Roger Mortimer (racing)

Major Roger Francis Mortimer (22 November 1909 – November 1991),[1] was an English horse-racing correspondent, Coldstream Guards officer, prisoner of war, and author.

Roger Mortimer's home, 1967-1984.[2]

Son of Haliburton Stanley Mortimer (1879-1957), of 11 Cadogan Gardens, Chelsea (a London stockbroker), and Dorothy Blackwell, of Crosse & Blackwell,[3] he was educated at Ludgrove, Eton and Sandhurst, and joined the Coldstream Guards in 1930. He was a Captain at Dunkirk (BEF, 1940) but was captured unconscious, all his men having been killed. Sir Frederick Vernon Corfield, QC, PC, and Freddy Burnaby-Atkins were among his friends made as a prisoner of war (no. 481, in the various Oflags and Stalags). He left the army in 1947 having post-war served in Trieste, and took an appointment at Raceform.[4]

For 29 years, from 1947-1975, he was the Sunday Times' racing correspondent (aka Fairway). He was succeeded by Brough Scott.[4] He was also The Tote's PR and a racing reporter for BBC radio 2.[3]

In 1947 Mortimer married Cynthia Sydney Denison-Pender, a niece of the 1st Lord Pender and granddaughter of Sir John Denison Denison-Pender, GBE, KCMG. Cynthia's sister Pamela had married General Sir Kenneth Thomas Darling, GBE, KCB, DSO, in 1941.

He was father of three: Jane Clare, Charles Roger Henry and Louise Star. His letters to them were published in 2012, 2013 and 2014.[3] He lived at Budds Farm at Burghclere in Hampshire.

  1. ^ "A tragically comic account of a Prodigal Son".
  2. ^ Dear Lupin, Roger Mortimer & Charlie Mortimer, 2011
  3. ^ a b c Dear Lumpy, by Roger Mortimer and Louise Mortimer, Constable & Robinson, 2013
  4. ^ a b John Karter: 'Mortimer: never at a loss for words', in The Sunday Times, 1 December 1991