Micky Burn did not realise the controversy and mayhem his words would cause. While his were the words, they were the thoughts of Sir Henry ‘Tim’ Birkin, for Burn was the ghostwriter of Full Throttle, the double Le Mans winner’s autobiography. Birkin thoroughly disliked Brooklands and said so in no uncertain terms. “[It is] without exception the most out-of-date, inadequate and dangerous track in the world.” Burn would later claim that he knew nothing about cars, so may have been unprepared by the furore that this caused at Weybridge.
What Birkin wanted was a road circuit such as could be found on the continent. The Light Car magazine, in reporting a new venture early in 1933, thought it had found the solution. In describing “a proposed road circuit near Tring” it said, “it approximates very closely to the baronet’s ideal circuit described in his recent book”. Burn underlined the quote, cut out the page and stuck it into a thick cuttings tome that he was making of the book’s reviews.
This also showed that the Glasgow Evening News connected the news of the proposed circuit to Birkin’s wish and visualised a “British Grand Prix”, while The Autocar reader ‘Whiskers’ made the link. “May I suggest, instead
