Mill Hill Damon

As Damon started his arduous climb to the pinnacle of the motor racing profession, he did so in the knowledge that his father had achieved it the hard way, twenty years earlier. The skills had evolved but their presence was still required to succeed. The same grit and determination would be demanded of Damon. The bravery and sacrifices would remain unchanged. But during the intervening years, motor racing as a sport had undergone fundamental changes. A modern day driver cannot fail to escape the fact that driving is but a small percentage of his total being. An adeptness in business and public relations is now a necessity. And as Damon would soon discover, without a rich sponsor, you might as well give up. But that is not the Hill tradition.Being the son of a famous father, he was to find the upward journey no easier than his contemporaries and sometimes more difficult.

When Damon Graham Devereux Hill was born in Hampstead on 17 September 1960, his father was over a hundred miles away, racing at Snetterton. His mother had met Graham Hill nearly ten years earlier at the Auriol Rowing Club, Hammersmith. At that time, Chief Petty Officer Norman Graham Hill, the son of a stockbrokers clerk, was doing his National Service in the Royal Navy aboard HMS Swiftsure. Graham left Hendon Technical College at the age of sixteen having studied engineering, to serve an apprenticeship with Smiths, the instrument manufacturers. Cycling a hundred miles each weekend to see his girlfriend of the moment he found he was dog-tired by the time he reached her, so he scrimped and saved for a motor-cycle. For a time it made the journey easier, but one night he ploughed into an unlit, parked car, and broke his leg. It was not until the age of twenty-four, when he and Bette were engaged, that he bought his first car - a twenty year old Morris 8, for £110. In 1953, Graham tasted the thrill of fast driving at the Universal Motor Racing Club when he drove four laps of Brands Hatch in a racing car for five shillings per lap. From then on he was hooked.

In April 1954 he finished second in his first Formula 3 race. Graham Hill married Bette Shubrook on 13th August 1955. Their honeymoon was spent in Bognor Regis - nothing unusual about that, except that it was close to the Goodwood racing circuit, where Graham just happened to be booked as a reserve driver. Fortunately (depending on which way you view it), his services were not required. Hill had joined Graham Chapman at Team Lotus, as a mechanic preparing cars for private owners yet managing the occasional drive for himself. In 1956, Chapman lent Hill a car, which was entered in the Autosport Championship Series. But for an engine blow-up at the final event at Oulton Park, he would have been champion.

The following year he was signed up to drive by Lotus and in 1958 drove his first Grand Prix, at Monte Carlo - an event Hill was to win five times in the 1960's (a record not broken until Ayrton Senna won his sixth Monaco GP when he beat Damon in 1993). Starting last on the grid, by three-quarters distance Hill had made his way to fourth only to retire when a rear wheel fell off. By the end of Graham Hill's first season in Formula One he had scored a total of two World Championship points, by finishing fifth at Monza, when he ran out of fuel on the last lap. 1959 had it's ups and downs. A joyous moment for Bette and Graham was the birth of their first daughter, Brigitte. Yet on the racetrack, Hill failed to finish any Grand Prix in his Lotus. Following such an abysmal year, Hill negotiated a drive for the BRM team, based at Bourne. Although the BRM cars did not excel, Hill worked hard at racing and race testing.

The arrival of Damon in September did not have an immediate effect on his father's winning potential, and again failed to do well in 1961. Graham Hill won his first Grand Prix in the following year at the Dutch GP, then clinching victories at the German and Italian events. If Hill won the American Grand Prix, the title would be his. On the day, Jim Clark won and deferred the decision until the South African Grand Prix. After just one lap of the East London circuit, he thought he had lost it as Jimmy Clark pulled away from him. Hill's race plan was simply to drive as hard as he could from the start, in an attempt to force an error from Clark. Fortunately, the BRM held out over the Lotus which lost it's drain plug, spilling oil and putting Clark in the pits. Hill finished first, fifty seconds ahead of Bruce McLaren. At the family home in London, Bette Hill said "I want my husband to go on racing as long as he likes. Racing is his life - and mine. I don't want anything to change it." It was to be weeks before they could celebrate properly as Graham was straight off to New Zealand to race in the Auckland Grand Prix and then on to America. Two year-old Damon spent Christmas without his father this year.

