To me he – and to many of us who got to know him through the Goodwood Festival of Speed and the Revival and Members’ Meetings, he was a quiet, private, discreet, whimsical, charming, cricket-loving, immensely pleasant and drily humorous "Good Old Boy". And – in part as a fellow amateur wicket keeper – I will remember him with considerable affection and great respect. He used to umpire at every Revival cricket match, and this has particular gravitas for me this weekend since for the first time – owing to family illness about which I will not bore you – I am missing the match.
At an early edition, the Duke turned to me from his position at square leg and remarked “Doug – when I kept wicket I always found it best either to stand right up to the wicket, or well back. Not somewhere in between…”. In effect, he reminded me of our old sports master at school. There was no doubting his gentle tone of quiet, positive reproof. Just as there was no doubting his crisp verdict of “Not out!” almost every time I optimistically appealed that a batsman was out leg before wicket…or even for a catch behind (and I still swear I heard a snick on one of those which got away).
Way back, I did an interview with his Grace, and in tribute to him here it is… relating the background to Goodwood’s Historic motor sporting meetings.
“Charles Gordon Lennox – the 10th Duke of Richmond and Gordon – sat back comfortably in his tall-backed armchair. A log fire flickered comfortably in the grate. Shafts of pastel winter sunlight beamed in through the high windows, and his grey lurcher dog slept soundly, stretched full-length on her bed behind my sofa. I opened the large hardbound note pad on my lap, uncapped my pen, and asked this gentle man, whom I had known for the past fifteen years; “Well your Grace, where do we start with this one; the story of your motor circuit, and of Charles’ Goodwood Revival Meeting…?”.
“Well Doug, as you know, my interests do not particularly involve the motor car nor motor racing. But I was certainly present at the first day of racing, when my father opened the circuit, in 1948. I used to attend major meetings after that, but by no means every one. In the early days, with having been something of a mathematics specialist at school and so on, I thought the handicap races should be closer than they were. Time handicaps were based upon a car and driver’s previous lap times and I got involved with John Morgan and ‘Ebby’ Ebblewhite – the BARC’s famous timekeeper – on trying to improve that system.
“But from 1958-66 I was not much involved at all, I moved near to Rugby and became detached.
“Father was a very sensitive man. He became deeply troubled whenever anybody got injured or even killed on the circuit. He stopped motor racing in 1966 because of the way he saw motor racing going. Technical developments were making the cars simply too fast. He could foresee a time when they would be approaching 200mph along the straight and was deeply concerned that any accident might involve spectators. Drivers were one thing, but spectators were another. He studied further safety measures which were conceivable at that time, and concluded it would be very expensive indeed to put in all the measures he would have liked. Once he could see cars getting even faster, that was it.
“He came under a lot of pressure not to take that decision, and although the circuit was indeed closed to racing it was kept in order to allow every kind of use short of actual racing. It was used for testing, rallies, sprints – every kind of activity which would generate some income.
“I returned to Goodwood in 1969 and took the view that as father had been the moving spirit behind establishing the circuit, and then behind closing it, then I ought to respect his wishes…