I only met him once, and probably not long before he died in 2008. I’d come somewhere in something in a race at, I think, Silverstone and, unbeknown to me, the organiser had asked Rolt to hand out the prizes. I was late to prize-giving, rushed in with my overalls still tied around my waist just in time to hear my name being read out. So I went up to collect the pot and have my photograph taken next to the nice old gentleman in the tweed suit who’d been kind enough to shake my hand. It was only then that I realised who it was. Someone sent me the image, a scruffy, sweaty half-dressed bloke in a Nomex vest grinning like an idiot next to the immaculately turned out war hero. I could not bear to look at it more than once.
Forgive me if some or more of my tales of Rolt’s life are familiar to you. To the wider world I think he is almost unknown, which given all he achieved – the British Empire Trophy before the war, Le Mans after it and the Colditz glider in the middle to name but three – seems a shame. But perhaps only to us: from what very little I know of the man himself, I don’t think it would have bothered him at all.
Photography courtesy of Motorsport Images