90th Birthday Party

Guests from racing and the motor industry assembled at Easenhall, Warks, in late April for a lunch to celebrate the 90th birthday of Wally Hassan OBE. The setting was the splendid Town Thorns retirement home run by BEN, the motor industry benevolent organisation, and on the lush lawn were gathered Bentleys, Jaguars, an SS, and Jack Brabham’s Championship-winning Cooper, with all of which the veteran engineer is associated.

A long run of toasts served to outline Hassan’s career, which began at Bentley in 1920 and led via Bentley specials such as the Barnato-Hassan to ERA, Cobb’s LSR Railton, SS and Bristol. He was behind the Coventry-Climax race-engines, and later oversaw the Jaguar V12 engine programme, having worked on the XK unit while at SS. Familiar faces and speakers included Raymond Baxter, Billy Rockell, Lord Hesketh, Jack Sears, Stanley Sedgewick, Diana Barnato-Walker, Bruce Spollon, Stanley Mann and Rivers Fletcher, with Jack Fairman wrapping up amusingly, while congratulatory telegrams arrived from Stirling Moss, Jack Brabham, Tony Brooks, Roy Salvadori, Rob Walker and John Cooper.

Organised by the Thursday Club, a social group of Midlands motoring people of which Hassan was a founder in 1964, the day also celebrated the 90th year of BEN itself, which does a great job, but Needs More Funds…