The magic of a name

The fanaticism of Rolls-Royce followers knows no bounds. For instance, a play by William Douglas-Home, called “Rolls Hyphen-Royce” starring Wilfred Hyde White, opens at the Shaftesbury Theatre on May 11th and there is to be a special Charity Performance the previous day, in aid of the National Motor Museum Trust. I had only just swallowed that when I came upon it handout from an auctioneer telling me that after it had been paraded before HM The Queen at Windsor on May 7th, a certain low-mileage 1921 Rolls-Royce Silver Ghost would be taken a few clays later to the auction, where it is “expected to fetch a very large sum of money”. It seems odd that anyone sufficiently proud of a car to want HM The Queen to inspect it, should sell it so soon afterwards. Rather like autographing and auctioning the top-hat one had worn to a Buckingham Palace Investiture or Garden Party . . .