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The 2019 winners of the Michael Sedgwick and Malcolm Jeal Awards

We were delighted to make these two awards at the SAHB Autumn Seminar on Sunday last, 27th October 2019: the Michael Sedgwick Award for the best book on British motoring written in the English language; and the Malcolm Jeal Award for the best article to appear in print in English.

THE MICHAEL SEDGWICK AWARD:

We are very pleased to announce that Graham Skillen has won the 2019 Michael Sedgwick Award for:

The All-British Marendaz Special: the Man, the Cars and the Aeroplanes (published by Fonthill Media Limited, 2018)

This is a superb book.  Firstly, Graham Skillen has had the good sense to tell the story of an unusual man: acerbic, litigious but also highly creative and determined.  This makes the subject potentially a very interesting one.

But the author has sought out and interviewed people who worked at the Marendaz factory – some of them as far back as the 1920s.  This may very well be one of the last motoring books to be written with personal memories from such an early date, and the author is to be congratulated for this.   The book represents astounding value for money and is even available in a Kindle edition.

Member of the Judging Panel and Chairman of the Michael Sedgwick Trust, Peter Card, presented the award to Graham at our Autumn Seminar.  Our main picture shows Graham (centre) receiving his award and a cheque for £250 from Peter Card (left).  The chairman of the Judging Panel, Guy Loveridge, is on the right, holding a copy of the book.

The SAHB acknowledges the generous support of the Michael Sedgwick Memorial Trust in making this award.

This book was recently reviewed in glowing terms in the Book Reviews section on the left of this website – so we are especially pleased that Graham’s book has won the prize.

THE MALCOLM JEAL AWARD:

We are very pleased to announce that Philip Newsome and Guy Loveridge have won the second (2019) Malcolm Jeal Award for:

Paris 1919 (In the June 2019 issue of The Automobile)

This beautifully researched article tells the tale of Bob Cooper, Philip Newsome’s great uncle.  He joined the Army Service Corps in 1916 at the age of 18 and at the end of the Great War found himself in Paris as a chauffeur to the British Delegation at the 1919 Paris Peace Conference. He was in charge of a Rolls-Royce 40-50 h.p. (later known as a Silver Ghost) and his passengers included the then British Prime Minister, David Lloyd George, and Minister of War Winston Churchill. The article tells the story of the Peace Conference from Bob’s viewpoint – the testimony of an everyman witness to one of the 20th Century’s most significant events.

We were delighted, too, that Malcolm’s widow, Eunice Jeal, was once again at our Autumn Seminar to present the award to Philip (right) and Guy (left).  (See our photo below).

Two other articles were highly commended by the judges and took second and third places respectively:

  • Malcolm Bobbitt: “Adams-Hewitt” (in the March 2019 issue of Archive: The Quarterly Journal for Industrial & Transport History)
  • Will Morrison: “Vilhelm Koren” (In the May 2019 issue of The Automobile).

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