SPRING 1965
HAILSHAM HIGH STREET, EAST SUSSEX
The average weekly wage is £19.11s 9d, petrol’s five shillings a gallon and the traffic resembles a Ladybird book come to life
It is Saturday morning, with the enjoyable prospect of an afternoon of leisure, commencing with a double bill at the Pavilion Cinema on George Street. After thrilling to Elvis in Roustabout, supported by Peter Vaughan in
Smokescreen, there will be time for a visit to Boots, plus a cup of tea and a vanilla slice at the café before driving the Austin A40 Farina home to David Jacobs on the BBC Light Programme. The first-generation example on the left of our image still looks contemporary, even though the styling harks back to 1958.
Emerging from a side turning behind the Austin is a Ford Zephyr Six MkI, looking rather dashing on its whitewall tyres. The driver is probably a 30-year-old Teddy Boy fulminating about that long-haired Mick Jagger, and the A30 further back could be the property of an undergraduate of the University of Sussex (which opened four years previously) who has recently passed his (or her) test. Such cars could be found for less than £100 in the ‘Used Car Classifieds’ by the mid-1960s.
The A30 is parked in front of another Longbridge product of the same generation – the Austin A40 Devon Countryman. This was a ubiquitous sight on British roads until the end of the Sixties and quite a few motorists would order the A40 van and perform their own estatecar conversion, thereby avoiding Purchase Tax. As for the roof rack on the Standard Eight behind, that was often a more convenient way of carrying luggage than accessing the boot. On its debut in 1953, not only were hubcaps and a passenger windscreen wiper optional extras on the ‘answer to economical family motoring’, there was also a distinct lack of an opening bootlid.
To the rear of the Standard is (of course) an Austin-badged Mini. It is quite refreshing to see one used in everyday provincial life rather than the utterly clichéd surroundings of Carnaby Street. Further proof that this side of the street is a haven for all BMC enthusiasts is the presence of an LD van. You can just imagine the driver – all brown shop coat, a Woodbine almost perpetually on the go, a Billy Fury quiff and the driver’s door always open when on the move.
On the right-hand side of the frame, a magnificent cream Wolseley 4/50 is signalling a right turn via its trafficator and the Standard 10 Companion was the only five-door British small estate car of its era. The green livery of the Morris Minor Van seems to denote ex-Post Office Telephones transport, and it has also been fitted with aftermarket Austin FX4-style ‘ bunny ear’ indicators. Meanwhile, behind a second Mini is a colossal and somewhat menacinglooking black vehicle that would probably have looked more at home in a particularly grim film noir than a sunny shopping parade in southern England. Our surmise is that it is a 1937/1938 Buick; it wasn’t uncommon to see these used as hire cars in the UK before World War Two. To its rear is an Austin A40 Devon, which combined a quasiChevrolet appearance with modest dimensions that were better suited to Acacia Avenue than Route 66.
In fact, the automotive delights are almost too numerous to mention, from the Ford Anglia 105E De Luxes and the Thames 307E light commercial, to what looks like a Hillman Minx MkIII, a Standard 6cwt delivery van and its deadly rival, the Thames 300E. There are many other fascinating elements to this image – the lack of double yellow lines (and almost any other form of road markings), the fact that this was a time when ‘shopping’ still meant visiting individual outlets rather than a supermarket, and the knowledge that a bicycle could still be propped up at the kerb without any form of lock. The impact of the 1960 MoT test has also meant that the Buick is the only pre-war car on this particular High Street.
Above all, the fact that nearly all of the vehicles seen here in East Sussex would have been entirely unexceptional is what makes them so fascinating today. Who would have possibly guessed, back in 1965, that all of the vehicles seen here on Hailsham High Street would one day be collectors’ items?
As for the unthinkable (at the time) notion that famous names like Austin, Morris and Wolseley would vanish before the end of the century had ended – well, that was science fiction on a par with the Doctor Who series that began a while back…