It was 1979 before I managed to board Queen Mary. I had seen it in troopship grey in the wartime Clyde. I saw it at Southampton with a Ford Capri GT for a Motor road test photograph in 1964. Now I wanted to see the sea-nymphs and Art-Deco interior of Charles Cameron Baillie, who devised the decor of my favourite Rogano by Exchange Square, Glasgow. Queen Mary was now at Long Beach, California, where I was covering the American Grand Prix.
Along with abrasive, red-haired Eoin Young, a rival writer close to motor racing through fellow New Zealander Bruce McLaren, I went with Robert Ramsay Campbell (Rob) Walker (1917-2002) to check-in. Carefully tailored Walker, of the Johnnie Walker whisky dynasty, a former racer and team owner Stirling Moss drove for. I was a neighbour at his family home in Sutton Veny, Wiltshire. His passport gave his occupation as Gentleman, and he was now covering grands prix for American Road and Track.
Young and I enjoyed Walker’s company. We traded motor racing stories. Walker was driving his Mercedes-Benz 300SL on a wet Guildford by-pass when new 1958 world champion Mike Hawthorn overtook before crashing to his death. At Queen Mary reception 1976, Young and I marvelled at how obsequiously Walker was addressed. There were flowers and notes of welcome. One from Rancho Mirage over by Palm Springs, invited him for dinner with an old friend. “Miss Ginger Rogers”, the desk almost curtseyed, told him solemnly, “Left these for you, sir”.