Thread: The Road West.
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Old 15th June 2018, 23:04
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Location: Paignton. Devon.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Tony Selman View Post
"The first summer that we drove from the Eastern side of London down to South Devon was in 1968." I was at sea then but for a good few years prior to that it was the day of the infamous Exeter by pass traffic jam. Most people came down via the A30/303 or the A38 to get past Exeter and into Devon and Cornwall. On summer Saturdays there used to be a monumental jam as the traffic filtered into each other and then tried to get over the single track bridge over the River Exe. You could be there for hours. The hub of the problem was a place called Countess Wear roundabout and a friend and I used to go out there and offer to take motorists via an alternative route via the back roads through Exeter to get over the river and onwards to wherever. We charged the princely sum of half a crown which was a decent sum when you were in your early teens in the late 50's and then used to get the bus back for 2d or something similar and start all over again. I think I earned £2 one day. One particularly grateful Jaguar driver gave me ten bob which was an absolute fortune. Most people pass at 80mph on the M5 these days.
Thanks for the memories Tony. We also got stuck on the Exeter bypass on the way home that year, and parked on the grass verge and got the Primus stove and kettle out and brewed up! Once the traffic had cleared a bit, around mid afternoon, we got going again. There was a queue of cars ahead and astern, and after dark nothing but red tail lights ahead of us. We eventually got home around midnight. The Countess Wear bridge and roundabout were a bottleneck for years, but the other challenge for cars heading West was Telegraph Hill. More than a few overheated on that climb!
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