If you want to get ahead…

At a local fleamarket I recently picked up a gem of a book published in 1917 by the Temple Press, titled How to drive a Motor

Car, one of its War Service Manuals. The book contains many period advertisements for both cars and accessories (though no cars were available for sale to the public at this time) and the Edwardian prose makes fascinating reading. For example, the following advice on night driving when encountering oncoming headlights:

‘A cap has recently been brought out provided with a secondary brim of coloured material which, when one deflects the head so as to interpose it between the lamp glare and the eyes, very considerably minimises the glare and enables one to see fairly well.’

Makes you realise how far we’ve come when you don’t even have to touch a switch on many cars of today to either switch on or dip headlights. Steve Warfield, Ebbw Vale, South Wales