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was staged at Brands. Even so, she wasn’t a big F1 fan, preferring grassroots racing.
    Ann’s next position was with a public relations company where she looked after the motor-sport interests of the big oil firm Duckhams. She also worked on behalf of Ford and one of their projects was Formula Ford. ‘By 1989,’ she says, ‘the formula was failing to attract young drivers because there were so many other forms of racing springing up which had better prize funds and offered more opportunities. I produced a report for Ford which they took on board; they got serious about it and I took over the media/PR role on their behalf in 1991.’
    That was the good news.
    ‘The unbearably bad news,’ Ann recalls, ‘was that ’91 was also the year when Paul Warwick lost his life in a big accident at Oulton Park, a famous racing circuit up in Cheshire in England’s north-west. I was at Cadwell Park that day on Formula Ford duty – six months pregnant with my son Luke – and wasn’t able to attend Paul’s race, as I often did. A week later Rod rolled a production saloon at Brands Hatch and we decided we didn’t want any more to do with motor racing.’
    Rod couldn’t get out of his contract so Ann worked the ’92 season and they emigrated to Australia after her last day, which was that year’s Formula Ford Festival. It was won by the young Danish driver Jan Magnussen, whose manager called Ann the next day to ask if she would be interested in handling Jan’s media! She told him she was on a plane out of the UK – and those who follow F1 will recall that Jan’s son Kevin made his F1 debut for McLaren in 2014 at Albert Park and finished on the podium. A familiar name throughmy own F1 career has been Jenson Button; at that same stage Ann was contacted by John Button, Jenson’s father, about playing the same media role for his son.
    After six months Rod was going back to his old employer, Coca-Cola, as State Manager. The trouble was that the state in question was Western Australia, which Ann found too remote. Luke was coming up to his first birthday and they knew no one. Then Coke took Rod to Sydney, and hey presto, work opportunities began to open up for her. She hadn’t lost the motor-racing bug despite Paul’s death; she accepted an offer to become press and PR coordinator for the Australian Formula Ford Championship. She also began working for Wayne Gardner’s new V8 touring car team in Sydney’s western suburbs, but no sooner had they started settling in Sydney than Coca-Cola offered Rod a job in Malaysia, which was too good for him to refuse.
    Looking back, Ann says, ‘I didn’t want to give up my career yet again. I hadn’t migrated to Australia to end up living in Kuala Lumpur. We tried to keep the relationship alive by commuting back and forth but it was never going to work out and I was also getting into my stride with my work, which I loved. Rod and I separated and ultimately divorced; it was difficult for a while but we’ve been good friends for years now and Rod even joined Mark and me at some Grands Prix.’
    Ann remembers our first meeting and my opening remark about her being so important. She can even remember what I was wearing – a stripey green and red top, one of those United Colors of Benetton things – so that was pretty prophetic, as things turned out! After that first meeting we kept in touch. My family sometimes met up with Ann andLuke for weekend get-togethers, and I ensured she got her motor-sport fixes by dragging all my old F1 tapes out. By way of revenge she would bring down all her British Formula Ford tapes for me.
    In those early days Ann and Luke hadn’t been in Australia for very long. Luke was an only child with no cousins or anyone remotely close to his age in Australia, so it was a great experience for him to see life in rural Australia, particularly on the family farm, and to meet everyone – it was a family lifestyle he didn’t have. Something a lot of kids in Australia