Scheckter's timely stash

For someone claiming little interest in watches, the F1 star has quite a collection

- MARK MCARTHUR-CHRISTIE

IT'S NOT A PROMISING start. 'What was my first watch? When I was young, you mean? Jesus, I don't know.'

I'm talking to past F1 ace Jody Scheckter in his office at Laverstoke Park. Starting with McLaren in 1972, moving to Tyrrell and its remarkable six-wheeled P34, then on to Wolf and finally Ferrari, he notched up ten Grand Prix wins and took the Drivers' Championship in 1979. Since then he's started, run and sold a multi-million-dollar firearms training company in the USA, commentated on F1, and run an award-winning organic farm on his estate. One gets the sense this man doesn't sit still for long.

Today, racing trophies and photos on the shelves rub up alongside the estate's awards for prize lamb, cheese and wine. Scheckter's desk is strewn with pens, power adapters and papers, and there's a lined A4 pad covered in angular, incised doodles and quick calculations. And a faded box, slightly smaller than a shoebox, with 'Breguet' on it. Perhaps things are looking up after all.

'I don't wear a watch,' he says, dashing my hopes, 'but when I used to, it would be a Casio or a Nike or something practical.

To be fair, Scheckter did warn me. Before we met he emailed to say: 'I'm not a watch buff. I have about six watches and I think only two are connected to racing directly.