Leonard John Kensell Setright (10 August 1931 – 7 September 2005) was an
EnglishEngland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west and the North Sea to the east, with the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
motoring journalistA journalist is a person who practises journalism, the gathering and dissemination of information about current events, trends, issues, and people while striving for viewpoints that are not biased.Reporters are one type of journalist...
and
authorAn author is defined both as "the person who originates or gives existence to anything" and that authorship determines responsibility for what is created...
.
Born of Australian parents in London, he studied Law at the
University of LondonBased primarily in London, England, United Kingdom, the University of London is a federal mega university made up of 31 affiliates: 19 separate university institutions, and 12 research institutes...
. He practiced for a time but hated the profession. His
National ServiceNational service is a common name for mandatory or voluntary government service programs . National service was common in the 20th century, and many young people spent one or more years in such programs...
was served in the
Royal Air ForceThe Royal Air Force is the United Kingdom's air force, the oldest independent air force in the world. Formed on 1 April 1918, the RAF has taken a significant role in British military history ever since, playing a large part in World War II and in more recent conflicts.The RAF operates almost 1,109...
as an
air traffic controllerAir traffic controllers are the people who operate the air traffic control systems to expedite and maintain a safe and orderly flow of air traffic and help prevent mid-air collisions. They apply separation rules to keep aircraft apart from each other in their area of responsibility and move all...
.
After writing for the engineering magazine
Machine Age in the early 1960s, Setright became a motoring journalist and author.
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Leonard John Kensell Setright (10 August 1931 – 7 September 2005) was an
EnglishEngland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west and the North Sea to the east, with the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
motoring journalistA journalist is a person who practises journalism, the gathering and dissemination of information about current events, trends, issues, and people while striving for viewpoints that are not biased.Reporters are one type of journalist...
and
authorAn author is defined both as "the person who originates or gives existence to anything" and that authorship determines responsibility for what is created...
.
Born of Australian parents in London, he studied Law at the
University of LondonBased primarily in London, England, United Kingdom, the University of London is a federal mega university made up of 31 affiliates: 19 separate university institutions, and 12 research institutes...
. He practiced for a time but hated the profession. His
National ServiceNational service is a common name for mandatory or voluntary government service programs . National service was common in the 20th century, and many young people spent one or more years in such programs...
was served in the
Royal Air ForceThe Royal Air Force is the United Kingdom's air force, the oldest independent air force in the world. Formed on 1 April 1918, the RAF has taken a significant role in British military history ever since, playing a large part in World War II and in more recent conflicts.The RAF operates almost 1,109...
as an
air traffic controllerAir traffic controllers are the people who operate the air traffic control systems to expedite and maintain a safe and orderly flow of air traffic and help prevent mid-air collisions. They apply separation rules to keep aircraft apart from each other in their area of responsibility and move all...
.
After writing for the engineering magazine
Machine Age in the early 1960s, Setright became a motoring journalist and author. He contributed to
CAR MagazineCar Magazine is a British automotive enthusiast magazine, published monthly by Bauer Automotive.As of 2008, there are also international editions published in Brazil, China, Greece, India, Mexico, Middle East, Russia, South Africa, Spain, Thailand and Turkey...
for more than 30 years and wrote several books on cars and automotive engineering. Setright often espoused the virtues of
BristolBristol Cars is a manufacturer of hand-built luxury cars, based at Filton, near Bristol, England. Bristol Cars has no distributors or dealers and deals directly with customers; they have a showroom in Kensington in London. They claim to be the last wholly British-owned luxury car builder. The...
cars and the
Honda PreludeThe Honda Prelude is a sports coupe produced by Japanese automaker Honda from 1978 until 2001. The two-door coupe spanned five generations and was discontinued upon the release of the fifth-generation Honda Integra or Acura RSX Type-S in North America in late 2001, due to its decreasing sales and...
, amongst other things, while holding a consistent dislike for
dieselA diesel engine is an internal combustion engine that uses the heat of compression to initiate ignition to burn the fuel, which is injected into the combustion chamber during the final stage of compression...
-powered cars. His writing style polarised readers as some considered it to be pompous and containing excessively esoteric quotes. He also wrote about music, motorcycles and high-fidelity sound systems, and contributed to among others
PunchPunch was a British weekly magazine of humour and satire published from 1841 to 1992 and from 1996 to 2002. Punch material was also collected in book formats as early as the 1800s, including Pick of the Punch annuals with cartoons and text features, Punch and the War a 1941 collection of...
,
The IndependentThe Independent is a British newspaper published by Tony O'Reilly's Independent News & Media. It is nicknamed the Indy, while the Sunday edition, The Independent on Sunday, is the Sindy. Launched in 1986, it is one of the youngest UK national daily newspapers. The daily edition was named National...
,
BikeBike Magazine is a British motorcycling magazine published by Bauer Consumer Media Ltd, edited by Tim Thompson. The magazine claims the title of "Britain's best-selling motorcycle magazine", based on circulation figures provided by the Audit Bureau of Circulations .Established in 1971, originally...
and
Car and DriverCar and Driver is an American automotive enthusiast magazine. Its total circulation is 1.31 million. It is owned by Hachette Filipacchi Magazines. Originally headquartered in New York City, the magazine has been based in Ann Arbor, Michigan since the late 1970s.-History:Car and Driver was founded...
.
Setright was a practising
JewThe Jews , also known as the Jewish people, are an ethnoreligious group originating in the Israelites or Hebrews of the Ancient Near East. The Jewish ethnicity, nationality, and religion are strongly interrelated, as Judaism is the traditional faith of the Jewish nation...
throughout his life.
Married twice, his first wife Christine committed suicide in 1980. After this he spent some time in a Lubavitch community in
TexasTexas is the second-largest U.S. state in both area and population, and the largest state in the contiguous United States.The name had wide usage among native Americans, meaning "friends" or "allies"...
, later returning to
SurbitonSurbiton, a suburban area of London in the Royal Borough of Kingston upon Thames, is a commuter town next to the River Thames, populated with a mixture of Art-Deco courts, spacious and grand late-19th century townhouses blending into a sea of semi-detached 20th century housing...
.
He was also known for his love of smoking tobacco, in particular of Sobranie Black Russians. He succumbed to lung cancer in 2005.