Not until January was Damon able to share his new train with his Dad. Being separated by 12,000 miles and reunited after a month, motor racing and the demands on the new World Champion were soon to steal Graham away from his family again. An award ceremony to present the Gold Star award from the British Automobile Racing Club for his "unceasing efforts to reach the peak" was one such occasion. Reported to be earning £15,000 - more than the Prime Minister, Harold Macmillan, Graham could now ill afford to have his schedule unnecessarily interrupted. It was always a regret of Hill's that he was not able to spend more time with his children. When he did manage a day at home, it would usually be a weekday and they would be at school. Come the weekends, Graham would be away racing. As for evenings, Hill would tend to arrive home very late - often in the early hours. As the demand for Graham Hill as an after dinner speaker increased, so did the frequency of late nights. Evidently, being a racing driver is no nine to five job. As Graham was driving practically anything he could get his hands on - even the odd lawnmower race, he tended to live from a suitcase much of the time. His Formula One commitment for overseas events could take the best part of a week including travelling and practice. Damon's older sister, was introduced to motor sport when only seventeen days old, accompanying her parents to Silverstone.

It was always Brigitte who showed the most interest in motor racing. Damon never displayed as much enthusiasm. As a teenager, his attention was to focus on motor-cycling. However this did not stop him from trying his father's cars for size. The newspapers of the day would often carry pictures of a very young Damon sitting in his father's Lotus or BRM, with his head about level with the steering wheel. When Graham was awarded the Order of the British Empire, it was Damon and Brigitte who accompanied him with Bette to Buckingham Palace. The two children watched the Queen Mother carry out the investiture in the ballroom. Damon's little sister was still too young to be taken to the palace. Samantha Elizabeth Hill was born in May 1965. Even at her christening, Damon and his family were surrounded by motor-racing - the guests included John Coombs, Stirling Moss, Tony Rudd, Peter Jopp and Sir Gawain Bailey. Brigitte later recalled Damon's reaction at the arrival of his sister: "I remember he was very upset when Mummy had Samantha. He thought we didn't love him any more. He wouldn't look at Mummy and his bottom lip was trembling because he felt he was being replaced. Damon was a terribly sweet-looking child, with chubby cheeks and wonderful chubby legs.

When Damon was born, his parents were living in rented rooms in Hampstead. In 1961 they bought the house which was to see them through the next ten years. The house was number thirty-two Parkside, Mill Hill, North London - a modern and imposing five-bedroomed house for it's day. It was a home ideally suited to such a young and growing family. The outside may have looked nothing out of the ordinary, with Graham's 3.8 litre Jaguar and Bette's Mini parked on the white-flecked ashfelt - but inside, every nook and cranny, every shelf and sideboard strained under the weight of Graham's motor-racing silverware. It was arguable whether the walls really needed wallpaper as they were chock-a-block with pictures, either of Graham's racing fortunes, motoring memorabilia or photographs of Bette and the children. It was at Parkside that many a party was thrown to celebrate one motoring success or another - sometimes even a failure. One impromptu party was the day Graham returned home after taking the chequered flag at the much confused and disputed Indianapolis 500 race of 1966. After a mix up with the charting of completed laps, it was thought by some that Jim Clark had won. However any suggestion of a dispute between the two drivers was thwarted when Clark and friends turned up with a case of champagne. Damon's home life during those boyhood years also had a rural flavour.

In 1966, the Hill's leased a 17th century cottage in Brabourne, near Ashford, Kent from the Earl Mountbatten. The idea was that at every opportunity they would sneak away to this half-timbered hideaway. However, with Damon's father leading such a hectic lifestyle, the visits to Brabourne were more infrequent than intended. Each British Grand Prix weekend, though, it was full house. A marquee would be erected in the garden and often as many as two hundred guests might turn up for a party that would last the Saturday night and all Sunday. Of course, in those days, the Grand Prix was run on a Saturday and at Brands Hatch. In 1972, when Damon was eleven, the Hill's finally moved from their £15,000 house in Mill Hill. It was a decision they had been toying with for a year or two but had not found the right property. The place they purchased could only be described as a mansion, fit for an aspiring country gentleman. Set in 35 acres of Hertfordshire park land, "Lyndhurst", a 25 roomed Victorian house came with an enviable provenance. Some previous owners were obviously music lovers, as Edward Elgar had performed his own violin concerto there and Paderewski is also known to have been a regular guest. The £150,000 house, in Green Street, Shenley had been renovated by a local builder and now boasted, apart from 15 acres of woods and pheasants strutting across the lawns, a sauna, summer house, stabling for six horses, garage for six cars plus quarters for a nanny and nurse. To this Graham added a luxurious swimming pool. In bygone years there would have been twelve gardeners tending the grounds but when the Hills moved in there was but a lone pensioner looking after the vast garden.

