The ruby anniversary

Forty years is too many to go through year by year, so I decided on looking at every five years over the history of The Classic MotorCycle, which will give an overview of how the magazine has changed and developed.

Following on from that, please enjoy a four-page article about Bob Currie, the magazine’s founding editor and leading light, from its inception, up until Bob’s death in July 1988. One does like to think he’d have been pleased that the magazine is still going strong, and still largely following the template he created.

There’s also a debt of gratitude from us, the magazine producers, to you, the readers, as if you didn’t continue to support and purchase our product, then it wouldn’t continue. Likewise, all our advertisers too, as without them, also, we’d have no magazine.

Compiling this little feature has been interesting, as well as memory prompting. Over the years I’ve been editor, the magazine has had several publishers, often who wanted to bring their own ideas into practice – as an editor, one answers to the publisher, with some keener than others to influence/dictate editorial direction and design. But during my time, every publisher has contributed something valuable to the magazine.

Last year was without doubt the toughest of my 20 year association with the magazine, bringing about as it did an entire revision of how we worked, culminating in my time being based in, which has been the bedrock of since its foundation. It still seems a bit strange that the whole office environment is gone, but, well, we’ll adjust. Just last week we had an impromptu editorial meeting of sorts in my garden, when Richard Rosenthal and I were joined by Phillip Tooth. We have new working practices, which we’ll adapt to, and continue doing the best we can. Here’s to the next 40 years!