A tough introduction

Your feature on Jock Horsfall brought back some sobering memories.

My first visit to a motor sport event was at Silverstone in 1949, with a school friend. We were taken in a Riley saloon by his father, who had followed pre-war motor racing. We sat at Stowe Corner and I clearly recall the ERA driven by Jock Horsfall going wide in front of us, hitting the straw bales on the edge of the track and leaping into the air. The driver fell out and the ERA came down on top of him. The race went on and we thought little more about the incident until we heard on the car radio, going home after the meeting, that Horsfall had been killed. Of course, drivers sat high in their cars and had no safety harness, so when the ERA was upside-down in the air the driver had no way of staying in.

Sam Wilkinson, North Cerney, Cirencester