Who is Jane Garvey? Well, she sounds quite splendid to me, just our kind of girl – even though I must confess I don’t listen to her programme, Woman’s Hour. When she complained that BBC Radio 4 is relentlessly middle class, I saw it splashed all over the newspaper and wanted to punch the air, shouting: ‘Yes! At last someone is talking sense.’

How right she is. Probably just like you, I do listen to Radio 4 occasionally and much of it really is frightfully good. But, for all that, I have long been asking myself this: what’s in it for us?

Take the sports coverage and one wonders, where’s the polo? Does offshore powerboat racing still exist? And then again, as we approach the end of the St Moritz Tobogganing Club’s season, I detect not the slightest hint that Radio 4 plans to cover the Gunter Sachs Challenge race for ‘The Buttons’ on the Cresta Run. Which planet are these people living on?

There is a lot about English football, which now appears to be played by foreign chaps in matches that are usually held abroad. Formula One gets covered but the enduring impression there is of endless stories about bizarre scandals, with little said about the cars and the driving. That racism business in Spain a few weeks back comes to mind. It was clearly a publicity stunt, as they used to call it, but by whom and for what purpose?

As for Le Mans, that major highlight of our season, does anyone at the BBC even know where that place is these days? Have they heard of sports car racing? You know, things probably all started to go wrong in 1967 when the Home Service changed its name to Radio 4.

We do live in a funny world now. Even that turbulent priest, the Archbishop of Canterbury, seems to have lost his marbles – but don’t get me going on that subject. I’ll just say that it’s nice to know that his position still exists and, in a free world, it’s entirely his business if he wants to make himself up like a character from Lord of the Rings.

Perhaps it’s just as well that the general media ignore our pleasant and private haven of sanity, the world of historic motor sport. I dread to think how they would report it. Would they understand the difference between a genuine original car and a newly manufactured copy? What would they make of them? This confuses us, for Heaven’s sake, so what hope would their reporters have?

Avoiding names here, there’s a fair chance this column will get printed without my having to spend hours with the company’s legal department. I fear that will come next month, as the editor has asked me to write aspecial article, looking in detail at what’s really happening with reproduction cars in historic motor sport.

When the FIA first put that idea forward, I must say I thought it was a gigantic leg-pull, April Fool’s Day or something. But no, they meant it, it has happened and we must all accept that fact and work out what to do about it. In the long run I have come to believe, against my earlier expectations, it may well prove to be no bad thing.

Let’s look at it this way: we all know about the hammer that had three new shafts and two replacement heads, yet remained the same hammer all along. It’s a bit like that with historic competition cars, except that here you have to imagine a whole row of hammers.

The first hammer is original in every way and looks perfect because it has hardly ever been used. Whatever you do, don’t use it. It looks perfect but the shaft has shrunk and there is hidden rust inside the head. Try hitting a nail and it might fly apart, with the risk of serious injury. Put it in a museum of hammers.

Hammer number two is also original but it has had regular light use with proper maintenance. It is perfect. We all want this beautiful hammer. The third hammer is our classic, the one that has had three new shafts and two new heads but remains the ‘original’ hammer. All right, it is fine.

Now we come to a completely new hammer, which has been made exactly like the first hammer was all those years ago. We used to disapprove of this hammer but are beginning to wonder whether we shouldn’t accept it, so long as it’s correctly constructed and we always know what it is.

Hammer number five is described as being exactly like the last one but it has been badly made. It’s scrap but can we spot that? The next hammer in our row looks exactly like the first hammer but it
is made of materials that did not exist when that first hammer was made. The shaft is lighter and stronger, the head harder and denser. It drives in nails like you wouldn’t believe, outperforming the original even when swung by an average DIY enthusiast. We worry about this hammer.

The final hammer began as an original, was destroyed in a bad accident and has been rebuilt exactly like the new hammer in our last paragraph. According to the paperwork, however, it is simply the original hammer.

We are deeply puzzled about what to do here. Anyway, got to go now. I must email that lovely Jane with a note of wholehearted support for her campaign and, while I’m at it, I might ask for her tips on the best way to recruit servants. It’s so hard to find the staff these days, don’t you know?