Damon's sisters loved horse riding - Graham bought each a pony - Blue Boy for Samantha and Lola for Brigitte. Brigitte progressed from horses to yachts and then ski-instructing via Sheffield University. By the late 1980's, Brigitte had come full circle and was back at the track-side. This time, it would be in her own right, promoting and publicising Formula 3 at the Macau circuit. Damon had shared a bedroom with Brigitte until he was about ten. Damon recalled those early days at Mill Hill: "She used to have her corner for toys and I had mine, but her stuff never held any fascination for me as it was all cuddly animals and dolls. I just remember her in the background, dancing around in a tutu and wanting to be a ballerina. There was a bit of competition between us because we both wanted Dad's attention as he wasn't around all the time. She was always the goody-goody who could never do anything wrong. We didn't fight because Dad always drummed into me that you don't play rough with girls, so we got on quite well." Holidays for the Hill family progressed from Graham and Bette's earlier jaunts to the Welsh Riviera and Bognor to the Mediterranean - while it was still seen as an exotic and far-flung destination to many Britons. Damon remembers one trip particularly well: "When I was six, we went on holiday to Ibiza and I wanted to reach something that I could see on the other side of the patterned wall partition of the balcony. Brigitte's arms were thinner than mine so I persuaded her to reach through, but she got stuck and was there for three hours while Mum tried to get her arm out. I panicked and slunk off, claiming I had nothing to do with it."

They loved the area around the Costa del Sol, especially Fuengirola - a very different scene in 1966 to the present day. Graham found the pretty fishing village the ideal corner to relax in. A couple of years earlier, the destination was Majorca - then, a little-visited and undeveloped island. But even here they were unable to escape the inevitable limelight. When Graham returned to England for a few days to race at Oulton Park, a photograph of Graham, Bette, Brigitte and Damon enjoying themselves on the beach appeared in a national newspaper. Graham was shown without the neck brace he had had to wear since his 100mph accident the previous month, in which he cracked a neck bone. Graham said "I wish there were more times like this. I wish I had more time to spend with my family. It is the one side of my job that I regret. There are so many races in so many countries. And if you choose to be a racing driver - your job is at the racing circuit." As the motor racing programme tailed off in the winter, the opportunity to holiday in the snow was discovered by the Hill's. The family took to Switzerland in January 1967 for their first skiing holiday.

Graham's newly acquired pilot's licence and twin-engined plane was to open up the continent to the Hills over the next nine years. This time however, they had to leave the plane at Basle and return by train as the weather was so bad, the authorities would not allow Graham to take off without an instrument rating certificate. These family holidays were the few occasions in the year that the whole family could claim Graham for their own. Graham would however, always try and put some time aside at Christmas, when he would take the children shopping for Bette's present. Bette was only sorry she couldn't come too! As the years went by, Hill became increasingly tied down by business and charity engagements. Damon, even if he never told his father so, thought that Graham's motor racing was work rather than a sport. To Graham, it was a way of living. It was his blood. Everything else was superseded by the car, the race, the urge to win.

Although he was taken to many races from an early age, Damon only found it tedious and boring. He once spoke of his memories of those early races. "From the moment I was born I was going to motor races and I was chaperoned around the place and told to sit there, don't move, don't touch that, and everyone came up and patted my head. Going to race meetings was a bore. I was where lots of race fans would give their right arms to be and couldn't see any point in it." Everyone would tell him how wonderful his father was but at the time, Damon could not appreciate his father's achievements because he was never aware of them. "I just believed he was a better person than most people because a lot of people seemed to be saying that. Growing up as the son of Graham Hill, I could go round and just be normal; but when my father was around, people would behave differently towards each other, and towards me, and after a while I tended to be sceptical of people. All this no doubt contributed to Damon's mischievousness.

