Simon TAYLOR

'Most of us consumed children's fiction, from Enid Blyton to Biggles. But we had car books as well'

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A recent survey has delivered the sad news that, except at school, 70% of children aged 11 to 18 never read a book. For many, at home there are no books at all. Meanwhile, TV audiences for Formula One are getting younger. So full marks to Macmillan Children's Books for commissioning F1 writer Maurice Hamilton to write a series of £6.99 paperbacks for young fans, each about a current driver, from Lewis Hamilton to Oscar Piastri. Full of easily digested facts and anecdotes, they are bright, fun, engaging and full of inspiration.

Interest in F1 may be growing exponentially, but in my childhood things were very different. Compared to football and cricket, motor racing was very much a minority sport, with no television coverage at all. What few newspaper reports there were didn’t go on the sports pages, but ran in the general news as a brief paragraph – unless someone was killed, in which case there might be a lurid photograph.