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Forgotten Motoring A Miscellany on the Open Road Peter Ashley

Introduction

spent on Dinky Toys I would buy the latest edition of

The Observer’s Book of Automobiles, impressing pals

that my favourite car was a Facel Vega HK500. On the back pages were lists of the two registration letters During my 1950s childhood, motoring was a

mysterious and immense skill undertaken by others. As my father didn’t own a car until he drove an

apple-green Ford Popular somewhat erratically into

our hitherto empty garage, I watched all the steering and gear-changing as others gave us lifts: variously, a Ford Prefect steered with leather driving gloves;

that meant you could see where a vehicle came from: FP for Rutland, FL for the Soke of Peterborough. On the back windows of Austin Devons, Ford Zephyrs and Vauxhall Crestas you could see where the

occupants had been on holiday by noting visionobscuring plastic pennants with legends like ‘Prestatyn’ and ‘Ilfracombe’ on them.

Shopping trips to Leicester meant catching a

the mirror carefully adjusted in a new Humber Hawk;

Midland Red bus outside the Royal Oak or, if we

moved dexterously by long red-painted fingernails.

bus that smelt mildly of disinfectant and had a sign

and a duotone Hillman Minx’s column gear change I stared obsessively at the traffic. The black SS

Jaguar with enormous headlamps reversing out of a drive down the lane, a white-mustachioed man

in a Panama going to see his friend up the lane in a 1920s open-topped Rolls-Royce, which we ran

behind shouting. Every Tuesday I pedalled to the

end of the lane to watch men in thick leather aprons unload barrels of Hole’s Newark Ale from a yellow Leyland brewery dray into the cellar of the Royal

Oak, as I traced a grubby finger over the picture of a castle on the door. When my pocket money wasn’t

missed it, a deep brown and cream City Corporation that said ‘No Spitting’. In ‘town’, as we called it, I

watched Albions arriving with sacks of potatoes in

Market Place with words like ‘Lincolnshire’ on their

sides; cream Bedford ambulances with red blankets

and red Dennis fire engines with chrome bells ringing. Waiting for the bus home I saw Wolseleys dash out

from the neo-Georgian police station, which had two big lights on the roof. If the green one was flashing,

there had been no fatal road accidents in the city. If it was the red one, there had been, and I sat nervously on the bus with my mum telling me not worry.

Introduction

spent on Dinky Toys I would buy the latest edition of

The Observer’s Book of Automobiles, impressing pals

that my favourite car was a Facel Vega HK500. On the back pages were lists of the two registration letters During my 1950s childhood, motoring was a

mysterious and immense skill undertaken by others. As my father didn’t own a car until he drove an

apple-green Ford Popular somewhat erratically into

our hitherto empty garage, I watched all the steering and gear-changing as others gave us lifts: variously, a Ford Prefect steered with leather driving gloves;

that meant you could see where a vehicle came from: FP for Rutland, FL for the Soke of Peterborough. On the back windows of Austin Devons, Ford Zephyrs and Vauxhall Crestas you could see where the

occupants had been on holiday by noting visionobscuring plastic pennants with legends like ‘Prestatyn’ and ‘Ilfracombe’ on them.

Shopping trips to Leicester meant catching a

the mirror carefully adjusted in a new Humber Hawk;

Midland Red bus outside the Royal Oak or, if we

moved dexterously by long red-painted fingernails.

bus that smelt mildly of disinfectant and had a sign

and a duotone Hillman Minx’s column gear change I stared obsessively at the traffic. The black SS

Jaguar with enormous headlamps reversing out of a drive down the lane, a white-mustachioed man

in a Panama going to see his friend up the lane in a 1920s open-topped Rolls-Royce, which we ran

behind shouting. Every Tuesday I pedalled to the

end of the lane to watch men in thick leather aprons unload barrels of Hole’s Newark Ale from a yellow Leyland brewery dray into the cellar of the Royal

Oak, as I traced a grubby finger over the picture of a castle on the door. When my pocket money wasn’t

missed it, a deep brown and cream City Corporation that said ‘No Spitting’. In ‘town’, as we called it, I

watched Albions arriving with sacks of potatoes in

Market Place with words like ‘Lincolnshire’ on their

sides; cream Bedford ambulances with red blankets

and red Dennis fire engines with chrome bells ringing. Waiting for the bus home I saw Wolseleys dash out

from the neo-Georgian police station, which had two big lights on the roof. If the green one was flashing,

there had been no fatal road accidents in the city. If it was the red one, there had been, and I sat nervously on the bus with my mum telling me not worry.

Being driven out into the countryside in a car

was an adventure up there with a trip into space

with Dan Dare. My eldest brother, who worked on

a farm, leaning forward as he drove his battleship grey Standard Eight down a long straight and

shouting out “We’re doing fifty now!” and one very

memorable Sunday lunchtime when he took me for ‘a spin’ in the farmer’s Ford V8 Pilot and shouted

out “Eighty five!” with me sliding about on the blue leather front bench seat.

I wondered at road signs on black-and-white

striped poles saying things like ‘Major Road Ahead’, which I first thought meant we had to watch out for an army officer on a horse. We stopped at garages with petrol pumps topped-out with illuminated

globes that might say not just ‘Shell’ or ‘Esso’ but

also ‘Regent’ and ‘National Benzole’. AA patrolmen in leather gaiters stood by their motorbikes with

yellow monogrammed sidecars and for some reason saluted as we sped by.

Is all this just a yearning for an irretrievable past?