Damon admits that up to the age of fifteen he would act like a brat to his mother. Whenever his father was away he would make life difficult for Bette, but as soon as Graham returned, Damon could be mistaken for a saint. Once her husband was out the door again, Bette would have to play both mother and father to a son who was becoming more of a handful to manage as each year passed. Damon thinks that he often deserved a good clip round the ear - but Bette would never physically discipline her son - although he would often be on the receiving end of his mother's tongue at full throttle. Damon remembers the day his mother went to hospital for Samantha's birth - it took four neighbours to drag him kicking and screaming to school. Graham's ideas on his children's discipline were not dissimilar to his wife's. He felt that the children should always feel that there was some form of discipline evident, although he would give the them a lot of leeway, they would always know where he would draw the line. He tried to give his children's characters a chance to expand but Damon was aware that his father would not tolerate misbehaviour beyond a certain limit. Even then there were odd days when he overstepped the mark. Graham said that on extreme occasions, bad behaviour resulted in a smack but he knew there was a more powerful means of controlling his offspring. When Damon and Brigitte unwound the spring bindings on the trampoline that was a present from their father, he stopped their pocket money for a month. This method had its effect.

Brigitte remembers the day that Damon set fire to her doll's pram in the garage. "Unfortunately, it was right next to Daddy's Mini and he almost blew everything up. He wasn't really naughty, he was just unlucky with things. He once threw a bar of soap into the bathroom sink and it whizzed up and went through the window. Whatever he did, he invariably got caught. He used to love making model aeroplanes. He'd spend hours getting everything just so, then when he'd finished, he'd open his bedroom window and see if they would fly. Of course that was always the end of them."

Although Hill had driven in over four hundred races and been involved in numerous crashes, he had always emerged more or less unscathed. In May 1969 he had escaped injury in a 150mph crash during the Spanish Grand Prix at Barcelona and a year earlier he climbed unhurt from a high speed prang at Indianapolis. The US Grand Prix of October 1969 brought home the ultimate frailty of the racing driver to all when Hill suffered a major crash. Graham had been driving his Lotus-Ford and was lying fourth in the 240 mile race. It was on lap ninety-two that he spun on an oil patch. The rules of the day allowed a driver to get out of his car, push it back onto the track and recommence driving. This Graham did - but the cockpit was so narrow, he was unable to refasten his safety-belt. Signalling to his pits that he would be in next time round to replace a damaged tyre, he set off for another lap. He never completed it as the tyre burst half way round the circuit.

The car overturned three times and Hill, unbelted, was thrown from the car, backwards and upside-down - his legs smashing on the cockpit sides. The other cars passed by for three laps before the ambulance reached him. He was taken to hospital in Elmira, where Lotus team boss, Colin Chapman reported to a waiting press that Hill had a fractured right leg, below the knee; a dislocated left knee; lots of torn ligaments and had probably sustained damaged arteries and nerves. Dr. Robert Siliciano operated the next day, concentrating mainly on the fractures. Back in England, Bette had learned of the accident and explained to the children that "Daddy had hurt his legs and Mummy wanted to go and be with him". Damon and his sisters had understood, but had no idea how badly their father was hurt. Bette saw the children off to school as normal and then flew to New York. Shortly after she left, Graham's mother, Constance Hill, arrived at the Hill's Mill Hill house. She told waiting reporters "When Bette phoned last night, I was shocked. All this time Graham has been driving and this is the first accident he hasn't walked away from unhurt. Thank God he isn't dead. I don't like Graham racing. I am proud of him, yes, but I wish he wouldn't. I wouldn't dream of telling him though. He loves racing. He lives it".

When Bette arrived at the hospital, the extent of Graham's injuries were confirmed to her. It was likely, she was told, that her husband would have spend four to six months with his legs in plaster from toe to upper thigh before attempts could be made to mend the nerve. Graham said "I am hoping they are taking the pessimistic view and counting everything that can have gone wrong, not the least that can have happened. I think the accident was sheer bad luck. Like anyone else I have always thought it would never happen to me. An accident can happen to anyone. Hundreds of people are killed on the road each week. Motor racing isn't as dangerous as people think and I have never worried about what's going to happen to me and I'm certainly not about to start now." Bette reflected on her husband's injuries "If he can't drive - he can't. But I wouldn't dream of asking him to stop. If you know Graham as I do, you'll know that only he can decide the future." she added: "His great disappointment is that the shooting season is just starting and he was planning a number of shoots - he loves that." Colin Chapman visited Hill and revealed that the patient was "bright and chatty with a lovely colour, and was joking with the nurses and pinching their bottoms!" Graham Hill, resigned to a long period away from the track, was not about to lie down and take it easy.

