The Motoring Literary and Art Festival
DURING MY career I’ve been fortunate enough to work with several visionaries which I define as those who see opportunities where the rest of the population don’t. Certainly, Jaguar’s founder, Sir William Lyons, and former engineering director, Jim Randle, were such people since their vision created opportunities for both themselves and others around them, including myself.
Since nothing similar has ever been held before, the two-day Motoring Literary and Art Festival in early December was clearly the vision of well-known motoring author and publisher, Philip Porter. Held at Silverstone circuit’s huge conference and exhibition venue called The Wing, it was an exceptional event.
It had a lot of active things going on including three theatres where for presentations and interviews. There were also several exhibits of arts, crafts, and literature from both major and independent companies. There were then plenty of special classic cars on display including the Jaguar XJ13 and famed Ferrari 250 GT SWB ‘Breadvan’.
The event had special significance for me because when Philip offered to publish my autobiography – Design & Desire – it was the event at which, he suggested we would launch it. Being in amongst everything going on gave it much more gravitas and significance.
The book launch consisted of Phil interviewing me on stage (pictured), talking about things relating to my career, most of which is covered in the book. From my point of view, the audience found it interesting and the 50 minutes we had went by very quickly. As well as the interview, some of this time was for a Q&A session plus book signing which was a very strange concept for me but further added to the overall sense of occasion.
While I had seen and signed off all of the content of the book as PDFs, it was not until just before when our session was starting at
THE EVENT HAD SPECIAL SIGNIFICANCE FOR ME BECAUSE WHEN PHILIP OFFERED TO PUBLISH MY BOOK IT WAS THE EVENT AT WHICH, HE SUGGESTED WE WOULD LAUNCH IT
10am on the Saturday morning that I finally saw the finished hard copy for the first time. Totally exceeding my expectations, not only is it in a larger format than I originally thought, having real coffee table appeal, but the design
