Bedside manners
Broke my Dartmouth, south Devon, family holiday to drive to Mayfair to interview Sir Stirling Moss for the Lotus Club International magazine. It’s 50 years since he won Monaco to give the Lotus marque its first ever Grand Prix win, driving Rob Walker’s Type 18. Had to be done in his bedroom as his ankles were still in plaster from tumbling three floors down the lift shaft in his home. After the interview, when he read from his diary about what he’d got up to that May weekend in 1960, he talked about race strategy and the handling differences between the Coopers and Lotuses of the day. Then Clive Chapman presented Stirling with a framed, tagged photograph of himself in the 18 doing his Monaco lap of honour on behalf of Classic Team Lotus and Lotus Cars.