When Buddy Featherstonhaugh died in , aged 66, the tuppence in his pocket was just about all he owned. Four divorces had seen to that. But what a time he had, from touring the world with his own jazz group to becoming the first British racing driver in 10 years to win a continental grand prix.
He belonged to a group of mid-twentieth century men β among them the trumpeters Johnny Claes and Billy Cotton, the trombonist Chris Barber and the saxophonist and club-owner Ronnie Scott β in whose lives a love of racing cars shared space with a devotion to jazz.
As a saxophonist, Featherstonhaugh had toured Britain in with the band of Louis Armstrong, the biggest name in jazz. His grandfather, George William Featherstonhaugh, a geologist and geographer, had emigrated to America, married an heiress, and was instrumental in creating the Mohawk and Hudson Railroad, the first in New York State, before being appointed the first US government geologist.
Later he recrossed the Atlantic and became the British consul in Le Havre. He grew up at the Old Mill House in Clewer, outside Windsor, and was educated at Eastbourne College, where he had his own boat, learnt the clarinet and wore monogrammed shirts.
Later owners of the house in Clewer included the actor Michael Caine and the guitarist Jimmy Page, of Led Zeppelin, whose drummer, John Bonham, died there in an upstairs bedroom in At 18 he had the first car of his own, a boat-tailed one-litre Fiat, followed in quick succession by a four-cylinder Bugatti, a three-litre Sunbeam, an eight-cylinder Bugatti Type 35, a Eustace Watkins Hornet Special and a 1.
