Roger Mortimer (racing)

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

Son of Haliburton Stanley Mortimer (1879-1957), of 11 Cadogan Gardens, Chelsea (a London stockbroker), and Dorothy Blackwell, of Crosse & Blackwell, 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.

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

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.

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