Two mysteries

A reader has drawn our attention to a curious remark made some time ago by Nigel Dempster in his gossip-column in the Daily Mail. Writing about the possibility of Fiona Campbell-Walker marrying the antiques dealer Dimitri, he described the prospective husband’s late father as having “won the 1938 Monaco Grand Prix”. But there was no such race that year …

And in Daisy Reminisces (Bachman & Turner, 1979), Daisy Greig of the famous grocery family tells of her brother Stanley’s love of cars, describing him as having driven in a great many races and won the Concours d’Elegance in a Monte Carlo Rally. He also used to reach 100 mph when driving his sister down to Hove in a Ferrari, and was to die of a heart attack after one such run.

The mystery here is that a picture showing the well-known T57SC Corsica-bodied Bugatti two-seater registered GU 7 is captioned “Daisy’s brother Stanley in one of his favourite sports-cars”. This was the car designed by Eric Giles for his brother Colonel G M Giles, and the Bugatti Owners Club has no record of it having been owned by Mr Greig.