Oh What A Time... - #118 Motoring (Part 2)

Episode Date: June 9, 2025

This is Part 2! For Part 1, check the feed!Let’s get behind the podcasting wheel and drive through a history of motoring. We’ll hear about the birth of the service station, the dawn of motorways and breakdown services and - and this really is a huge one - the rise and fall of Little Chef. And we’ve got a brand new feature which we’re calling ‘Could You Be Arsed Though?’.. Which job is easy in the modern world but would be almost impossible in the past? Send in your suggestions here: [e-mail] you fancy a bunch of OWAT content you’ve never heard before, why not treat yourself and become an Oh What A Time: FULL TIMER?Up for grabs is:- two bonus episodes every month!- ad-free listening- episodes a week ahead of everyone else- And much moreSubscriptions are available via AnotherSlice and Wondery +. For all the links head to: ohwhatatime.comYou can also follow us on: X (formerly Twitter) at @ohwhatatimepodAnd Instagram at @ohwhatatimepodAaannnd if you like it, why not drop us a review in your podcast app of choice?Thank you to Dan Evans for the artwork (idrawforfood.co.uk).Chris, Elis and Tom xSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to episodes of Oh What A Time early and ad free. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple podcasts. Emiotrophic lateral sclerosis, ALS. It's a terminal illness that progresses with devastating swiftness. It takes away the ability to walk, talk, eat, swallow and eventually breathe. But ALS cannot take away hope for a brighter future. This June, join ALS Canada at the Walk to End ALS. Your participation and generous donations will fund community-based support and the best ALS research in the country.

Find your local date, register or donate at walktomendals.ca. This is part two of motoring. Let's get on with the show. So, lovely, lovely boys, I today am going to tell you all about, this is quite a sweet little top story isn't it, the history of the Little Chef. Yes please. Now I've written at the top of my notes here, did you go to a Little Chef growing up and did you like it? Now we had a bit of a spoiler at the beginning of the show in that Elle seems to be the Little Chef's biggest fan in the world.

There was one in St Clair's which is about, I don't know, 12 miles from where I grew up. And so when we lived in West, we often just used to stop there on the way to Carmarthen to visit my grandparents. Then when we moved to Carmarthen, we just used to go there for a treat. When we used to drive, if you saw the sign for a little chef, you were like, okay.

My parents would always complain it was expensive. I used to complain that the food was so delicious that I wanted to live in a little chef. So I went there on my birthday. Yeah, yeah. The small little lollipops you'd get at the till, ostensibly for clearing your plate. Delicious. I've never tasted anything like it before or since. The Olympic breakfast. Those massive burgers. The chips. The standard of chip. I mean, delicious. Mason- The chips were super. The chips were like discs, weren't they? They were flat discs. The ones I'm thinking about, at least it came with the breakfast.

Mason- Yeah, yeah, least it came with the breakfast. Will Barron Yes. But with the burger, you also used to get fries. Mason Hickman Oh, did you? Okay. There you go. Will Barron Also, it's that curious alchemy that you get in great restaurants. Something that's very difficult to quantify, but if you've experienced it, you know what I'm talking about. The atmosphere. Mason Hickman Wow!

Mason Hickman There was an excitement. Will Barron There was such a great vibe in there. And the guests, they knew there was so much special. And they're no longer with us sadly. And it really, yeah, I've got very fond memories of Little Chef and Wimpy. I thought I saw a Little Chef over the weekend actually, now you mention it. But I'm interested to see whether they have... The thing about the Little Chef that I loved, it was was so the logo, the branding of Little Chef. When you see that little man, the red and white logo on the motorway and your parents go, we're stopping in here. It is the most electric sensation. And then here's where the experience begins for me. When you

walk in, you generally have to walk past the till and inexplicable CD albums. Yes. My dad would always go we can pick a CD for the next. So you'd walk in, you'd have a look at the CDs and go right I'm going to start the clocking, what am I going to go with here? Will it be Phil Collins? Will it be Louis Armstrong? Will it be Now 54? Are you going to have the Olympic breakfast? Do you want the latest Simply Rad album? Yes and yes. You'd go in, you'd have a great meal. I always remember the cheese on the burgers was really good. I don't know how they did that cheese. It was fantastic. And also a very overly flowery bun. What I remember.

