Gstaad
I remember it as if it were yesterday. Rodney Solomon, a friend no longer with us, came into the Clermont club all huffy and puffy and dressed in a morning coat, refused an invitation to lunch, and announced that he was off early to the wedding of ‘my great friend Sally Curzon to Piers Courage’. The Clermont back then, it was 1966, belonged to John Aspinall, who was known for his friendly abuse of all and sundry. ‘Go on with your social climbing, Rodney, and tell that racing driver that real men don’t race but gamble…’ or words to that effect.
I did not join in. In fact I was quite envious of Rodney, as Sally Curzon was my dream girl, and Piers Courage my idol. The fact that I had never met either of them was immaterial. As it turned out, I never got to meet Piers, but became a good friend of his widow once she married John Aspinall. Piers Courage, an Old Etonian with aristocratic connections and Swinging London lifestyle, was the first man to drive for Frank Williams in Formula One racing. He was on the verge of becoming a superstar racer when he was killed at the Dutch Grand Prix of 1970. His wife Sally was present. He was 28 years old and the father of two boys. The winner of the race, Austrian Jochen Rindt, broke down in tears at the solemn podium ceremony at the track, and Piers’s premature death has remained with us, his fans, ever since.
Thirty-three years later, a wonderfully nostalgic and beautifully written glossy book has been published under the title Piers Courage, Last of the Gentlemen Racers. The author is Adam Cooper, a motor sport journalist of impeccable credentials, with a forward by Sir Frank Williams.
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