Stuart Bladon

Born in Coventry in 1933, Stuart Bladon is the elder son of a Coventry doctor, and was present during the two terrible bombings of Coventry in the early years of the war. He saw the destruction of the city, and the ruin of his father’s Vauxhall 14 which had been parked at the hospital during the second bombing raid in February 1941.

Educated at Malvern College and King’s College, London, he joined the army for National Service in 1953, and was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the RASC, posted to Folkestone where he was in charge of a platoon of 40 staff cars and ambulances.

On ‘run out’ as it was called, he obtained a position on the editorial staff of The Autocar and was deputy editor of the magazine when in 1981 he took advantage of the company’s voluntary redundancy scheme offered as part of the move from London to Sutton. He then set up as a freelance motoring writer specialising in company cars and classic cars, and in 2015 published a book No Speed Limit covering his adventures as a Road Tester.

The spur of the moment purchase of a 1979 Rolls-Royce Corniche convertible led him to join the Wessex Section of the RREC in 2009, and in 2015 he took over editorship of the Section’s magazine, giving it the name Torque. He was appointed chairman of the Section in December 2018 on the retirement of Jean Marples who had moved out of the area. He guided the Wessex Section through its successful 50th Anniversary the following year before handing over the chairmanship in May 2020.