Yes, the overly flowery bun. That's a very... Oh, God, I'm back there. But you wouldn't have sesame seed on top. I remember it being just being overly flowery bun. That's a very, oh God, I'm back there. But you wouldn't have sesame seed on top. I remember it being just being too flowery, but somehow it worked. The chocolate cake was sensational. It was, in fact, I think I might have chosen the Little Chef chocolate cake when I did off menu with James Ickes, the Ned Gallow.

Little Chef. I'm not done with explaining the Little Chef experience you with James it has to make. I'm not done with explaining the little chef experience because in my walkthrough, the best bit is yet to come. And fans of little chef will know this. As you walk out, you go to pay at the till. You pay at the little till, my dad would pay. And then a little wicker basket would emerge. Yeah. The, the, the telly a pass it over, and orange lollies. That you'd never, I've never seen this lolly anywhere else.

Orange on the outside, white on the inside, with a little stick with a little chef logo, like plastic wrap around the top. And some, they wouldn't go have one, they would say, grab a handful. Oh. Electric! Electric. Now, I would love to have chipped in more into that, but my experience was slightly different. My experience was I was driving down the road to A, me seeing the sign of the little chef and my dad saying, no, your mother's already made sandwiches. And we drive past and I see through the window a little Essex boy in a West town

top grabbing a huge handful of lollies. With the latest Simply Red CD under his arm. Yeah, and a small Welsh boy over the time of his life. Though I have been to Little Chef, I can agree it was one of the most wonderful moments of my childhood, but it really did not happen much. My dad liked to save money. Part of the way he did that was by avoiding going to anywhere nice to eat, basically. Will Barron It really does, because obviously they're no longer with us, but they were hugely popular at one point. So it just shows how people's

tastes have changed. Will Barron Well, I can take you through the full story and quite how popular they were right now. So to start with, I need to take you back to 1958. This is where the start of the Little Chef story begins when an Essex-born caravan designer called Sam Alper, there you are, one of your lot, so... I just think a lot of the Little Chef story now makes sense. That one thing you've just said. Well, it wasn't just him. He also had a business partner named Peter Merchant and they came

up with, I think we can agree, one of the true staples of late 20th century British culture, the Little Chef restaurant chain, complete with its signature Fat Charlie logo. That's what it's called, I did not know that. Fat Charlie, the little guy you see on the Little Chef sign. Now Sam and Peter open their first ever branch in a Reading car park. It's all glamour this story. It's all glamour. Complete with, and I think this doesn't show massive faith in the restaurant, complete with 11 seats. So, nothing scream would get to be massive, does it? That's one way of increasing demand. Scarcity.

Yes. We've only got 11 seats. If you're a football manager looking to treat your first 11 at the end of the season but none of the substitutes, it was the person that placed the two. 11 seats. But this concept, it wasn't like it just sprung from nowhere. The idea had come to Alper when he'd been travelling in the United States and had seen numerous prefabricated roadside diners, most notably, and I think this is probably where he got the idea from, most notably the Little Chef Diner in Oklahoma.

Oh wow! So when did he come up with the idea for the Little Chef? Was it when you went to a Little Chef Diner? Yeah, that's where I had them. That's where I first had the idea for a Little Chef diner, when I went to a Little Chef diner. That must happen a lot, I think. Especially then, when travel to the US was much less common. People would go over and they'd see stuff and they'd think, I'll just do an English version. No one's going to find out. Yeah, yeah, completely. Well, at this point, these prefab diners in America were already really quite popular. They were first created by a guy called Arthur Hoyt, Arthur Hoyt Valentine

actually to give his full name, in the 1930s. They were mass manufactured in Wichita in Kansas after the war and then were installed all along the new interstate highway network, which was then under construction. In fact, still many of them survive along Route 66 today. There were 12, just to give you the details of this, there were 12 prefab models in this catalogue. This is Arthur Hoyt's Valentine release. The most popular was called the Little Chef and retailed for around $3,300 and they could be ordered and then shipped from Kansas to the location of your choice by lorry. I love the idea that you could just ring up and order a shop.

