The From the Archives section of Motor Sport – the magazine that my family owned for many years – is always one of the first pages I turn to but the February issue regarding Denis Jenkinson’s famous 1955 Mille Miglia article arriving at the office by post is false.

“I carried Jenks’s handwritten Mille Miglia article back to our Old Street office in my briefcase”

I know because I carried his neatly handwritten article back to our Old Street office in my briefcase together with his report of the Monaco Grand Prix. I might be in my nineties but fortunately I still have pretty good recall of those racing days long ago. The idea that Jenks entrusted the postal service with his 10,000 word race report (no copies made in those days) is incredible but the real story behind his report is even more interesting.

At the time, having had a cushy job in the Army as a photographer working in the War Office, I joined my father Wesley Tee’s magazine group, which included Motor Sport, in my early twenties as production manager and photographer. This included covering most of the Formula 1 races. It was a dream job.

It is true that Jenks did sometimes post his articles back to the office from far off parts but certainly not his Mille Miglia report. Remember that communications were very sparse and different back then. I am not sure of the original plan of how Jenks would get the MM article to us. There was plenty of time as the June edition would be going to press immediately after the Monaco GP on May 22. I can’t remember where Jenks was going to after the Mille Miglia, possibly to the non-championship Napoli Grand Prix.

But I knew that I would next see him on the Wednesday lunchtime before the Monaco Grand Prix as it was prearranged. He would pick me up at Nice Airport – he often used to meet me off flights. After the Monaco Grand Prix, he would drive back to the UK or to his next race but I would fly with my reels of film from the race, plus his reports. There was no sign of his Mille Miglia story – it certainly hadn’t arrived in the post – but I wasn’t worried as I was sure he would have it ready for the printer. We might have even put printing back a day so we could include the Monaco Grand Prix report.

“Jenks did sometimes post his articles from far off parts but certainly not his Mille Miglia report”

I came out of departures and quickly spotted the small, bearded figure waiting for me and we set off for Monaco. We were only as far as the Promenade des Anglais and he was telling me about how brilliant Stirling Moss had been when he added, “I haven’t actually written the report yet because I need to check some detail with Stirling.” No matter, there was still time – but only just.

Apparently, at gruelling races like Le Mans or the Mille Miglia, Stirling took some ‘wakey-wakey’ tablets which Fangio gave to him. These kept him awake. I presume they weren’t exactly prescribed by a UK doctor but maybe the rules were different in Argentina.

Anyway, Jenks told me that he had originally planned to debrief with Stirling the morning after the Italian race so he could fill in various details which would come out of their discussion. But first they had the little matter of the evening prize-giving in Brescia. Once the awards had been handed out, Jenks told me that Stirling announced that he wouldn’t be able to sleep – presumably the adrenaline and pills still at work – and instead he was going to drive to Stuttgart so that he could thank the Mercedes workers and management for a brilliant car. This is what he did, so no debrief and final storylines for DSJ.

Anyway, we checked-in to our hotel on that Wednesday afternoon and Stirling was already in Monaco and had arranged a room at the Hôtel Métropole to do the important debrief. It was like no other. I went with Jenks and found that Stirling had the famous navigation roll with him and had set up two chairs side-by-side as if they were in the car.