By the 10th, only five days after his crash, he announced that "it's an ill wind that doesn't blow some good. I'll now have time to write my life story - The Life and The Minute... the accident couldn't have happened at a better time because the season is nearly over." Six days later, Hill returned to London via Trans World Airlines (apparently not impressed with being charged for a row of seats after he had a mid-flight nap!), to take up residence in Room 412 of University College Hospital in central London. Bette had written on his right foot's plaster cast: "Good Morning, Darling" and on the left, "Good Night, Darling". Damon, Brigitte and Samantha had to wait until Saturday 18 October before they saw their father - 13 days after his accident. He was pleased to see them, but little Samantha seemed most worried about her Daddy's legs and had to keep checking they were really beneath the plaster. The next day, Hill underwent a four and a half hour operation to mend his legs.

By mid-November, Graham had recovered enough to be driven to the BBC's Lime Grove studios to commentate on a motor race from Thruxton. In December, still wheelchair-bound, he had persuaded the hospital to give him a "thirty-six hour pass" which would allow him to return to his home in Mill Hill each weekend. He had some trouble fitting into the family Ford Zodiac, but with some help, he could be mounted in a Dormobile and Bette would drive him and the children around the district. At home, when Graham was able to put his feet up, it was Damon who would take over the wheelchair and race around the house. Graham wrote that after Damon had done a few laps, there was hardly any paint left in the hall. By Christmas, Hill was back home permanently although he had to spend three hours each day at Stanmore Orthopaedic Hospital, exercising his legs. Graham was adamant that he would race again, although there were some who believed it would never be possible, his surgeon being one of them, but Hill was about to prove them wrong. His dogged determination was driving him daily through the pain barrier to get his body functioning as well as it was before his crash.

By February, convinced that the structured exercise was not enough, he would cycle to and from the hospital and then spend a further half-hour on the exercise bike and three-quarters of an hour in the physiotherapy pool. In January, Hill had quit Lotus and decided to drive the privately entered Lotus belonging to Rob Walker. On the 2 March 1970, Hill stepped into a Formula One car for the first time since his crash. He did two laps of the Kyalami circuit - in great pain. Six days later, defying all doubters, he finished sixth in the South African Grand Prix. When the 1968 Mexican Grand Prix, which Graham Hill won after lapping most of the field, was over, he was crowned World Champion for the second time. Hill had not only been Champion in 1962 but also runner-up in 1963, 1964 and 1965. Having reached the pinnacle of motor-racing for the second time, amongst calls for a knighthood for "Sir" Graham Hill, some journalists began to question whether he would now retire. Graham's answer was an emphatic "NO! - racing is my life. I'm not stopping. I don't want to. While I've got the best car, best engine, best team, best mechanics and best team manager, I'm not quitting." "I enjoy motor racing. I want to go on doing it. It is very nice of people to show such concern about me, and I always thank them very much but I don't want to give it up." Hill finished the 1971 season, and what was probably his worst year.

Driving for Brabham, he had only gained two points and was now without a drive, having parted with his team in October. But 1972 came and Hill was back in a Brabham - but his only win was to be in a Matra-Simca at Le Mans, sharing the driving with Frenchman Henri Pescarola. Although a worthy victory for Hill, it was tinged with sadness when his close friend and business partner, Jo Bonnier plunged off the circuit into thick woods at 150mph, killing him. For 1973, Graham Hill teamed up with the US backed Shadow outfit, to run his own car as Embassy Hill, with Graham taking on the onerous responsibilities of owner, manager, driver, constructor - and chief public relations officer but was unsuccessful throughout the season. By the end of the year, pressure was mounting again for Hill to make a gesture towards retirement, following Jackie Stewart's decision to quit for the sake of his family. Now forty-four, Graham admitted that he "wasn't in motor racing for the glory. I'm hardly in the glory this season anyway. I'm a professional motor racing driver. It's what gives me satisfaction, fulfilment, freedom and pleasure - and it pays too." Hill thought that his wife would be very happy if he were to give up - she knew the dangers involved, "but" he said "you don't get something for nothing. Some of us are willing to take the risks".

