Raymond Baxter, WW2 fighter pilot, postwar radio and TV commentator at major events from motor races to great State occasions, was later the famous presenter of television’s Tomorrow’s World. Here he tells his action-packed life story with a wry and amusing eye.
From such disparate experiences as hair-raising escapes at the controls of a Spitfire over Sicily and occupied Holland to speaking to the nation while suspended in a box near the roof of Westminster Abbey, Baxter has endless tales to tell.
A renowned Formula 1 Grand Prix commentator, he also competed in and reported on 14 consecutive Monte Carlo Rallies and 30 consecutive Farnborough Air Shows where, as a veteran combat pilot, he flew a Harrier on two occasions. Baxter was the instigator of the Dunkirk Little Ships organization and still owns L’Orage, which took part in the original 1940 rescue of beleaguered British troops and in which he has returned to Dunkirk on several commemorative events. An Inland Waterways enthusiast, too, he recounts amusing adventures on canals and rivers in his ‘Otter’, a futuristic craft nearly half a century ago.
Life in the BBC, the Cold War in Germany, the Coronation, Sir Winston Churchill’s funeral, the triumphs and tragedies of Formula 1 racing and Le Mans, all these and much more are covered in a story that seems to encompass a dozen careers, let alone the lifetime of just one remarkable man. Tony Dron is a well-respected author and journalist whose work appears in The Daily Telegraph and others.