PUB TALK

This month’s headline comes courtesy of Ian Hingley on the RC Facebook page, responding to sometime contributor Stuart Francis querying why the column is written in the third person. Ian, not a fan of the style, postulated the ridiculous sentence, which is just too good to pass up. In answer to the query, no real reason except it has become a habit, although in days of engineer training it was the accepted style for writing reports to put the emphasis on the subject matter and not the writer. It is also a common way to write fiction – make of that what you will.

C.W.G. ‘Bill’ Lacey was one of the Brooklands greats, especially known for his high standard of machine presentation in addition to his tuning and riding skills. In the pre-war era he decided to specialise with Grindlay Peerless machines, usually engined with 350cc and 500cc JAPs (but sometimes 600cc). He had started racing with a Cotton-Blackburne (in 1925) which soon became a Cotton-JAP