Hats off to motorsport journalist Brook Landz who seems to have found the "missing link" which finally "puts to bed" the Thrupiece - Ardèlie saga.
It was only yesterday that Thrupiece art critic Conran Prurient had fuelled speculation that the distinguished Culinary Bio-ethics Professor may have met Mlle Ardèlie during the filming of the wide-screen multiple-award winning cinerama epic Grand Prix, by conjecturing that it was during race weekend at Silverstone in 1966 that the two met and possibly "exchanged more than autographs". Mr Prurient was amongst the first to admit that there was no tangible proof of this encounter, agreeing that the autographed photograph may have been a later billet douce offered to the Professor after a "session" in his Chilfrome Cottage in the early 2000s. The jury was firmly out.
Now Brook Landz has proven beyond doubt that the two met in 1966.
Mr Landz writes: "I was reading about the Professor and that French bird when I remembered I'd seen her before. I've no interest at all in French local government so I knew there was no connection there. Then I thought about my collection of old Dorset Motor Sport Magazines and was pretty sure it rang a bell. Well I was in the attic like a ferret up a drainpipe and sure enough Box 13 - bingo - there it was May 1967 when the film came out. I'd seen it at The Odeon Leicester Square with me Dad. No idea if she was there but I remember seeing Maverick. He was great - cadged a fag off me he did. Nice fella. No side to him at all. [Mr Landz refers to the distinguished American TV and Cinema actor Mr James Garner 1928-2014 who indeed played the part of Brett Maverick between 1957 and 1962. He undertook the role of American racing driver Pete Aaron in the film in question. Whether he was a "cadger" of cigarettes is open to question [ed].] Anyway I bought the Magazine soon after and there you are - bob's your uncle. Do you reckon it's worth anything?"
Mr Landz is a life-long admirer of Professor Thrupiece and something of an expert on his motor racing career. Indeed he attributes his love of the sport to his boyhood admiration for the dashing Formula One ace. "Some say Fangio and some say Senna. Some say Schumacher and some say Prost. Me? Thrupiece every time. If that guy had mastered the art of cornering, he'd have been World Champion more times than anyone. Just that one terrible flaw - I suppose that's what makes him a tragic hero in the full Hellenistic sense." Mr Landz has a surprising grasp of the classical world.
[According to auctioneers Southerbones, Mr Landz's Magazine is worth c£5 on a good day [Ed]]
Cover of the May 1967 edition of Dorset Motor Sport Magazine: Deft ladder work by motorsport journalist Brook Landz has furnished attic-based proof that Professor Thrupiece and Mlle Ardèlie met in 1966
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