Here's something none of you know. A year and a half ago, I was assessed for
a certain neurological defect a year and a half ago (after a year and a half of waiting for it), and if I said the results were positive I can almost hear the screams of "IMAGINE MY SHOCK!" from all parts of the world, even Australia if J&E are still occasionally watching. Anyway, one of the tests - given to a grown 40-year-old man, don't forget - was to compose a short story inspired by some objects - and my assessor gave me a suitable example using some of the available objects, and I couldn't use those. I was actually hoping that she wouldn't pick the playing card (Queen of Spades) and the toy Mercedes SL because as soon as I saw those, I was already forming an idea... The Queen of Spades was Sabine, and she was driving a lap of the Nürburgring in the Merc, showing a seven-foot-tall curly-headed thug how it's supposed to be done. Meanwhile, James May (represented by a miniature koosh ball, which his hair looks a bit like) would simultaneously drive a lap around the Top Gear test track, in a 1.3-litre Proton (represented by a red wooden cube, because it looks vaguely similar). Sabine, of course, blitzed the 'Ring in record time while Captain Sense Of Direction was still trying to find his way around Chicago. And on completing her lap, she handed over to The Orang-utan who said "Right! Watch this! POWER!" and ploughed into the Armco on the first corner. Meanwhile, at Dunsfold, Captain Slow was just approaching the Hammerhead.
I had no idea Sabine was cancer-ridden at the time. I'd still have told the same story even if I knew, although it'd have been in the back of my mind. She's the first Top Gear presenter to die that I've actually been alerted to, as none of the others in Motoring Journalism Valhalla I'd ever recognised as Top Gear presenters. As well as the Wikipedia article, I found a summary by Gavin "Big-Surname" Braithwaite-Smith of PetrolBlog (which I'm a fold reader of)
of all the presenters from 1977 (that he knew of) to what was then the present day. I'd not heard of Tom Coyne, Barrie Gill, Bob Friend or Tom Boswell, Frank Page had a long stint (1980-88) but that's before I was watching (and I don't recall seeing him on any pre-1989 clips that turn up on YouTube) ,and I'd never realised that Russell Bulgin and Sir Stirling Moss were ever part of the programme.
So this is the first Top Gear death that actually hits me directly... and only four days after Murray Walker. Auf Wiedersehen und Vielen Dank for all the laps, Sabine.
