He of course is Sir Stirling Moss, Boy Wonder, and the man who should be remembered not just for the job he did, but the way he did it. His blend of speed and the way he conducted himself both on and off the track was, is and will always be the greatest example of how to be a racing driver.
But of course very few of us now remember him as a full-time racer: if you’d been a boy of 18 at his last race in 1962, today you would now be nearer 80 than 70. So our image of Stirling is actually shaped by how he was in later life, the tireless ambassador for his sport, roaming the world, giving endless interviews, being asked to tell the same stories over and over again. Stirling Moss wasn’t just a person, it was a business too. And that needed running.
He owed that to his wife, Lady Susie Moss. She may have been married to Stirling the man, but she also managed Stirling the brand. For 40 years her job was to organise him and make sure that, come what may, he was where he needed to be, when he needed to be there, fully briefed, ready to be Mr Motor Racing whenever it was required.
She’d cover for him too: In recent decades Stirling’s memory became patchy at best – possibly because of the bang on the head in 1962 – so Susie would remind him who people were seconds before he met them. When his age and the cumulative effect of his multitudinous injuries started to limit his movement, she’d be his support in the most literal sense too.