On the thread on Frankenheimer's Grand Prix, it was recently mooted that a book ought to be produced utilising all the new archival material which has come to light on the making of that production. Paul M made the point that if this was to be done, it ought to be sooner rather than later:

Originally posted by MrMacca
While we have all these photos, together with the Pillette archive, Cahier's, LAT, etc., we need the stories behind them to produce the definitive book - that means talking to the participants while they are still with us.......Phil Hill, Jim Russell, Bob Bondurant, the chief cameraman (Stevens?), Dan Gurney, etc.
Paul M


Paul's point is, sadly, well made - as the frequency of the obituary notices from that era on this forum bear witness. And if the eyewitnesses to the making of a 1966 movie are rapidly dwindling, how much more so are those of motor racing in the decade previous to that. A mood of such elegiac reverie, then, brought to mind not just Marvell's urgings to his Coy Mistress, but the urgency facing the small band of professional motor racing historians to record first hand accounts whilst they still can. Although primarily referencing eyewitnesses to the history of Vanwall, Ed McDonough makes an eloquent case for the urgency facing motor racing historians in general in the Introduction to his Vanwall: Green for Glory (2003) :

There was a certain urgency, too, in writing this book. Amongst motoring writers there is often a quiet discussion about getting on with things because the cast of actors is getting thinner. If the heroes of the 1960's are now getting fewer in number, then those of the the 1950's are even greater rarities, so the wish not to lose so much valuable experience and knowledge is a pressing one. You will see from this account that the first-hand witnesses are no longer so great in number. That old stalwart Jack Fairman died in the final months of writing this, as did Desmond Titterington who had one race in a Vanwall at Outon Park in 1955. Many of the Vandervell crew of the 1950's, often mature and experienced craftsmen from within Vandervell Products at the time, are now long gone. Norman Burkinshaw, one of the key figures in the team, close to Brooks and Moss for many years, died on 30 July 2002, shortly after the Vanwall crew responsible for the great victory in the British Grand Prix at Aintree was being celebrated by the survivors and admirers during the forty-fifth anniversary of that groundbreaking event in 1957. That piece of history is passing away and there are still lots of stories to tell. Of the sixteen who raced or tested Vanwalls, eight survive and you will be hearing from some of them in these pages. The others are sadly gone: Piero Taruffi, Mike Hawthorn, Peter Collins, Ken Wharton, Harry Schell, Desmond Titterington, Colin Chapman and Stuart Lewis-Evans.


As the late Richard Burton's downed RAF pilot put it in The Longest Day : "One of the worst things about being one of 'The Few' is the way we keep getting fewer ......."

ciao,
Stirling