Eric Dymock

Eric Dymock (born 16 April 1934) is a motoring writer and Editorial Director of Dove Publishing Ltd.[1] Trained as an engineer, he became a freelance journalist in the 1950s and a staff writer in 1962. He has written more than two dozen books, available in paper and electronic formats, and has worked in radio and television. For the Dove Publishing website he writes the often nostalgic Eric's Blog[2] under the sub-heading, "Best read in a comfortable chair, with a wee dram of scotch close at hand."

Eric Dymock
Born (1934-04-16) 16 April 1934
Motherwell, Scotland
Alma materDalziel High School
OccupationMotoring journalist and author

Early life

Dymock was born in Motherwell, Lanarkshire on 16 April 1934 to Robert Craig Dymock (1892–1977), "a former kirk elder and a slightly stern though mellowing Presbyterian",[3] Executive Director of the steel company David Colville & Sons,[4] and Ellen Miller Dymock (née Young) (1894–1990). Under the name Ellen Young Dymock, his mother was awarded the British Empire Medal in the 1946 New Years Honours for services to civil defence following her wartime work in the Motherwell and Wishaw Women's Auxiliary Police Corps.[5] His older brothers Craig (1922–2004) and John (1927–1997) also served in World War II in the Parachute Regiment and as a midshipman respectively.

Dymock attended the town's Dalziel High School, where he was assured by a science teacher that space flight was impossible. A more important influence was James K Scobbie, who held the post of Rector from 1957 to 1974 but during Dymock's time worked in the English department. In a 10 May 2017 posting on Eric's Blog he was quoted as saying, "Find an essay subject Eric Dymock can't bring cars into." On receiving a copy of World Champion with Jackie Stewart in 1970, he told Dymock that he was the first of his former pupils to become an author.[6]

Engineering and National Service

Dymock was indentured as in engineer in Glasgow and between 1951 and 1955 worked first at Harland and Wolff's Finnieston Diesel Engine Works, then at the Lanarkshire Welding Co Ltd in Wishaw.

His engineering career was interrupted by National Service. From 1956 to 1958 he served in 8 (Alma) Battery, 29 Field Regiment Royal Artillery in Germany and Cyprus. On his return, he briefly resumed his job at the Lanarkshire Welding Co before becoming a car salesman at a Rootes dealership and starting to write motoring articles for the Hamilton Advertiser.

Freelance work

Unable at first to find a staff job, Dymock wrote entirely on a freelance basis in the late 1950s and early 1960s. His mother was "deeply suspicious" of something she did not consider a proper job, and is reported to have said, "Eric has gone freelance for the moment, but I'm sure something will turn up."[7] Despite her concerns, Dymock's output was sufficient for him to become a founding member, in 1961, and later Honorary Life Member[8] of the Association of Scottish Motoring Writers.

Dymock's work appeared in the Herald (then known as the Glasgow Herald), the Scotsman and Scotland's two specialist motoring titles, Top Gear (unrelated to the modern magazine of the same name) and Motor World. He continued to write occasionally for Top Gear[9] and Motor World[10] until they went out of business in the early 1970s.

Motorsport
Letter on Temple Press Limited paper offering Dymock a job on The Motor magazine.

In the mid 1950s Dymock took up motorsport, competing as a rally navigator alongside several drivers including Bill Cleland, father of twice British Touring Car Champion John Cleland. At this time he met a future F1 World Champion about whom he would later write a biography: "I met Jim Clark in Edinburgh in the spring of 1955, at a briefing of the nascent Ecurie Agricole, a motor sporting team of farmers in the forthcoming Scottish Rally. I was not a member, I was not a farmer or even a journalist; I was co-driving a rival car and it seemed a good idea to evaluate the opposition."[3]

Dymock continued to navigate in rallies after National Service, and also competed in club-level autotests in an MGA, an Austin-Healey Sprite and a Mini.

Journalism and a move south

On 6 July 1962, Gordon Hailey, Director of Temple Press Ltd, wrote to Dymock, offering him a job as road tester on The Motor starting in September of that year. Dymock moved from Motherwell to London so that he could take up the post. This was the start of a long period of working for UK national titles. Leaving The Motor in 1965, he came motoring correspondent for Town (1966–1968), the News of the World (1973–1975), the Observer (1979–1981) and the Sunday Times (1982–1996). He had the same role at The Scottish Field from 1995 to 2001.

