I’d been in the world 14 years and one month when, on January 4, 1967, I watched Donald Campbell’s fatal Bluebird somersault on Coniston Water, on our black and white television. I look back on that as the defining moment of my life.

Then four months later, when I’d screwed up while helping my father overhaul his Rover 90’s gearbox, I sought refuge in the latest Autocar. My mother’s employer used to pass his copy on to me, so I got the May 4 issue on the 5th.

There, I found an evocative photo of this fierce-looking BRM H16 being driven by a guy called Jackie Stewart in the International Trophy race at Silverstone. I already loved cars, but until that moment the best were Bluebird CN7, the Maserati 151s, Aston Martin DP214s, and the Lola-Aston Martin I had fallen in love with at that year’s Racing Car Show at Olympia. The puny 1.5-litre F1 cars never excited my interest.

But now that wonderful head-on portrait of the brutish H16 understeering through Copse hooked me on Formula 1 cars.

Nineteen sixty-seven was indeed cathartic, the year I discovered my life’s focus. For the last 36 years I’ve been blessed working among some fabulous people in F1. But my nostalgic streak still draws me back to that season of my developing imagination, when the flat, wide orange-snouted BRMs waged their hopeless, overweight fight against the elegant new Cosworth DFV-powered Lotus-Fords of Jim Clark and Graham Hill, or Dan Gurney occasionally finished – won, even! – in the gloriously-beaked Eagle with its Weslake V12. The gorgeous Ferraris and the chunky Honda and its slimline sibling. Romantic venues such as Spa-Francorchamps and Monza, Watkins Glen and Zandvoort.

I devoured everything I could find about F1 in that pre-internet era: race reports and news. And especially Eoin Young’s new Straight from the Grid column in Autocar; Buster’s brilliant writing put you right there!

Graham Hill lived near us, and I fretted what I’d say if I ever bumped into him. I felt the same about Denny Hulme, the no-nonsense New Zealander who had a fearsomely grouchy reputation.

I could never have known that my career would lead to friendships with heroes such as Jackie Stewart, Eoin, Bette Hill and her children, Dan Gurney and Chris Amon. And Denny, whom I admired immensely for his unique brand of courage; I’m still proud to this day to have entered his inner circle. Without his grit, and Dan’s skill, in the immediate Can-Am aftermath of Bruce’s death in 1970, there might not have been anything for Ron Dennis to build into the fabulous empire that McLaren is once more today.

These racers defined my image of what heroes should be, and that dominates still when assessing today’s stars. It made them even more special that none had the remotest idea they encapsulated the rare human spirit that inspires boys to pursue their own dreams.