Colnbrook, England. The year of the first run of the M6A and the year that Alastair travels from New Zealand to begin his career with McLaren.

I had a small legacy from my brother following his death because we sold the car and he had an insurance policy. With that money I was able to buy air tickets: an air ticket for me and boat tickets for my family to come to England. I had an Aunt who lived in Gerrards Cross and I went to stay with her until I found a place of my own. I flew ahead of my family to see if I could get a job because I had nothing organised in advance. It turned out, fortuitously because I had no idea, Gerrards Cross is right next to Heathrow and so is McLaren. They could have been four hundred miles apart for all I knew but by sheer serendipity they were right there. I told my aunt that I wanted to get a job at McLaren’s as a mechanic and she said she'd give me a lift on Monday morning.

It was ten minutes away in those days, just across Slough, and there we were in Colnbrook. I went to McLaren’s and couldn’t get a job as a mechanic, which is what I wanted, but I asked if they had any jobs at all. They said yeah they had a job for a cleaner. ’Ok, I’ll be the cleaner then,’ I said. So I turned up at 8 o’clock the next day and I cleaned, I’m a very good cleaner. While I was there I talked to the race mechanics and at the end of the day I went and gave them a hand working on a race car that they were building. At 3 o’clock in the morning we all went home. I asked what time started in the morning and the chief mechanic, who was a director of the company at the time, said: ‘Oh well I get here about 7:15.’ So I went home, and 7 o’clock I was sitting on the wall outside and watched him stroll in at 7:15. He let me in and gave me something to do. The work manager came to work at 9 o’clock and saw me working on a race car. The chief mechanic turned to him and said: ‘You’ll need a new cleaner, this bloke’s a mechanic.’

• 1943 Alastair's early years
• 1955 Licence to drive
• 1957 Alastair's High School years
• 1959 Evading the police
• 1960 Becoming a mechanic
• 1966 The Tasman series
• 1966 Leaving New Zealand
• 1967 Joining McLaren
• 1967 CanAm Door Catches
• 1967 Monza
• 1968 South Africa
• 1968 CanAm
• 1969 Driving the Formula 1 Cars
• 1973 Fittipaldi joins McLaren
• 1973 McLaren Team manager
• 1974 Montezemolo
• 1975 Hunt replaces Fittipaldi
• 1975 Hunt gets paid little
• 1976 Inventing the Air-Starter
• 1976 Six-speed Gear Boxes
• 1976 Misbehaving in Canada
• 1976 Japan
• 1977 Adidas Uniforms
• 1977 Changing Tyres
• 1977 Leaving McLaren
• 1979 Nelson Piquet
• 1980 Skirts on Formula 1 Cars
• 1981 Leaving Formula 1
• 1981 Making Lists
• 1981 Signing on
• 1981 Creating Space Station
• 1991 Highland Fling
• 1991 Classic Marathon
• 1992 Getting the Austin A35
• 1992 El Salvador
• 1993 Carerra Panamerica
• 1993 Centre of attention
• 1993 Nicest car in rally
• 1993 LeJog
• 2000 London to Sydney
• 2000 Porsche Racing
• 2000 Porsche Crashing
• 2001 Ferrari
• 2001 Inca Trail
• 2004 Berlin - Moscow - Berlin
• 2005 World Cup Rally
• 2007 Norway
• 2008 Liège-Brescia-Liège
• 2008 An Icelandic Odyssey
• 2008 North & West Africa
• 2009 West Coast America
• 2009 London to Casablanca
• 2010 New Zealand Festival of motor racing