I'll have that restaurant and then that restaurant would just be delivered to you wherever you were on the highway. It's crazy, isn't it? Yeah, I love this shop. It's so quirky. It's so unique, so individual. I ordered it on a lorry and it's exactly the same as another one about four miles away. So Sam Alpert, he's traveling America. He sees these prefab diners and he thinks the idea is brilliant. And he thinks this idea will go down a storm in Britain. He comes back home, he sets up this one in Reading. But to begin with,

growth generally was quite slow for the little chef. By 1965, there were only 12 outlets. So that's like seven, eight years it's been open, only 12 outlets then. 26 by 1968, 44 by 1970. them 26 by 1968, 44 by 1970. But it's from that point on that growth starts to sort of game pace. By 72, there were over 100 little chefs across Britain. By 1980, 171. By 1994, there were over 350 in business. And by that point, he'd evened. I think, bearing in mind, I think we can agree France is probably the home of food classically, especially with this classic traditional cooking. He opened to in a place called Thierry and Saint-Champ, but they did not last very long and were closed by 1976. I love the idea of going to France and going to a little chef. A petite chef.

Exactly. What are you doing? Literally the home of food. Don't go to a little chef. But key to its success in Britain, as you discussed earlier, were certain iconic menu choices. Now, how many of these do you remember? Let's take you through these. Do you remember the early starter breakfast? Remember that? Yes. So that was one of their earliest breakfasts. That was a steak off in the 1960s. Do you remember the Jubilee pancake? Yes. I never had a Jubilee pancake.

I love that you know all this, Al. This is so great. Yeah, I never had a Jubilee pancake. It used to come with cream. It did. Well, it was introduced to the menu in 1977 to mark Queen Elizabeth II's silver Jubilee. I'm sure she was absolutely delighted. I wonder if she knew. I can't imagine the Queen eating her little chef. She'd get one for free. That was the thing. If she ever went to a little chef she'd just point at her face and go, it's going to have one of the Elizabeths. It was made up of a large crepe, cherry compote and a slab of vanilla ice cream. That's what the Jubilee pancake

was. The most famous of all? The Olympic breakfast, which Scarlett mentioned, didn't you? Yeah, too big. And the Olympic burger. Do you know where did the Olympic breakfast come from?al I think you mentioned didn't you? Yeah, too big. And the Olympic burger. Do you know where did the Olympic breakfast come from? What was the idea behind it? Why did it launch? Because all Olympic athletes would eat it before achieving gold in whatever major sporting event they were participating in. It was launched in 1994 to celebrate the Winter Olympics in Lillehammer, Norway.

Alright. So it actually was supposed to be a celebration of the Winter Olympics. This massive full English you could buy. And finally, you thought it was called the Olympic burger. It's not called Olympic burger, Alf. It's called the Big Seven Burger. The Big Seven. It was named because the patty was seven inches in diameter. Oh, yeah, and it used to flop out of the bread.

Did it? It was wider than the bread. There you go. But do you know what was particularly unusual about this burger? Not just the size. What happened when you ate that burger? If you finish off the Big Seven burger, what would happen? Will Barron You became really handsome. Neil Milliken Well, if you like a badge, if having a badge that says I beat the Big Seven makes you handsome, that's what would happen. They would give

you a badge to say you've beaten the Big Seven. Or, and I love this, I didn't even know this was a thing, if you fail to eat the Big 7 burger, they give you a badge that said the Big 7 beat me. Aren't those things just supposed to be celebrations of people who've achieved it? You're supposed to get something going, you absolute loser. I was never allowed that, I think, because my mother said it was too big and it would be wasteful. But I've never really got in for those eating challenges. There's the famous picture of Pete Doherty outside Greasy Spoon in markets. And the size of the breakfast he's eaten, it is absolutely colossal. It is inhuman.

