The Way We Were
The weekly shopping trip, with Procul Harum’s A Whiter Shade of Pale from virtually every radio
Tolworth Broadway, London, 1967
Saturday morning and after visiting the Fine Fare in the Tolworth Tower where the ‘famous steak burgers’ were now reduced to 1/6d a packet, there was time for luncheon at the Wimpy. Who could resist a Bender Egg Brunch at 4/9d and a Pineapple Whippsy (‘The cool, cool, cool milkshake’) for a mere 1/9d? Outside is a Ford Zodiac MkIII, the first standard Dagenham production car capable of 100 mph. The Morris Oxford Series VI represented a far soberer form of motoring – think tartan car rugs and flasks of oxtail soup – while the Vauxhall Cresta PA is a post-August 1959 version judging by its fins and rear screen.
Ahead of the Cresta is an even rarer form of post-war Vauxhall; the F-type Victor estate with its Chevrolet Nomad-like appearance
was Luton’s first in-house station wagon. Naturally, there’s a BMC ADO16 and a Triumph Herald, for no high street in the late 1960s would have been devoid of these two. The latter has the two-tone paintwork and the Webasto ‘Skylight’ of the 12/50, as befitting what was advertised as ‘the most drivable and complete car in the world’. The Austin A30 might have been the first car of a student at the nearby
Kingston College of Art and that Minivan probably belonged to a local business. ‘Telephone ELMbridge 5917 for Speedy Delivery.’
As we progress along The Broadway, the Austin A40 Farina and the Audax-series Hillman Minx were once also ubiquitous street furniture. The Birds Eye lorry was probably distributing Fish Fingers as recommended by Captain Birdseye, who would make his TV debut this year. Of the moving traffic, the vehicle that really captures the eye is not the Ford Zephyr 4 MkIII, the Mini, the Wolseley 1500 or the Austin A35 – it is that Bedford CA. This example looks as though it was rejected by the Steptoes, although on a warm day, travel with the sliding doors open (and the rear one completely absent) might have seemed a logical decision. On the other hand, the driver would have been on constant lookout for any black Wolseley 6/110 appearing in his mirror.
On the opposite side of the street, there is a Bedford TK, the archetypal British lorry of its era. Its stablemate CA is in a rather better state of repair than its sister across the road, and there’s also what looks like a second ADO16. The Minor van sports the rubber wings and roof-mounted wipers of a Post Office Telephones vehicle. The GPO ordered over 50,000 of such Morris light commercials between 1953 and 1972, but this example looks as though it has been decommissioned and is now owned by a window cleaner. The Morris is parked behind a Renault R8, one of the few overseas-built cars to be regularly seen in 1960s’ suburbia, while parked in front of yet another Mini and the Austin 1100 is its major British rival. For £532 4s 7d the De Luxe model of the Hillman Imp allowed motorists to set ‘the scene… the style…the pace’. Well, according to Rootes Group PR at any rate.
Just edging out of shot is a Minor Traveller while the sight of the Austin FX3 taxi in the background and those shop awnings are reminders that ‘Swinging London’ was largely a media construct. Of course, the Wimpy Bar is no more – it’s now the Broadway Café, so at least serving the same purpose as its predecessor – but in 1967 that unlocked bicycle parked next to the Imp probably belonged to someone who could not wait to sample the delights of the Shanty Grill and a shilling’s worth of Lyon’s Maid ice cream…