Wow! In part I'm not surprised because Robin Curtis had told me that David had been in hospital, but he wasn't old and I had hoped he would bounce back.

David was the greatest walking encyclopaedia on motor racing that has possibly ever existed - it wasn't often you could 'get him' on something...but a real coup if you could. I last saw him at Goodwood in 2008 but we had had lunch in Central London a few weeks earlier - a proper motor racing fanatics catch up - meeting at a specialist motoring bookshop, lunch outside a pub (in the sunshine!) where motor racing was the topic of discussion for approximately 99% of the time - then off to a model shop.

Amongst the many many things he was a authority on was Maserati's 250F - indeed he wrote a book on the subject and he was always amused when people described their favourite F1 car as the 250F..."Which one, there was so many?" He wasn't the boffin historian type who had no opinions but plenty of facts - David was very good company and enormously helpful with some of the books I've been involved with.

He was present the day Chris Amon made his circuit debut and then was Chris's guest at Brands in 1976 in what was his penultimate GP - although for David it was his first F1 race. He therefore could claim to have present for the beginning and (close to the) end of end of one top driver's long career.

I have always tried to imagine how David's filing system worked - were all those chassis numbers in notebooks or had they been converted to a massive spreadsheet? Either way, he could give the answer in a flash - he carried a heap of facts in his head, and then a heap more on his files.

So not only was a world recognised walking encyclopaedia, he was a world recognised walking encyclopaedia from New Zealand...

Godspeed David