Brooklands Members Talks

From bamboo biplanes to supersonic airliners and the pioneer designers who created them

A History of Aviation at Brooklands in 100 Objects. The author Nigel Spooner writes;

The book is a history of aviation at Brooklands in 100 objects that are arranged into

seven episodes, each of which covers a particular era of that history. Choosing what to include and

what to leave out has been a difficult task – there can be no such thing as a perfect list! The objects

include aircraft, engines, places and many other elements that played a role in the transformation

of Brooklands from a marshy water meadow to one of Europe’s largest aircraft factories. The intent

with each one is not to indulge in too many technical details but rather to explore the stories and

people behind them. I have also included relatively brief biographies on each of the six featured

designers that are intended to show their personal contributions to the Brooklands history.

Although Derek never won in Formula 1, due to ill fortune and so often being in the wrong car at the wrong time, he did achieve the results he deserved in sports car racing, winning the Le Mans 24 Hours and the World Championship in 1992, plus finishing series runner-up with Jaguar in 1986 and 1991. In the twilight of his racing career, that world title was a fitting companion to the one he had earned as a short-track oval racer nearly 20 years earlier.

Derek Warwick has been a popular and highly respected figure in motor racing for nearly 50 years, known for his tough and determined personality as well as his talent and bravery behind the wheel. He was always a fan favourite for his humility and straightforwardness, which earned him respect and admiration from the motorsports world.

Now, with characteristic honesty and humour, his forthcoming book will tell his inspiring story in a memoir that holds nothing back, published by EVRO.

Neil Laughton is a former Royal Marine Commando, helicopter pilot and Special Forces Officer who went on to become one of the world's greatest adventurers and a multiple Guinness World Record breaker.

He has organised and led more than 50 expeditions on seven continents – by land, sea and air. His amazing adventures include piloting the world’s first road legal flying car on a 10,000 km journey from London to Timbuktu; crossing the Sahara desert on KTM motorcycles; a 1,000 km journey across the spine of the Himalayas on Royal Enfields; circumnavigating the UK & Ireland on a jet ski; summiting Mt Everest with Bear Grylls, and skiing to both the north and south poles.

He organised and led Flying for Heroes, a 1,000 km flying journey in Paratrikes from Mt Kilimanjaro (Tanzania) to Mt Kenya with wounded soldiers from the Help 4 Heros charity, and he has recently taken part in a humanitarian mission to Ukraine.

Neil’s book ‘Adventureholic – Extraordinary journeys on seven continents by land, sea and air’ was published in 2023 and became an Amazon No. 1 bestseller.

Our speaker is author and journalist Rachel Harris-Gardiner. Her award winning book, Speed Queens, on which her talk is based, is a history of women in motorsport, from the first known motorised race for women in 1897 to the modern era, and covering both circuit racing and rallying.

Some of the best-known female competitors such as Brooklands’ own Kay Petre and Gwenda Stewart, rally stars Rosemary Smith, Pat Moss and Michele Mouton and the only female Formula 1 points scorer Lella Lombardi are covered, but Speed Queens is not just concerned with big names and historic “firsts”. For every woman to be the first to do something on wheels, there were usually several others striving for success.

Throughout the second half of the 20th century, international relations across the globe were dominated by the Cold War. From 1949 until the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, NATO and the Warsaw Pact countries created the best-equipped armed forces that the world had ever seen, and which faced each other directly across the Iron Curtain in Europe. Our speaker is Michael Napier, an ex-RAF Tornado pilot turned author, who saw frontline service during the Cold War as well as combat experience over Iraq. Michael examines the airpower of the major powers at both strategic and tactical level throughout the 40 years of the Cold War, including the aircraft types, the units that operated them in the roles in which they were deployed.

The exploits of the SAS in North Africa in the early years of the Second World War are well known; attacks behind enemy lines, destruction of hundreds of German aircraft on the ground and generally creating mayhem for the Afrika Korps. But little of this would have been possible without the Long Range Desert Group. Experts in desert navigation, the LRDG was formed to carry out deep penetration, covert reconnaissance patrols and intelligence missions behind Axis lines. As the commando tactics of the SAS developed, a reliable mode of transport to and from targets, often across hundreds of miles of desert, was provided by the LRDG to the SAS, using their ubiquitous 30 cwt Chevrolet trucks.

Our speaker is Richard Pinches, whose father, Peter Pinches, served in North Africa with the 7th Armoured Division. Richard is a Second World War re-enactor and historian, specialising in the North African campaign and the LRDG. His talk covers the vital but often overlooked role of this uniquely skilled and capable unit of the Desert Rats.

Vicki Butler Henderson in conversation with Harry Sherrard

Karun Chandhok in conversation with Harry Sherrard and two pieces of music celebrating Donald Campbell.

Brooklands celebrates 50 years since our Concorde delta Golf's first flight.

Vicki's grandfather raced a Frazer Nash at Brooklands and, with heritage like that, small wonder that she made her career in the motoring world. She started racing karts at the age of 12 and went on to compete in a multitude of cars and categories. Notable achievements include becoming the first woman to win a Maserati race in the history of the marque, when she competed in a support race at the British Grand Prix in 2004. Vicki has been a motoring journalist from the age of 18 and in 1994 joined the Top Gear team on BBC, before moving to Channel 5 to present Fifth Gear, staying with the show when it moved to the Quest channel. Her journalistic skills have featured in a wide variety of newspapers and magazines, including Auto Express, What Car?, Performance Car and the Sunday Times, earning Vicki the accolade of being the UK's number one female four-wheel journalist.

We welcomed Vicki to Brooklands and she delivered a fascinating conversation about her outstanding career.