It's the plate. I've only seen a plate that size at weddings and it's housing like 50 volvons. It's like a platter. It's not the plate. They've only seen a plate that size at like weddings and it's housing like 50 volvons. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's like a platter. Yeah, yeah. It's not a plate. It's for feeding families and their loved ones. To be fair, I saw that picture and I thought, well, he's definitely off the heroin at least. But I've never, so I've never, I've never gone for a big, I'm not a, I don't have a big enough appetite to put myself up against, you know. I've never been on a leaderboard for eating curry or any of that sort of stuff, like some people.

Will Barron Well, do you know what? I think your mum is probably right to say that you couldn't complete the Big 7 burger. I think that's fair because you were a child. But there were some perks to going to the Little Chef as a child, as you discussed. I'll take you through some of them here. This is another reason that families love the Little Chef. Kids can receive fun packs made of crayons and materials for colouring in. Also special promotions involving anything from Lego to Thunderbird toys to smash hit CDs. You get all this stuff when you go in. And I can say this categorically to any restaurant owners that might be listening, if you want to attract families, just give

the kids some colouring crayons and something and we will keep coming to your restaurant. A menu that you can colour in? Yeah, what more do you want? I would say it's more important than the quality of the food to a pair of us. I don't know whose idea that was. I would like to shake that person by the hand. Absolutely. How did Little Chef fail? It's the greatest restaurant ever conceived.

You're making a very good point Chris. I'm failing to see any weaknesses. In the stove! It was expensive. It was too expensive for what it was I would say. Because I'd only ever worked with my dad I had no concept of the price. But also it's the captive market of being a roadside diner. So there's so few options. Yeah, you've got an excellent product and a constant flow of customers. Yeah.

This is the greatest business model ever conceived. Who got this wrong? How do you get this wrong from me? Because the little chef on the outskirts of Brecon is now a Starbucks. Ah, there's a little chef, or what used to be a little chef on the outskirts of Brecon is now a Starbucks. There's a little chef, or what used to be a little chef, on the way to Cardiff and Pontepri, that's now an Indian restaurant. So the buildings, and you always, because they all look the same, you can always tell that a building used to be a little chef. If you are seemingly, like myself and Chris,

little chef historians. I'm at a little chef historians. I think the phrase, you can always tell, you're right, El, has to be, you have to have an addendum to that point that if you're really, really into little chefs. If you're really into the little chef scene, you can always tell. Exactly. Yeah, I cough and spot them. So as you mentioned earlier, by the way, briefly, the big one, of course, is that kids will get a lollipop at the end, raspberry, orange or lemon flavours. There's a little side note to that, which is adults were able to have

one according to Pills Shelf, but they had to ask. I was thinking about how undignified that would be. Please, please let me have it. An adult at the end of the meal going, can I have a lollipop? No, I would just lie and go, oh, the kids, can I get a few for the kids at home? Yeah, yeah, yeah. If I'm on my way. That's the way to do it. So, at its very peak in 2000, Little Chef had 439 locations in the UK, mainly next to A-roads or N-roads in Ireland. They had some

in less expected locations. For example, they had a branch in the Royal Clarence Hotel in Bridgewater. They can't have done. Is it a nice hotel? Put it this way, it's got a Little Chef in it. That's all you need to know. And looking at it with modern eyes, although you guys love it, I think it's fair to say a lot of people would probably mock Little Chef now. Some have described it as existing in a world of post-war catering where even salad was adventurous. That's a quote from someone who's not a lover of Little Chef. However, there are reasons to praise it.

