The hardback and Kindle versions of the book were published this morning. The occasion was marked with fizz and fillet steak chez nous, while The History Press published this thought-provoking Q&A we’d worked on recently. Read on…
How would you describe Whitney Straight in 3 words?
Man of action!
What inspired you to cover this particular story?
First and foremost, I’m drawn to people who succeed across a broad range of endeavours. It’s such a rare trait. Whitney introduced me to gilded age New York, liberal education, the Cambridge spy ring, motor racing and civil aviation. I grew up on World War Two stories set in Britain and Western Europe, but Whitney’s war took in north Africa, Norway, the Middle East, the Balkans and India too. And his later career with BOAC and Rolls-Royce led me to learn so much about postwar British industry and politics.
I also enjoy writing about Anglo-American characters. They provide still greater breadth to a story. Whitney was born in New York but moved to England in his teens and became a naturalised Brit, and he served his adopted country with distinction, in peace and war.
Finally, I’m rather obsessed with James Bond, and I liked Ian Fleming weaving in and out of the narrative. He asked Whitney for Rolls-Royce’s help on the specification of Auric Goldfinger’s car, and on the bespoke Bentley Continental owned by Bond in the later novels. Fleming repaid Whitney by giving him and his wife a namecheck in On Her Majesty’s Secret Service. At Piz Gloria, Ernst Blofeld’s mountain lair cum ski resort, Irma Blunt tells Bond, ‘That is your Duke of Marlborough over there with such a gay party of young things. And nearby that is Mr Whitney and Lady Daphne Straight. Is she not chic? They are both wonderful skiers.”’
Were there any surprising discoveries or lesser-known facts about Straight that changed your perception of him?
When I embarked on the project, I had no idea how many significant 20th century personalities he engaged with. For much of the war, Winston Churchill and Anthony Eden personally encouraged him to choose politics over industry at the end of hostilities, but he turned them down. After Paris was liberated, and he was chosen to lead a group of aircraft flying home a hundred generals, ministers, officials and staff attached to the Algiers Consultative Assembly – effectively, the Free French cabinet in exile – he was met on the Le Bourget tarmac by de Gaulle. At the height of the war in the Balkans, he personally delivered a keep to Marshal Tito.
And throughout his years as a senior executive with BOAC, Rolls-Royce and the Post Office, he worked closely with senior politicians and civil servants in numerous ministries.
What role did Straight play in early aviation history, and how does that compare to his impact on motor racing?
When he quit racing for aviation in 1935, flying was solely the preserve of wealthy enthusiasts, hardy individuals who were happy flying in open cockpit biplanes, shouting down a tube to talk to equally hardy passengers. Whitney changed all that.
He set out to make flying a middle-class pursuit, and fun for all the family. He developed a chain of municipal aerodromes, each with its own flying club and school. Close to a town, they were also equipped with a swimming pool and tennis courts. Smart, art deco aerodrome terminals served as a club house with dining room.
You could book a fortnight’s stay at Ramsgate aerodrome in a set-up that puts 21st century glamping to shame, stay in a tent with timber flooring and have tea delivered with your wake-up call. Breakfast, lunch and dinner were served in the restaurant, and classroom lessons on meteorology, map-reading and aircraft design were scheduled alongside daily flying lessons. Weather permitting, the worst you could expect from your holiday was to fly solo, and at best you’d have your pilot’s licence.
He engaged aircraft manufacturer F. G. Miles to produce a light monoplane with enclosed cockpit, heating and bench seat – a much more comfortable way to go flying with your partner.
He also ran two airlines, one of which ran shuttle flights between Weston super Mare and Cardiff. Wales was ‘dry’ on a Sunday, and Weston’s hotels and bars benefitted from the hordes of Welsh people who fancied a glass of wine with lunch.
As war approached, he laid on special flying schools so that the RAF was able to recruit hundreds more newly-qualified pilots. It was only the outbreak of war, and the requisitioning of his aerodromes and planes, that stopped Whitney leaving a permanent legacy for the flying enthusiast.
But as Europe began its painful recovery after the war, and Whitney spent a year as MD of BEA, he helped found Alitalia, serving as its first deputy chairman, and put in place the foundations of new airlines in Cyprus, Greece and Gibraltar. He was also the first MD of the company that re-established air traffic control and navigation aids and went on to support airline routes across Europe, Africa, the Middle East and Far East.
In the seven years he served as a senior executive with BOAC, he transformed its structure and fleet, and turned it into a national airline the UK could be proud of.
By contrast, it’s almost ironic that today, Whitney is best remembered as a racing driver. He shot through motor sport like a tornado. Initially a hobby as he swatted at Latin so that he could qualify for Cambridge, by the time he went up he already owned a Grand Prix Maserati and was breaking lap records at Brooklands for fun.