In the latter year he returned to Scotland, setting up home in Rothesay on the Isle of Bute with his wife Ruth. While living there he was the motoring correspondent for Scotland on Sunday (2002–2006) and the Business Spectator (2007–2009). He has also contributed to the Times, the Sunday Times Magazine, the Financial Times, the Daily Telegraph, the Telegraph Magazine, Classic Car, Autocar, Autosport and Motor Sport, and was the UK correspondent for Auto Visie (Netherlands), La Gazetta dello Sport (Italy) and Bilen og Båden (Denmark).

Broadcasting

Dymock had freelance assignments researching and scripting programmes for the BBC2 motoring programme Wheelbase, and did similar work for Thames Television and the Australian Broadcasting Commission. He has also broadcast on BBC Radio 4, the BBC World Service and the British Forces Broadcasting Service.

In 1978, Dymock and Clive Jacobs produced Competition Cassettes,[11] covering that year's Grand Prix races along with the Le Mans 24 Hours, the BRDC International Trophy and the Lombard RAC Rally.

Author
Jim Clark Memorial Award presented to Dymock in 2004.

Dymock's first book was Scotland by Car, published in 1968 by David & Charles. He has written more than twenty since then, including World Champion with Jackie Stewart and a biography of Jim Clark published first in 1997 and again in revised form in 2017. Many of his other works have been histories of manufacturers – including Audi, Bentley, Ford, Renault and Vauxhall – listing all their cars from their formation to the date of publication.

The majority of Dymock's books have been published by Dove Publishing, which he co-founded in 1990 with his wife Ruth. In general, they have been printed on paper and occasionally offered as e-books, though some, such as the Eric Dymock on Cars series, have been made available only in digital form. The language most commonly used is English, but some titles have been translated into French, German, Swedish or Chinese.

Awards

Dymock has won four Jet Media Excellence awards including the overall one in 1988. His books Saab, Half A Century of Achievement (1997) and The Complete Bentley (2009) each earned him the Guild of Motoring Writers' Montagu Award,[12] while the first edition of his Jim Clark biography was the runner-up publication in 1997. He won the Association of Scottish Motoring Writers' Jim Clark Award, presented to Scots who achieve excellence in the field of motoring, in 2004, and the ASMW President's Award in 2014.[13]

Personal life

Dymock married Ruth Cobell Dove in 1989 and lives with her in Torksey, Lincolnshire, where they moved in 2009 after spending eight years in Rothesay. He has a son, Craig Stuart, from his first marriage to Frances Jane Kelly, and two daughters, Charlotte Iona and Joanna Islay, from his marriage to Janet Noreen Bower.

Books

Dove Publishing books:
Mercedes-Benz the Art of Alan Fearnley (1990) ISBN 0-9516780-0-0
Rover, The First Ninety Years (1993) ISBN 0 9518750 1 9
Honda the UK Story (1995) ISBN 0 9518750 5 1
Saab, Half a Century of Achievement (1997) ISBN 0 9518750 5 1
Jim Clark, Tribute to a Champion[14] (1997) ISBN 0 9518750 6 X
The Audi File ISBN 0 9534142 0 5 (two editions 1997, 1998)
The Renault File (1998) ISBN 0 85429 995 5
The Vauxhall File ISBN 978-0-9554909-0-3 (two editions 1999–2007)
The MG File (2001) ISBN 0 9534142 3 X
The Jaguar File ISBN 0-9534142-7-2 (three editions 1998, 2001, 2004)
High Speed Diary, Life and Times of Reginald Ellis Tongue (2002) ISBN 0-9534142-5-6
The Ford in Britain File (two editions 2002, 2006) and The Ford in Britain Centenary File (2011) ISBN 978-0-9554909-3-4
The Land Rover File, (2006) ISBN 0-9534142-8-0
The Land Rover File 65 Anniversary Edition (2014) ISBN 978-0-9569533-6-0
The Complete Bentley (2008) ISBN 978-0-9554909-1-0
Vauxhall Model by Model from 1903 (2016) ISBN 978-0-9574585-4-3
Jim Clark, Tribute to a Champion[15] (2017) ISBN 978-0-9574585-5-0