For example, it was one of the first places to offer veggie burger options, including Linda McCartney's patties on the menu from the 90s. Disability campaigners have noted it as a place that went above and beyond to accommodate people with disabilities when other restaurants really weren't at that time. However, by the mid 2000s, the business was in serious decline. And the reason, Chris, you asked, why has it failed, is because people were increasingly less willing to stop for a sit down meal mid-journey. And the reason, Chris, you asked why has it failed is because people are increasingly less willing to stop for a sit down meal mid-journey. Oh wow.

So people now want drive-throughs and pick up snacks from WH Smith or whatever happens to be in those places you can grab and go. I think the idea of stopping on a journey for a sit down meal really does feel like a thing of the past. I can say it's apparent when we're driving somewhere on holiday and we're driving for six hours, I can never see us sitting down for an hour long meal. We're like, let's just keep this going. Let's just grab some stuff, get some stuff from M&S, let's just keep this moving. In fact, half of the restaurants had gone by 2005 and it was all over by 2018. But a lovely final

point to this whole story, even after closing, this is so beautifully British and it's so lovely, the Little Chef website continued to operate, advertising restaurants that were no longer open causing huge confusion. So there's numerous reports of people driving to Little Chefs. I only find that no other place's appetizers are still open. So there you go. Do you know what? I've only been a couple of times, but I loved it. You guys are huge fans.

If it ever came back, I think there'd be a lot of happy people here in Britain. That is the story of the Little Chef. It's such a shame, like, what a sad indictment on the modern era that we've just become too busy. Our lives are too frenetic that no longer can we sit down and enjoy a Little Chef meal because we just need to get back in the car. Because we're too busy trying to make profit for UKPLC. Even on holiday. As the old guy in Shawshank Redemption says, Brooks, the world went and

got itself in a big old hurry. I'm just looking at pictures of Little Chef now. It's just so evocative. Yeah, it is. It takes me back to a period in my life like almost nothing else. One day I walked out of a Little Chef and I never walked in again. I can't really get my head around that. You know you get those sad, those sort of memes, it's like, you know, there was a time. One day you'll pick your child up for the last time. Yay! No one will call for you to ask you if you want to come'll pick your child up for the last time. Yay!

No one will call for you to ask you if you want to come out to play. It's the last time you ever went out on your bike with your friends. That's the last time you'll ever eat in a Little Chef, my son. Stop crying! Okay, so the Little Chef was replaced really

by quicker, faster, more convenient options in services. Now, everyone has stopped in the services because it's a necessity, isn't it? It's food and the toilet and petrol. Now, back in 1949, the Post War Labour Government passed the Special Roads Act, which paved the way for constructing in the 1950s,

Britain's first motorway, the M1. Now then, clause 10 of that legislation provided for the provision of service stations or other buildings or facilities to be used in connection with the construction of the special road or the use or maintenance thereof. Now initially they thought they'd be garages somewhere to get your tyre perms or an oil change. But Holliers said, listen, people are going to be unlikely to use any roads if there is nowhere to stop and rest. So somewhere along that line, he was pointing out to the Conservative government, which came along in 1951, that they can make a lot of money from roadside

restaurants and viewing areas, not to mention from rents charged to operating companies. Now, when I was a circuit stand up and I used to drive 20,000 miles a year, driving up and down the country, doing gigs all over the place, the amount of time I spent in service stations was, it just beggin' belief. I did, did either of you two do business studies GCSE?

No. No. Well, I did do business studies GCSE? No. No. Well, I did do business studies GCSE. Yes, I got an A, which is why I'm such a top businessman. Oh, yeah. My coursework was on service stations. Which is basically tiring to see. Yeah.