While trying to combine study and motor sport, he took more than 40 seconds off the record for climbing Mont Ventoux. He quit Cambridge after four terms and made ambitious plans in 1934 for a team of three of the latest Maserati single-seaters, to race across Britain, Europe and Africa. His objective was to generate enough revenue from sponsorship, appearance fees, prize money and bonuses to run the team at a profit. Utterly dominant in England, he soon learned that his Maseratis were neither as fast nor as reliable as the Alfa Romeos managed by Enzo Ferrari. Then in mid-season Mercedes and Auto Union arrived and instantly became dominant. Unable to procure an Auto Union for 1935, Whitney abruptly quit, concluding that wings would satisfy his ambitions where wheels had failed.
Even in the two full seasons that he raced, Whitney demonstrated that he was Europe’s finest independent driver, and as a team entrant second only to Ferrari. Had he raced on, he may well have become one of the sport’s established greats. Then again, it could have ended abruptly and catastrophically. Three of the eight men who raced for the Straight team were killed in racing accidents, and he saw a plus side to failing to procure an Auto Union: ‘I don’t think the prospect held much in the way of life expectancy. The Auto Union was a tricky car to handle, a 16-cylinder car with 600 horsepower that weighed 12cwt and spun its wheels up to 160…’
You describe Whitney Straight as being ‘born in New York with a silver spoon in his mouth.’ How did his privileged origins challenge/reinforce ideas about class and opportunity in his era, particularly in elite worlds like motor racing and aviation?
It’s undoubtedly true that his mother’s great wealth enabled him to own an aircraft at 17, run of team of Grand Prix Maseratis across Europe and Africa, and develop a business running aerodromes, airlines and flying schools across the country.
But his unique education at two famous independent schools, the Lincoln in New York and Dartington Hall in Devon, led to him mixing with children of all classes and served him well in adulthood. Even if the perception in others that he had been born with a silver spoon in his mouth preceded him throughout his various careers, he was able to disabuse that notion in an instant, and he enjoyed cordial relations with the shopfloor workers and trade union representatives he worked with throughout his BOAC and Rolls-Royce years. Had the advice he gave to his fellow Post Office directors been followed in 1971, Britain’s longest industrial strike for 46 years may have been avoided.
How did his wartime experiences change him, both personally and professionally?
Whitney entered the Second World War something of a carefree buccaneer. Bored during the Cold War, he deliberately lobbied for ‘a nasty job somewhere’ and was given one – laying out an aerodrome on a frozen lake in Norway while the Luftwaffe had total command of the sky. A bomb went off near his truck and he was thrown clear with a gaping wound in his back and ears so perforated that he was grounded for months.
After recovering he was placed in charge of 242 Squadron, charged with escorting bombers on raids against German shipping in the English Channel, yet on a day when the bombers didn’t show up, he and his flight still attacked a German destroyer armed only with the cannon on their Hurricanes. His men were lucky and got away with it, but he was shot down and spent a year as a PoW.
It was the year Whitney served as Senior British Officer in a pair of PoW camps that changed him fundamentally. This was at a point in the war when it was imperative for RAF prisoners to escape and rejoin the conflict, yet soldiers were expected to accept captivity. He alone found a way of dealing with the constant tension of commanding such a disparate, frustrated group of men, and it was the maturity and sense of responsibility he developed at that time which led, after his escape, to him being put in command of 216 Group.
By the end of his time with 216, and still aged only thirty-two, he was in charge of almost 11,500 personnel and more than 200 aircraft. As he himself reflected on VE Day, ‘I have owned a situation which made BOAC possible.’
What were some of the most difficult and most rewarding things about the research process?
Research required many months in archives, photographing books, diaries, letters, reports and minutes of meetings, then sifting through them back in my study and extracting the text which would unearth and develop the story.
On the plus side, Whitney’s father’s papers and those relating to the early years of his mother’s life are held at Cornell University in upstate New York, and climbing the hill each morning from the delightful town of Ithaca to work in an extraordinary, multi storey subterranean library somehow filled with daylight was a privilege. So was the time I spent on Whitney’s school reports and family correspondence at Dartington Hall, in rural Devon.
Board meeting minutes and reports may at first sight appear dry and formal, but every time I uncovered the material supporting the much more colourful language Whitney employed in his diaries, I knew that I would be able to give his corporate years the dramatic insight they deserved.
And then there were his diaries, full of the most personal insights imaginable. I was blessed to enjoy the support of Whitney’s daughters, and to be granted access to the diaries and his photo albums. It means his voice infuses my text, and his photographs illustrate it.
What lessons from Whitney Straight’s life do you think will resonate most with audiences today?
I think readers cannot fail but be impressed by Whitney’s energy and can-do attitude. I also think that when they finish the book, they like me will have a deep respect for his core discipline – to do the very best he could by his family, his colleagues and businesses, and to avoid compromise whatever the cost to him.