The man behind the name?

Motor Sport’s very first issue was published in 1924 as The Brooklands Gazette. A year later this title was changed for the present more allembracing one. I have often wondered who was the genius who, with two words, covered every aspect of motoring sport.

Originally Radclyffe’s of Victoria Street, London, were the proprietors, and its editor by August 1925 was Bean and Frazer Nash-owner Captain Richard Twelvetrees. So perhaps he thought up the clever new name. Before WWII, Wesley J Tee had acquired Motor Sport and took me on as its at-first uncredited and unpaid but— if I may be permitted a mild boast — 100 per cent enthusiastic editor.

I have told the subsequent story in Jubilee Editorials, especially how W S Braidwood, BSc, studied to be a doctor while running the magazine and racing his hot GN for Cambridge in Inter-Varsity speed events.

Many organisations copied our title, which naturally Mr Tee tried to stop. But in the end he had to concede that it was easier to accept imitation as a sincere form of flattery.