Then my coursework was on service stations. And the thing I remember from my coursework from when I did my GCSE almost 30 years ago was that they couldn't be destinations. So you don't go to service stations to sort of chill and to hang out. You wouldn't go on a date there. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So in the summer of 1958, five sites were identified along the course of the M1 as designated rest or service areas, including, they're the classics, Newport Pagnell and Watford

Gap. Gap. Also, I would say those two are the oldest looking service stations. They're ones now that I seek to avoid. They are, and they're the ones that for a long time comedians, it would be like the go-to service station reference. I remember Alan Partridge talking about Newport Pagnell and Watford Gap years and years ago. And Watford Gap is nowhere near where I live or where I grew up. So the first time I went to Watford Gap and Newport Paglil I remember being, oh, sort of...

I'm thinking it was like the Groucho Club because it's such a cultural touchstone. Oh, just like all the others, they've got a WH Smiths. I think one of the great joys in my life though is when you're driving down a road, a motorway you're not really particularly familiar with and you come up to one of those huge service station signs that tower and have loads of things on it. When you go, I found a good one. It's got an M&S, like the excitement of what's coming up. I love that feeling.

Will Barron I will always go Costa and M&S over Waitrose and Starbucks. Will Barron Interesting, yeah. I think M&S is the win, isn't it? Will Barron But this is a bit depressing, but I've taken the kind of lucky dip aspect out of choosing a service station. I will now research a service station to ensure I find one that's got all the things I want. And it's got like a kids play area or something. West Ham Club Shop.

Has your wife left you? Also, oh I'll tell you what I need. A charger that's going to stop working tomorrow. Yeah, wouldn't mind buying one of them. As soon as I bend it in any way. Yeah, one more one of those. Even a wire bend. So Newport Pagnell and Watford got the classics, the OGs, and the government sent up questionnaires to hundreds of companies, soliciting their views on the best locations, facilities they might offer, and what sort of regulations

would be required. They were also asked to vote on the list of five proposed locations. And Newport Pagnell was not in fact one of the top two. When the results were tallied, Redbourne and Watford Gap were the winners when at either end of the motorway. You see I'm not sure I agree with that. For instance, Heston Services which is just after or just before London depending on which way you're going. I was thinking if you're stopping at Heston, something's gone wrong. So when I grew up, come on then, Pont-Ambrahm is the closest services, which is sort of 15 miles away. You're not stopping there. It's too close. Yeah, but pointless.

Yeah, you know, you've got to get into your journey, surely. I've always kind of loved service stations because Because they're 24 hours, they have this kind of otherworldly feel to them. Like they never stop. Service stations are what I imagine Tokyo to be like, or a metropolis. There's always something happening in a service station. Certainly, it's like they're great venues or locations for a sixth form media project where you've got to make a film. Jason Vale We have an issue when we travel up to North Norfolk to see my wife's mum that there's a really good one but it's too early in the journey to stop. So, what happens we go past it, we just go to a much worse one, which is a more respectable

point to stop on the journey. Yeah, yeah. And also the old Heston Pontabram phenomenon, obviously if you need the toilet or if you've got kids, that's why you're stopping. But I always think with Heston, because the sort of food on offer isn't great, with other services further on the M4, they know what they are. It's the toilet. People need the toilet. That's never going to change. They know what they are. My favourite service station stop of the year, and I've done this a few times with Ukraine, is the service station stop after Glastonbury, where you're about halfway back to London and you'll stop, you're pulling and there'll be a McDonald's or a

Burger King and you walk in, there's 50,000 sunburned zombies and you weave your way through them and you eat cuisine like you haven't eaten properly for a year. Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah. But I think Tom and I spent, I think it was like just the two of us and maybe our wives, like we once spent like almost a hundred pounds on McDonald's. Yeah, yeah.

