I had the fortune to meet the author of this book, Philip Porter, at the Goodwood Festival of Speed a few weeks ago.
He explained how this series of books had begun as a means of publishing some of Stirling Moss’s extensive collection of racing mementoes, including his diaries.
The Stirling Moss scrapbook is now into its third volume. Having notices its success Bette Hill, Graham’s widow and Damon’s mother, approached Porter about producing a similar book using Graham’s memoirs and photographs.
This huge, coffee table book is the result.
Does Kimi Raikkonen scribble down his every thought and emotion, collect photographs, newspaper cuttings and other odds and ends from his F1 career?
I doubt it – but having looked at all these pictures of Hill I’m convinced he was every bit the party animal Raikkonen is celebrated as being.
Here’s Hill doing the twist in 1962. Here he is partying with fellow F1 driver Chris Amon.
Here he is standing on a table in his underpants at the Park Lane Hotel, entertaining the audience with what the caption describes as “riotous anecdotes”.
The scrapbook is entirely based on Hill’s collection of pictures and writing from races, social events, sponsor’s functions – everything he did in his racing driver life.
It’s thick with entertaining and revealing items. The augments the excellent first-hand material by having a chat with a few of his closest friends and family. Bette illuminates Hill’s party animal persona:
“Half the time, [he] wasn’t smutty. That’s not clever. Graham wasn’t smutty. He might have been with his menfolk, but certainly not when there were women around. He had an address book and at the back end were the punch lines of jokes.”
Son Damon supplies the foreword and even appears in the odd picture – as a toddler in one, being pushed around the garden in a wheelbarrow by Graham.
This is the first of what may well be a series of scrapbooks on Hill, as it covers his first World Championship win (1962) and Indianapolis 500 victory (1966).
There are over 500 pictures from Grands Prix, non-championship races and other events – including two very interesting pictures of Hill’s notorious collision with Lorenzo Bandini in 1964 that gave the championship to Bandini’s team mate John Surtees.
There are also some very amusing old advertisements featuring Hill and plenty of candid observations from his diaries.
The hard back version costs �34.95 (see right for the cheapest price from Amazon) which is reasonable for a book of this size with so much original material. A leather-bound version is also available at �75.
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