Before the Spanish Grand Prix in April '75, Graham Hill Racing issued an announcement that read: "Team leader Graham Hill will step down for this one event and a decision regarding further drives for Francois Migault will be taken after the race". Hill signed Tony Brise in May to drive the remaining ten races - snatching him from under the nose of Frank Williams who had already given Brise a drive in the Spanish Grand Prix. At the British Grand Prix at Silverstone in July, Hill finally submitted and announced his retirement. "I came to the conclusion while sitting in my bath after the Belgian Grand Prix in May that I should no longer drive Formula One cars. It has become increasingly unfair to my two young drivers to compete against them in important races. We have the makings of a good team and my job now is to manage. After all that is a full-time job itself." Hill's decision was welcomed by friends and colleagues. Jackie Stewart said: "I am glad to hear of Graham's safe retiral. He was a man who contributed very much over the eighteen years in Grand Prix to British and World motor racing." If the Hill family thought they would see more of him now, they were mistaken; but at least the ever-present worry of racing accidents could be lifted.

It was just as Graham was bowing out of active competition that Damon was starting. Damon had been given his first mini motor-cycle by his father at the age of ten as a reward for passing his entrance examination to the Haberdashers' Aske's public school in Elstree. By the age of fifteen, Damon was getting his first national press coverage under his own steam. Having made a name for himself at motor-cycle trials as the only schoolboy competing against experienced racers. Damon, having picked up many maintenance tips from watching his father's race mechanics at work, would spend much of his time stripping, cleaning, lubricating, adjusting and reassembling his motor-cycle prior to competitions. To share his son's enjoyment in motor-cycling, Graham bought two Bultaco trials bikes and with what precious spare time was available to him, they both would scramble around the woods and fields surrounding Lyndhurst. Trials biking was for Graham a way of relaxing and keeping fit - for Damon it was the real thing. Hill wrote in his autobiography that he and Bette would be happy if Damon were to continue with motor-cycle trials. "Neither of us wants him to become a motor racing driver...I think Damon's too intelligent for that." Later though, Bette was to change her mind.

Some of Graham's old motor-cycling skills must have rubbed off on Damon as a degree of success was to come his way. At Lord Hesketh's trials after the British Grand Prix in 1975, Damon shared first place with three others, eventually finishing fourth, after a tie-break. Damon would spend much time perfecting various stunts - he was well known to be able to carry on a conversation for ten minutes or more while balancing in a 'wheelie' pose on his bike. Damon said in 1975 "I don't know whether I want to ride motor-cycles for a living, and I don't know whether I'm good enough. I've never tried racing driving so I don't know about that either. Cars are getting faster and faster and by the time I get old enough to drive I might have chickened out". He didn't "chicken out", but it did take a long time before he started competitive motor car racing. Damon also played golf with his father, who would often compete in Pro-Am tournaments around the world, playing off a twenty-four handicap. Fishing and shooting were two more country sports that allowed father and son to combine their interests. Indeed, Damon felt Graham was more at home with a shotgun than driving a racing car. Bette Hill wrote that Graham and Damon were like ONE. They would discuss planes and cars and racing and although Damon's love lay with bikes, some of Graham's thoughts and theories no doubt found a home in Damon's mind. "Never give in - never think you are beaten until somebody has crossed the finish line and got the chequered flag" was a principle central to Graham Hill's race tactics. He said "Be philosophic. Make the best of it and people will support you. Put things in perspective and most importantly - enjoy it." On driving itself: "It's as if you were a painter and the car is the brush, the track the canvas. Paint pictures on the tracks the way your character dictates. Through this you reveal yourself to the public what you really are". It was not just what Graham Hill said that might influence his son in later life, but what he did.

He was very active in the cause of charities - as Damon is now. One of his favourites, and that of the racing profession was the Springfield Boy's Club at Upper Clapton in East London. Graham was president of the club from 1962 onwards. As well as supporting the NSPCC; National Playing Fields Association, the Golf Foundation and the Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital at Stanmore, being an ex-Boy Scout, he would do his best to help that movement whenever he could. Graham Hill was also one of the main organisers of the campaign to phase out the P.70 three-wheeled invalid car, which was seen as dangerous, in favour of adapted mini's. His actions on the racing circuit were just as commendable, his bravery and courage an example to all. In June 1966, he pulled Jackie Stewart from his wrecked car that had crashed into a ditch during blinding rain at Spa-Francorchamps and in March 1974, Hill, Emerson Fittipaldi and Eddie Kelzan battled in vain to save Peter Revson from his blazing UOP Shadow that had crashed at 160mph at Johannesburg during the South African Grand Prix.