Memories of motoring 1946 - 2007.
In the good old days when I started most roads were empty. Petrol was one shilling and sevenpence a gallon (8 new pence to you), road tax was £2-12.0 a year for a car, £1-10.0 for a motorbike. The first budget of the Labour Party under Atlee, elected after the war, put the first tax on petrol – it was 9 old pence. The following year another 6 old pence was put on, and this was the beginning of the exploitation of the motorist. In those days you could break down on the Pevensey road and wait for 10 or 20 minutes for another motorist to come along (no mobiles then!). My father’s and my motorbike and sidecars were the only vehicles on our road (Athelstan Road). By 1953, with a wife and our first daughter, I had to buy my first car, a 1939 Morris Series E, followed by a Morris Minor, a Vauxhall Victor and Ford Capris (Mk.1 and 2). Since 1983 I’ve had a MG BGT and a Morris Minor Traveller, and I now exhibit at car shows around Sussex and Kent. That way you get off the road on the weekends and have somewhere free to park!

Thanks for this month's local memory to
Dick Spiers, Athelstan Rd