You know that winter's dragging a bit when your mate sends an e-mail beginning: "I was having a random trawl through various mementos a little earlier and started poring over old Aintree programmes ..."
Very sad behaviour. It was fellow motor racing hack Simon Arron, and he had made the discovery of Yours Truly in an FF1600 entry from October 3 1981.
We didn't know each other at the time and, as an avid race-goer, he'd diligently put a line through my race number as the only confirmed 'no show.' As all good train-spotters do. The purpose of the mail, circulated more widely than to myself I should add, was, as ever, a good-natured piss take ...
Speculating on the no-show he wanted to know was I, a) incapable of finding the circuit, b) overly optimistic in the estimate of time taken to drive from Geordieland to Liverpool or c) unable to compete because the car had a dodgy engine and had been crashed in testing? (He wrote with a prior knowledge ...).