Mick Woollett, a true gent.
Mick, a proper gent –
I’ll miss him
Mick Woollett (easy to remember the name, double everything
except ‘e’ and ‘w’) died on Monday. He
was my editor at Motor Cycle Weekly in the ‘seventies and early ‘eighties. He was mature in every sense of the word,
made editor in his early fifties and a proper gentleman, having to work with an
office-full of (mostly) youngsters.
He never lost his cool, was unfailingly courteous, never swore
and was always perfectly mannered.
Extraordinary.
I plan to get a lot more off my chest about Mick, but for the
moment I’ll leave you with this, true, story from, about 1982.
MCW had one mouthy sub, a Kiwi called Brendan who was always
shouting off about everything. He knew
everything, was witty, but packed full of bluster and b**s**. In the run-up to the Daytona Speed Week one
year he’d been shouting the odds about how HE ought to join the team because of all his experience, skills and how he’d do a better job than the
usual, highly experienced reporters. This
went on, uninterrupted for days, weeks even.
Eventually Mick called him in and told him he could go. I didn’t witness this, but I’m told Brendan
was suitably grateful and, as if by magic, the bluster, shouting and the rest subsided. Until, that is, his travel tickets arrived a
few days later.
“What’s this?” he shouted!
“Pan Am! Pam Am!!!” (Pam Am was a big US airline that went bust
in the nineties, I think).
“B**** American airline!!!
They’re bloody useless. Don’t
even have their own planes; they rent them!!
The maintenance is rubbish!!! Their safety records!!! Their safety record is sh***. It’s all run by Americans!!! The stewardesses are ugly, all fat Americans!!!
I’M NOT FLYING PAN AM. You hear me? I’m not flying Pam Am!!!". And so it went on. And on. And on.
After a few minutes of this tirade, Mick popped his head out
of his office. “What’s all this about?”
he enquired softly.
“It’s this airline ticket to Daytona,” blustered Brendan, by
now even redder in the face than normal.
“It’s Pam Am, they’re American, useless, unsafe ….!! I’m not having it I
tell you. Not having it!!”
“Well, Brendan,” said Mick quietly, “those are your tickets
and they are for Pam Am. It’s that or
you don’t go.”
“Oh.” Said Brendan. “OK”.
And that, was that!
Now then Myers
ReplyDeleteFirst of all I have only just learned about Mick's death which I am not ashamed to say brings a tear to my eye. He gave me the job which led to the best years of my life, was unfailingly polite, calm and fair and slow to criticise even when an idiot Antipodean abroad had spent half the night driving around Yugoslavia trying to follow Kenny Roberts in a rental car back to Italy and came as close as dammit to missing the deadline for a pitiful report on the Yugoslav GP.
However, you seem to be using a fair amount of licence in your Woollett recollection. I was never a sub. I was taken on as a road race reporter and road tester. As I recall I did have a big mouth but that was a prerequisite in MCW where you Pommie bastards never stopped asking me to bring in my hat with the corks and constantly took the piss. (In 35 years I have never seen anyone in Australia wearing a hat strung with corks.)
As I recall a couple of Pan Am planes had recently fallen out of the sky, incidentally killing an up and coming Kiwi motorcycle racer in the process, so I was less than impressed about flying with them.
I take it from what I can see on the net that MCN virtually ignored Mick's passing. That only goes to reinforce the impression I had of MCN being the light weight sensational rag compared with MCW's more realistic factual approach. It still astounds me that MCN survives and MCW is a distant memory.
On that note a much loved leather motorcycle jacket with a great big Motor Cycle Weekly logo on the back still careers around the streets of Springwood (near Brisbane) thanks to a BMW R1100S or Kawasaki Turbo ridden by my son.
Cheers
Brendan Quirk
e followeno6 ete
You seem to be using as much licence
That's not the Brendan I encountered in March 1981...polite, informative, willing...moreover interested in eliciting comments and responses from a wider viewpoint than his own. We spoke about his living in the London area and Mick Grant, his bike and the testing he was doing for his then-imminent trip to Daytona. I later (in June 81) had half an hour or so sitting on a bench at the TT paddock with Mick (Woollett) - a gent, pleased I met with him. We were joined by Chas Mortimer and had some witty banter. It was maybe on the Tuesday after the (Senior?) race being led by 'Toff' Guy (?) was abandoned due to weather on some parts (never mind Senior Race, senior moments in my recall, nowadays!). Mick stated Brendan had already returned to get that week's edition out
ReplyDeleteGreat comments, thanks guys! Totally agree with Anonymous, who are you tho???
ReplyDelete