JOHN HAYNES: The Man Behind the Manuals

The publishing supremo has helped thousands of ordinary motorists become home mechanics with his wonderful Haynes Car Repair Manuals. The biography looks under the bonnet at his extraordinary life and his legacy to the motoring world and how one man's vision and enthusiasm gave a small enterprising rural Somerset a global footprint. The story begins with John's childhood in Ceylon and his schooldays, when as a young entrepreneur he sowed the seeds of what would become his iconic car repair manuals, to his time as a young RAF officer and the driving force behind the Haynes brand and the Haynes International Motor Museum. It all began with the classically sleek, low slung open-topped British two-seater the AC Cobra. John had owned MGs and Minis and Triumphs, big bodied Fords and Jaguars and stately Rolls Royces. He had raced cars too nearly every weekend and ended up in hospital just weeks before his wedding to Annette in the summer of 1963 when his Lotus spun violently on the track circuit at Goodwood and flipped over hurling him straight onto his back. His passion for motor racing remained, and both his business and personal lives were fundamentally changing. The business of Haynes Publishing with its iconic catalogue of car repair manuals took roots, taking apart the cars, photographing them and putting them back together, drawing cutaways and plans, writing and printing the first generation of manuals and selling them along with an assortment of other motoring titles from a combination office cum bookshop in Odcombe. John was awarded and OBE in 1995 for his services to the British publishing industry and his Haynes Motor Manuals touched the lives of more than 200 million people around the globe. The speed and suddenness of his final decline caught everyone by surprise. Eight pages of colour and archive photos including hauling the engine of his Austin Healey Sprite up fur flights of stairs and his glamorous wife on their honeymoon posing in front of their MG. 248pp.