A nostalgic wallow in a lost time when someone

checked your oil after your petrol tank had been

filled with Cleveland and two shots of Redex? To a degree I suppose, but the main purpose of the

collection of images you will see here is to remind

us that the everyday motoring experience, whilst

not as predictable and certainly not as reliable as we enjoy today, was once full of character and

interest. From the first splutterings of the motor

car until the 1960s, there was an individuality to the

makes of cars, lorries and buses; to the look of road signs, garages, maps and guide books. (Much was characterful in the 1970s but tended to fall to bits quicker.)

Over the last forty years or so we appear to have

endured a depressing homogeneity in the design of vehicles and the services that provide for them.

A BMW morphing effortlessly into a Ford, an Audi

into a Kia. The branding of petrol meaning less and

less as a filling station probably makes more money on Haribo Supermix than a gallon of petrol and nobody studies maps in a road book anymore.

So in our world of hands-free crossovers and

satnav-ed hybrids, here are some oily-ragged,

hand-stitched alternatives: an elegiac gallery of the forgotten pleasures of motoring in another age.

Being driven out into the countryside in a car

was an adventure up there with a trip into space

with Dan Dare. My eldest brother, who worked on

a farm, leaning forward as he drove his battleship grey Standard Eight down a long straight and

shouting out “We’re doing fifty now!” and one very

memorable Sunday lunchtime when he took me for ‘a spin’ in the farmer’s Ford V8 Pilot and shouted

out “Eighty five!” with me sliding about on the blue leather front bench seat.

I wondered at road signs on black-and-white

globes that might say not just ‘Shell’ or ‘Esso’ but

also ‘Regent’ and ‘National Benzole’. AA patrolmen in leather gaiters stood by their motorbikes with

yellow monogrammed sidecars and for some reason saluted as we sped by.

Is all this just a yearning for an irretrievable past?

A nostalgic wallow in a lost time when someone

checked your oil after your petrol tank had been

filled with Cleveland and two shots of Redex? To a degree I suppose, but the main purpose of the

collection of images you will see here is to remind

us that the everyday motoring experience, whilst

not as predictable and certainly not as reliable as we enjoy today, was once full of character and

interest. From the first splutterings of the motor

car until the 1960s, there was an individuality to the

makes of cars, lorries and buses; to the look of road signs, garages, maps and guide books. (Much was characterful in the 1970s but tended to fall to bits quicker.)

Over the last forty years or so we appear to have

endured a depressing homogeneity in the design of vehicles and the services that provide for them.

A BMW morphing effortlessly into a Ford, an Audi

into a Kia. The branding of petrol meaning less and

less as a filling station probably makes more money on Haribo Supermix than a gallon of petrol and nobody studies maps in a road book anymore.

So in our world of hands-free crossovers and

satnav-ed hybrids, here are some oily-ragged,

hand-stitched alternatives: an elegiac gallery of the forgotten pleasures of motoring in another age.

The Wonder Book of Motors, 1940 edition above Wolseley Fourteen with a typically English backdrop complete with village gossips

The Wonder Book of Motors 1926 edition. Note the look of sheer pleasure on the face of the boy in the passenger seat

top Hillman Fourteen with a backdrop of Kenilworth Castle left Detail from the endpapers drawn by Thomas Maybank

The Wonder Book of Motors, 1940 edition above Wolseley Fourteen with a typically English backdrop complete with village gossips

The Wonder Book of Motors 1926 edition. Note the look of sheer pleasure on the face of the boy in the passenger seat

top Hillman Fourteen with a backdrop of Kenilworth Castle left Detail from the endpapers drawn by Thomas Maybank

An austere family outing involving a c1928 Sunbeam, recorded on a stereoscopic camera like the one opposite. The resultant pair of photographs, mounted on stiff card and placed in a viewer, meant that an image could, rather eerily, be seen in 3D

An Alvis 12/50 with a 1598cc engine, capable of 70 mph, and registered in Coventry in June 1924, costing £615. The body was made by another firm, Cross & Ellis. This actual car was used in Ken Russell’s 1962 BBC film Elgar, seen with the composer and his dogs traversing the Malvern Hills in Worcestershire left The Alvis hare mascot. The name ‘Alvis’ was perhaps derived from ‘al’ (aluminium) and the Latin ‘vis’ (strength)

These Rileys enabled dad to assuage his frustration at not being able to hare around in a sports car (they were very quick) but still be able to fit the rest of the family in The RM Series were made from 1945 to 1955, the last models to be developed by the independent company

Moving Letters above Leyland Tiger Cub motor coach badge centre Maidstone & District bus side, Wrotham, Kent top Dennis badge from the radiator grille of a fire engine opposite Bleriot headlamp, Shuttleworth Collection

The Automobile Association was founded in 1905 above The AA patrolmen helping motorists wore quasi-military uniforms (many were ex-servicemen) and saluted cars bearing their badge. Members had a key to an AA telephone box right 1956 AA Handbook opposite AA sign workshop in London c1955 and car badge

Do It Yourself The mechanics of a motor car were once relatively simple. Guides with cutaway drawings and diagrams helped motorists to spend entire weekends with their feet sticking out from under their cars above This handbook for Austins was first published in 1954 and was written (really) by T.B.D. Service

Practical Motorist magazine ran from 1934 to 1997. The promise given by a fabulously illustrated, luridly coloured cover was dissipated inside with no-nonsense line drawings showing you how to remove a cylinder head or adjust your hydraulic valve tappets. Still wearing a tie to do oily jobs appeared de rigeur, but it had to be kept away from a revolving fan blade

Forgotten Motoring takes us on a journey into the past when road travel in Britain was a particular if unpredictable pleasure. Roads filled with bulbous Austin Somersets, rakish Rileys and unique road signs. Together with beautifully signed commercial vehicles, motoring guides, maps and roadside cafes, here is an inspirational collection with delightful images at every turn of the road. No satnavs here.

ISBN: 978-1-78884-093-4

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