All that Jazz

All that Jazz

Re your feature “Motor Racing and all that Jazz” (November issue). I am sure that you are wrong in describing Rupert E. L. (Buddy) Featherstonehaugh as a jazz singer. He may well have sung occasionally but he was best known as a very accomplished saxophonist. I used to have a delightful record of a dusky damsel named Valaida accompanied by Buddy on the saxophone (“I wish that I were twins, you great big babykins, then I could love you twice as much as I do”). Incidentally, I believe that Featherstonehaugh was the first British driver to

win a continental grand prix, probably since Williams (Grover) at Monaco, when he won the Albi Grand Prix in Whitney Straight’s 1.6 Maserati.

A noted omission from your list is Hugo Rignold, whom I remember competing in mountain races at Brooklands and who eventually graduated to conducting a full symphony orchestra. Truro RICHARD WINBY