonnet, and windscreen.
So far so good – but the Corvette was a left hooker, and 8 year old daughter was well into the swing of this being enormous fun – as the flag came over the screen and into the car she grabbed it!
Stirling spotted the game and played to it!
The moment is captured in this YouTube Video, start from 1:45 unless you’d like to see a selection of very lovely road cars!
Luckily the flag came off the pole or Stirling’s return to public life could have been a very short one! As you can see his usual good humour did not desert him!
Later in the afternoon, I sought him out at the show to apologise.
He could not have been kinder, left my daughter utterly enchanted and me even more in awe of him.
Farewell Sir
