Memory Lane

A Regent Street traffic jam from 1960 takes us back in time.

Here’s a glimpse of the chaos caused by a 24-hour rail strike in February 1960. Most of the underground services kept running but all overground rail was out of action, meaning that commuters took to their cars or else boarded buses and coaches. It added up to the worst congestion London had seen. Horseguards Parade became a car park, as did every unregulated street, square, mews or yard… and then the evening rush hour began.

Jostling for space

We’re in the thick of it here, looking down Regent Street towards Piccadilly Circus. Across the road is the Quadrant Arcade, which is still there, and Thomas De La Rue & Co. Ltd, who made an interesting range of products including banknotes, board games and fountain pens. De La Rue PLC remains in business elsewhere – this plot is now a clothing store called Bottletop.

Bottom left we have the rump of a Rover, followed by a nice little Austin A30 5cwt van with roof bars, then a Hillman Minx Series IIIB (probably) followed by its older sibling, a Minx Phase VI or VII. The number 12 bus, reaching the end of a nightmare journey from South Norwood, is an AEC Regent III RT… still the classic London bus for older readers.

Next to the double-decker is a Minor 1000 apparently undergoing a driver change, then a Rover P4 from that post-cyclops period of 1952-’54, in front of which is an Austin A70 Hereford and an Austin A30. Pointing the other way we can see a pair of two-tone Rootesmobiles; a Humber Hawk Series I or II and a Sunbeam Rapier MKII, with a 100E Ford (concealing an E493A Prefect) in front of that, then sundry Minors, Anglias and so on disappearing into the evening gloom. We think the Pembroke House Laundry van is a Morris LD, capable of lugging one ton of dirty linen, while the smaller van in front of it is another A30 5cwt.