Cars in books, July 1983

In “White Mischief” by James Fox (Cape 1982), which investigates the murder of the Earl of Erroll outside Nairobi in 1941, we read of the Hispano Suiza used by the Earl and Countess of Erroll in Kenya, Major Ramsay-Hill’s two Buicks, the terrible mud of the Rift Valley in which Bugattis, Hispano Suizas and Model-T Fords would get hopelessly stuck, and the book contains pictures of the Buick in which Erroll was killed. It also refers to Comte Frederic de Janze as having motor raced at Le Mans, but my records fail to confirm this.

There is quite a lot about motoring and flying in two books by the Rt. Hon. JEB Seely, CB, CMG, DSO, both of which are largely concerned with the 1914/18 war. But makes of vehicles are seldom referred to although Seely does say that when he went to the Air Ministry in 1919 a Bristol Fighter and a DH9a were at his disposal at Hendon as personal transport. He describes a forced-landing after a flight from Farnborough with the celebrated test-pilot Busk, and he tells of persuading Graham White to take him up from Hendon in a very strong wind, before the war, the first time the Cabinet Minister had flown, he says. The two books are “Adventure” (Heinemann 1930) and “Fear And Be Slain” (Hodder & Stoughton, 1931). — WB.