Tommy Steele, the M1 and me
With Easter almost upon us, I suddenly thought about an Easter long ago when I was but a slip of a lad.
You see, 50 years ago this year something happened in Northamptonshire that was to affect the nation. The first section of the motorway M1 opened between Watford at Junction 5 and Crick at Junction 18.
I remember with considerable embarrassment that just before it opened my brother and my dad decided they fancied a drive on the new empty "great white way".
So with mum and me in the back of the Fiat 500 we went to Crick where some burly navvies were standing guard on the slip-road.
"This is Mr Saint, clerk to the Rural District Council," called my brother (translation: "don't you know he's important?"). "We'd like to drive down to Heyford."
"Get lost," or words to that effect came the reply. How are the mighty fallen!
We were all of a dither here in the county because suddenly we were well and truly on the map!
Northamptonshire had about 25 miles of high-speed tarmac running through it, it had "a clover leaf" at Heyford and, what's more, it had the UK's first motorway service station.
A new phrase entered our vocabulary!
Easter was approaching and I really wanted a holiday job.
At that time everybody was talking about the huge wages to be had at the Blue Boar, that brand new service station on the M1.
Well, my mum's friend Lil Osborne (we called her Aunty Borne) had worked there since it opened and she was manageress on the north side.
Tes, she promised to see what she could do.
Success, yippee! So with my next-door neighbour Mez, who also said she'd like to do holiday work, I was launched into an entirely new age - the age of motorway travel, fast food, pop stars and chip fat.
The Blue Boar, as it was then, was run by the same company which owned the Blue Boar garage on the A5 at Watford village.
It had complained to the powers-that-be that the new Service Station on the M1 would rob it of custom, so it was allowed to claim the franchise.
Blue Boar ran it until 1995.
The Blue Boar was palatial. We had never seen anything like it.
There was shining Formica and stainless steel and huge gleaming windows looking out over the car park.
Staff wore smart American-style uniforms and customers kept the place buzzing twenty-four hours a day.
Ordinary travellers used the posh side, but truckers had to use the "transport" section allocated to them.
Mez and I were skivvies and spent most of the time scrubbing very large greasy pans and being shouted at.
I did, however, learn how to cook chips properly.
Occasionally there was a huge hubbub.
Someone in a stage whisper said Tommy Steele was in the cafe.
We'd never known such excitement. We all craned our necks to get a glimpse of the first celeb most of us had ever seen.
Pop stars were quite common at the Blue Boar from then on, especially late at night when they were, presumably, returning from gigs up north.
The Blue Boar was, after all, the only motorway service station in the UK.
It was something very special. People even drove from Heyford to Crick just to stop at the Blue Boar for a cup of coffee.
It was a new way of life.
After work on Maundy Thursday, Mez and I went to church to take part in the traditional all-night Vigil through to Good Friday. Having scrubbed pots and fried chips from two till 10, we stank of chip fat.
Odd how the church slowly emptied!
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Friday 10 February 2012
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