Dove international editions:
Rover Die Ersten Neunzig Jahre (1993) German
Rover Quatre-vingt-dix ans d’histoire (1993) French
Saab 50 ǺR PǺ VÄG (1997) Swedish
Saab Ein Halbes Jahrhundert des Fortschritts (1997) German
Jim Clark Racing Legend (2003) USA
Land Rover File 65th Anniversary by 艾瑞克·戴莫克. (2014) Chinese

Dove Digital ebooks (Adobe and Kindle ISBNs):
Jim Clark, Tribute to a Champion[16] (2011) 978-0-9554909-4-1 and 978-0-9554909-5-8
The Complete Bentley (2011) 978-0-9554909-9-6 and 978-0-9554909-6-5
Sports Car Classics Vol 1 (2012) 978-0-9569533-1-5 and 978-0-9569533-0-8
Sports Car Classics Vol 2 (2012) 978-0-9569533-3-9 and 978-0-9569533-2-2
Jaguar, all models since 1922 (2012) 0-9554909-7-9 and 0-9554909-8-7
Eric Dymock on Cars 1989 (2012) 978-0-9569533-8-4
Eric Dymock on Cars 1990 (2012) 978-0-9569533-4-6
Eric Dymock on Cars 1991 (2012) 978-0-9569533-5-3
Eric Dymock on Cars 1992 (2012) 978-0-9569533-7-7
The Motorists’ Bedside Blook (2012)

Books not published by Dove:
Scotland by Car (David & Charles 1968) ISBN 0-7153-4229-0
World Champion with Jackie Stewart (Pelham, 1970) ISBN 0-7207-0413-8
The World of Racing Cars (Hamlyn 1972) ISBN 0 600 39240 6
The Guinness Guides to Grand Prix Motor Racing (Guinness Superlatives, 1980, 1981)
Postwar Sports Cars (Ebury, 1981) ISBN 0 85223 219 5
Austin-Healey Sprite, MG Midget, a Collector's Guide (Motor Racing Publications 1981, and Heel Verlag 1991)
BMW, A Celebration (Pavilion UK ISBN 0-517-58047-0; Orion USA; Heyne Verlag 1990)
Ecurie Ecosse (PJ Publishing 2007)

References
  1. "ERIC DYMOCK MOTOR BOOKS". ERIC DYMOCK MOTOR BOOKS.
  2. "Blog — Eric Dymock Motor Books". Dovepublishing.co.uk. Retrieved 27 May 2020.
  3. Jim Clark, by Eric Dymock, p.10
  4. Colvilles and the Scottish Steel Industry by Professor Peter Payne (Clarendon Press 1979, ISBN 0-19-828278-8) p.407
  5. "Policing North Lanarkshire: Women in the Force – CultureNL Museums". www.culturenlmuseums.co.uk.
  6. "Dalziel". ERIC DYMOCK MOTOR BOOKS.
  7. "News to Newspress in 50 years". ERIC DYMOCK MOTOR BOOKS.
  8. "Honour for man behind race legend Jim Clark". Tenerife News – Official Website. 5 July 2018.
  9. See for example '97 in second ... and Three Cogs to Go!', Top Gear, April 1967, p.18-19
  10. See for example 'Ford's New Specialists', Motor World, 28 August 1970, p.430
  11. "Clive Jacobs 1939–2014". ERIC DYMOCK MOTOR BOOKS.
  12. "Montagu Award". ERIC DYMOCK MOTOR BOOKS.
  13. "Jim Clark author in Duns". Berwickshire News. Retrieved 27 May 2020.
  14. "Jim Clark". www.goodreads.com.
  15. Barry, Maggie (24 November 2016). "Capturing the life of racing legend Jim Clark". dailyrecord.
  16. "JIM CLARK: TRIBUTE TO A CHAMPION, BY ERIC DYMOCK".
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