One of the great days. Yeah. So as I said, Newport Parkland wasn't one of the top two. It was the government which added Newport Parkland halfway along the new road as a just in case with services limited to petrol pumps. Then the public got involved and objections to the Redborne services were so loud

that the scheme was abandoned. So by the spring of 1959, with the first section of motorway nearing completion, it opened on the 2nd of November, 1959, contract tenders to run the two service areas, Newport Parnell and Watford Gap were issued, with the competition eventually won respectively by Motorway Services Limited,

a combination of Blue Star Garages and Fortes, and Blue Boar Motorway Limited. The latter had a garage at Daventry, which made their bid for Watford Gap more attractive. So these initial services were built in a panic. Ah! And they were a little more than a toilet block and a set of petrol pumps.

So full operations didn't begin till the following year with the opening of the restaurants at Newport Pagnell's Grill and Griddle Cafe open northbound on the 17th of August 1960 and southbound on the 13th of September and set the standard for all services going forward, which was hardly a high standard. Yeah. Can I just can I just add something there? Yeah. When you stop at a service station and they've got their own brand like in-house restaurant, like unbranded, I avoid that like the plague when they're

offering like a breakfast and it's just, I want a brand. That's more of an A-road thing I would say than a motorway thing. You don't get that with Road Chef and Moto as much. Tell you what, what's amazing when you consider what food used to be like, the chopsticks noodle bar option you get in some motorway services now, where you can have like sushi and stuff if you want. Yeah, that's mad. There's a great documentary called Home and Away and it's about Liverpool and Everton fans

going down to London for the 1984 Milk Cup final, which was the first all Merseyside final at Wembley. Love it, it's fantastic. And on the way down, they're all coming down on coaches, on buses, mini buses and stuff. It shows them all eating in a service station. So this would be, you know, when's the League Cup final, so around March time.

It's like March or April 1984. It looks absolutely disgusting. But you know, I was around then. I would have been eating in services then, going on holiday. It just looks so grim. And when you think that, chopsticks or the chosen noodle that you get in some road chefs, I mean, my God! I mean, the wealth, the choice, cost her! Incredible! Incredible scenes! So, but it was the Newport Pagnell grill and griddle. I remember the Julie's pantry stage, but they're sadly no longer with it. So, in 1962, an architect complained that Newport

Pagnell's services were a jumble. So Watford Gap's equivalents, known as Top Grill and Top Tray, opened on the 13th of September and 1st of October and Newport Pagdell gained a hotel in 1971. Tray. Tray is such a sexy word to stick into your little restaurant name. Nothing's as great for you like Tray. Yeah, and kick-started the industry's motel experiments. So with a background in catering, notably milk bars, which we discussed on a previous episode, Fortes were quick to adapt to the demands of the multi-way restaurant

and push the boundaries of regulation as much as possible. They envisaged fine dining and so applied for alcohol licenses. Can you imagine that? Wow. But they were turned down. As magistrates sensibly realized, obviously drink driving is something you can't encourage.

So Fortes complained that fine dining would never take off, but eventually created a non-alcoholic wine to serve to customers. Wow! Not that fine dining lasted very long as a concept. Soon enough the restaurant turned into something more like a transport cafe, four meika tables, beans on toast, 28 pence or two pounds, as it would be these days, accounting for inflation. So it was not very glamorous, but it could have been worse. Over at Watford Gap they used disposable cutlery, polystyrene cups,

there was a 2p charge for paper towels in the toilets. Come on! Come on! You don't need that 2p! Customers were outraged, so the Ministry of Transport was soon bombarded with complaints, including examples of offending items. But disposable cutlery was useful given the number of thefts. Once there was air in the M6 hundreds of teaspoons were nicked every week. Wow! Another it was as many as seven and a half thousand in seven months. What? That's amazing.

Now one can see the point of stealing a spoon but the people were nicking the lavatory chains. What? So a junior minister put it in parliament, I don't know what anybody wants with a thousand yards of lavatory trains. That's amazing. So by the time the third service area opened at Stensham on the M5 South Worcester in the summer of 1962, problems had already set in the model. The food was bad, facilities were unevenly balanced, too few toilets, too much space, satisfied with catering. Because obviously in those days, the vast, vast majority of people going on long motorway

drives would have been taking their own sandwiches. So what they really needed was toilets, not a place for fine dining. You're not getting a babysitter to go out to the service station. Now one MP committed himself to visiting every motorway restaurant in the country in 1966. That I would argue is a thankless task. Well say that again. An MP, his challenge was to visit everyone.

