An early racing driver, car manufacturer, boat designer and all round playboy, Noel Macklin was involved in two of the most famous names of 1920s and 1930s motoring, Invicta and Railton. He designed the cars and built them in Surrey, at first at the garage at home, and then in a purpose built garage funded by the Lyle brothers, of the sugar family. The cars were successful in racing, taking many records throughout the decade but by the late 1930s it was all over. Macklin had decided to go into motor boat manufacture.

He had reckoned, quite rightly, that Britain was heading for war and saw a need, well before the Admiralty, for fast motor launches and torpedo boats and set about designing one. This he called the Fairmile, after his Surrey estate and the boat was designed from the start to be capable of mass-production.

The boats were successful and over 800 were manufactured in both the UK and Canada for use by the RAF as rescue launches, the Navy as motor torpedo boats, fast gun boats and for illicit trips to enemy occupied Europe. Macklin died just after the end of the war and is now largely forgotten.

Books by David Thirlby