Damnation to Conformity

Damnation to Conformity

Sir,

It was both encouraging and saddening to read your spirited editorial in November’s MOTOR SPORT. The outlook is indeed depressing on the motoring front but, as you intimated, so long as there are individuals in our society who are prepared to take that supposedly reckless step and try to actually enjoy life with all of its ramifications, then we are not sunk yet. Governments may come, Governments may go, but MOTOR SPORT and its readers will live on.

Although a comparative newcomer to the world of motoring (my seventeenth birthday was a little over three years ago), I would like to think that I can understand what has spurred on men from Chiron to Peterson in their endless quest for adventure, perfection, and advancement. And why so many real enthusiasts derive so much pleasure from spectating at races, driving on open roads, tinkering under the bonnet, or simply sensing the freedom whenever they turn the ignition key. From days of driving a battered Mini round a field long before I could hold a licence, to the satisfaction of my present Ford Escort Mexico, the enjoyment is almost unparalleled.

I thought you might be interested to read of a judgement made in a court case just after the last war. Lord Justice Asquith commented: “As has often been pointed out, if all the trains in this country were restricted to a speed of five miles an hour, there would be fewer accidents, but our national life would be intolerably slowed down.” If, as I believe, the same could be said of motor cars, then Westminster had better be informed before we all slide headlong into the barren abyss of an austere, conformity-ridden state.

May your next fifty years be as successful as the last for MOTOR SPORT—the medium of the genuine motorist.Jesmond NEILL MONAGHAN