Talk at the Century Association, New York, 30 April 2026
The Century Association, on New York’s West 43rd Street, was founded as a private club in 1847, and was called ‘the most unspeakably respectable club in the United States’ by Mark Twain. Whitney’s father Willard was a member, and I am honoured that the celebration of the book’s US launch will take place there. This will necessarily be a private, invitation-only event.
Back on Ben Horton’s stand as an author rather than as a punter for the first time in years, signing a few copies of the Whitney book, and chatting about it for his excellent YouTube channel.
As the home of British motorsport and aviation, there was no better place than Brooklands Museum to celebrate the life of Whitney Straight, and so many people contributed to a very special day.
The book was published on 2 October 2025, and had its first reprint in December, just in time for Christmas.
Outside on the streets of New York, horseless carriages were vying for supremacy over horse-drawn buggies. Inside the five-storey townhouse on East 67th Street, near the corner with Madison Avenue, Dr Cragin’s attempts to induce the baby had failed. It was clear now that the expectant parents would not get their wish – their first child would not be born on election day.
Thanks to Adam on sound and a mighty projector, the Dartington Trust‘s Arts Curator Peter Nicholson and I were able to create a convivial atmosphere in the Great Hall as we chatted about Whitney, and how his unique position as Dartington’s eldest founding pupil helped form him
The Royal Automobile Club’s Pall Mall clubhouse library was the perfect location for the book launch. I spent many weeks there, maybe even months, poring over books and 1930s magazines, and that lovely long room, lined with oak book shelves and with open fires at each end, is quite literally my favourite room in London.
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…
On 26 September 1926, Dartington Hall School opened its doors. Its initial intake of nine children comprised Whitney, his sister Beatrice and brother Michael, the son of the man planting Dartington’s apple orchard and five children collected that morning from Totnes railway station.
On 26 August 1934, while Whitney was racing to third place in the Comminges Grand Prix, teammate Hugh ‘Hammy’ Hamilton was in Bern, participating in the inaugural Swiss Grand Prix, held at a 4.5-mile circuit in the forest of Bremgarten, to the north of the city.