Motorway restaurant in the country in 1966. A thankless task. What for, like, comic relief or something? What if I've said what? I suppose. I suppose we're only going to have one restaurant per service station. It's not like now. You'd have to go to the KFC, the Burger King, you're like, that's just one. You've got to buy a sandwich and do a bit of Smiths. If he's your MP, I'd be thinking, can you just focus more on the potholes and the general issues and the area where you're on? Can you do your constituency work, please?

Exactly. Don't get me wrong, it's fun, but it's maybe not the time for you to be doing that. Now, this is something he said in Parliament. Honourable Members are often called upon to perform unusual tasks on behalf of the electorate, he told the Commons, but this task of travelling and eating sausage rolls and drinking cups of tea every 20 miles is not the pleasantest of them. Now, remarkably, given they're now out of town feel, motorway services are still being built.

They're improving like Teabay, Gloucester Gate are amazing places. So the newest opened at Rodhram in January 2025. The most northerly services are located at Kinross in Scotland on the M90, and opened there in 1982. Five guys have started coming into the mail. That's a real step. I went to a five guys about a month ago.

The westernmost service area is Pont Arbram near Swansea. There isn't one in Carmarthenshire. We're not trusted with these things, where the M4 literally just ends at Pont Arbram. That opened on the 17th of June 1983, later praised for a lack of traffic noise. Exeter Services, Britain's southernmost services, opened in 1977 at the end point of the M5. Focus on the M20 provides the easternmost area, opened in 2008 with only the Channelton to follow. So companies and planners may have envisaged comfortable spaces for which to take a break from the demands of driving, a glimpse of the new Britain heading off

into post-war prosperity, maybe with a sit down meal and a glass of wine, incredibly, but instead the services were overwhelmed by massive traffic and anti-social behavior, and they eventually, they became what they are today, slightly unloved fixtures, with so many different types of people. You've got coach parties, lorry drivers,

families with little kids. You know, they're not what I think what people envisage them to be, but the three of us have children. As an adult on your own, you want to get in and out with kids. We're often there for ages. I remember we drove, I drove to Derbyshire with my family and John Robinson in the car and he was absolutely staggered at how long we spent in the services. But once you've changed kids and you've got to sit them down to week... And they've sat in the little Peppa Pig thing that rocks back and forward for two minutes. You're there for an hour. Yeah, exactly.

And our kids were very little at the time so we were using muslins. I remember saying to Izzy, we're the muslins. And John was like, you're not making jam. Service station on the M5 or whatever it is. On the M1, what are you doing? But yeah, services. Where would we be without them though? Because when you need to go, you need to go. I'd like to quickly submit, I actually quite like a service station, I have a fondness for them. The weirder, conurbational, whatever you want to call it, out of town group of buildings is the, driving along, you'll see out the window, suddenly a bowling alley, an Odeon cinema, a TGI Fridays and a Pets for Home. You know those things? Like, just like in the middle of nowhere,

this thing exists and everyone goes there on a Friday night. What is that and why do they exist? Newport, Newport Roads in Cardiff has it. Yes. Yeah. That, if that is the future, kill me now. One more utterly bewildering thing that happens in service stations, you ever go in and there's like an over 18 arcade section with gambling machines, with like Las Vegas lighting, and there's often 20 machines in there, and I have never in my life seen anyone in those places. But if your kid wanders in they get told off, you're like, what do you think is going to happen? They're attracted by the lights, not gambling.

He's four years of age. Well, that's it for this week. And Motoring, thank you for listening. But don't forget, if you want even more, Oh, What A Time, you can enjoy some bonus episodes right now. We have an archive that is jam-packed full of bonus episodes. We do two every month.

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