tdk
Part of things
Posts: 958 
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I thought this might be of interest to some people on here. I hope so, anyway... In the 1960s there were approximately 40000 filling stations operating in the UK. Today there are fewer than 8000. I was driving past a local oddity, a place that had stood for donkeys years, and noticed a JCB with an arm poised to pull down a four star slice of history. I then realised that many of these old, odd, interesting, obscure and abandoned garages needed photographing and documenting. I got a few pictures from various locations and sourced a few more from like-minded people, and, before I knew it I had enough for a book that a publisher was excited about. As I worked on the book research found many more interesting places, such as empty old Ferrari dealerships, a derelict Perodua garage, places with rotting, abandoned cars and others with interesting forecourts. Some hanging on, some being redeveloped and others who have reinvented themselves as destinations for fans of petroliana. I loved finding out the back stories of places which has served four star down the generations. I clocked up 1000s of miles, roadtripping around the UK to get stories and pictures. I chatted for half a day with a man who sold new Saabs in the '70s, in the same building he works in today, servicing chainsaws. I got bitten by an Alsatian. I got shouted at in Welsh. I wrote up the story of the man who designed that weird Little Chef at Markham Moor and bought a Lotus with his fee (the same man who hit his head crash landing on an aircraft carrier and went nuts on concrete designs). I told the story National's "toxic smurfs" and the Elf 'oil sniffer' scandal. And the story of the Murco 'cats bum' logo. And lots of pictures of filling stations, rusty pumps and interesting workshops. And a Lada Samara that has stood in an empty, dusty showroom for decades, forgotten by all. I ended up with c.450 locations and a book of 1000 pages. Then the publisher went bust, and I decided to self-publish it. I broke it down into regional editions to keep the size and costs down. There are links to them, below, on Amazon. Midlands and north of England edition
South East England edition
South West England edition
Wales edition
Scotland edition is WIP, bear with me.. I hope this tickles your fancy. As a self-published thing with no publicity budget I am reliant on word of mouth, the internet and people mentioning it to the christmas fairy.  |
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I've often wondered why there are so few filling stations these days when there are more cars than ever before.
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Probably because the big players have pushed out/bought out the smaller outfits to control the market
Cynical? Me?🤫
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Told the Xmas fairy I want !!
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Fraud owners club member
1999 Jaguar s type
1993 ford escort
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Dez
Club Retro Rides Member
And I won't sit down. And I won't shut up. And most of all I will not grow up.
Posts: 11,690
Club RR Member Number: 34
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I love markham moor little chef.
I’ve never actually been in it, but my family live about 10 miles north of it so it was always a ‘nearly home’ marker. So glad they resurfaced the roof a few years back rather than binning it.
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I know the history of the Murco Spur logo but I've never heard of the 'Cat's Bum'. Pray enlighten me. I always looked out for the Markham Moor service station on our tedious journeys on the Great North Road in the 50's and 60's. I think it was a Mobil site.
Edit: Good to see it's now listed, so presumably it has survived the ravages of Little Chef/Happy Eater? I haven't travelled that section of the Great North Road since about 1970.
The number of service stations declined for the same reason as corner shops - the abolition of Retail Price Maintenance and the introduction of price competition. Only the largest most cost-efficient operators survived. Then the Supermarkets started using fuel as a loss leader to attract footfall. Other changes included the increasing size of car fuel tanks, their reducing oil consumption and evaporation of cooling water so the practical range increased from barely 50 miles to over 300 miles! |
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Last Edit: Dec 2, 2020 18:19:15 GMT by theoldman
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Anyone remember the ‘blue star’ ? (I think ?)
Was the old Bawtry roundabout, bit further up
from markham ?
Going back to the early ‘80’s now. Left to Gainsborough going south.
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I've often wondered why there are so few filling stations these days when there are more cars than ever before. I suspect tighter, perhaps excessively tight, environmental regulations have a lot to do with this. It has in many cases become prohibitively expensive to replace the underground storage tanks when they reach the end of their useful life. This means that the country store loses it's fuel supply and the small independent service station becomes workshop only or just closes. Disclaimer; this is in New Zealand but I'd be surprised if the UK situation is vastly different. |
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Just my sort of thing. Years ago I worked in a very old fashioned, family owned and independent petrol station/garage for a few years and I'm always sad when I see another of the very few left closing down. Just like shops etc, cost and regulation meant that running one became unviable and all that remain in most cases are the large chain run places.
There used to be a plethora of filling stations where I grew up, ranging from larger chain stuff like Texaco/Esso etc to tiny independent places with two pumps. Now, depending on where you live, you have to travel miles to find a petrol station.
I also remember when the most you'd be able to buy from the 'shop' was a chocolate bar, some fags, a Feu Orange and a fan belt ... because it was a petrol station. Now you can do your weekly shop and get a coffee, whilst blocking the pumps and causing a massive queue because everyone has to use the same petrol station/mini-supermarket as it's the only one within a five mile radius.
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Seriously cool idea, well done, and yes, will deffo be putting an order in hopefully via my local bookshop as can't stand Amazon.
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Dez
Club Retro Rides Member
And I won't sit down. And I won't shut up. And most of all I will not grow up.
Posts: 11,690
Club RR Member Number: 34
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Anyone remember the ‘blue star’ ? (I think ?) Was the old Bawtry roundabout, bit further up from markham ? Going back to the early ‘80’s now. Left to Gainsborough going south. That’s very much my patch, I grew up a mile or two away. I think i got my first police attention at the current blyth serives in my old type 4 engined VW fastback 😂 The roundabout was actually called Blyth roundabout, then you went a couple miles up the road and turned off a Bawtry to get to Gainsborough. I don’t remember anything being where the interwebs said blue star was, it says it was the opposite side of the carriageway to where the current services are. , seems it was out of action by the time I was born. The whole area has gone under a lot of development over the last couple of years, they’re building a whole village ‘harworth south’ in the triangle between the A1, the a614, and the old glass bulbs site/pit tip to the north. What this means to normal people is there’s now a KFC... |
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tdk
Part of things
Posts: 958
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Seriously cool idea, well done, and yes, will deffo be putting an order in hopefully via my local bookshop as can't stand Amazon. Thank you so much. I can't stand Amazon either, but that's the only place I could sell it as it's a self-published series of books, supplied as print on demand. I would love to get it into bookshops, I love bookshops, the smell, the weight feel of paper (hence there's no digital version of the book) but find me one who will stock my books... |
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tdk
Part of things
Posts: 958
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Just my sort of thing. Years ago I worked in a very old fashioned, family owned and independent petrol station/garage for a few years and I'm always sad when I see another of the very few left closing down. Thanks. My first job was as a cleaner in an old filling station. After I'd been there a week or two, the cocky manager approached me and said " you'll never be as successful as me unless you take a pride in your work". I was stood in a puddle of truckers p*ss, picking pubes up. He was wearing grey, plastic slip-on shoes and had a badge with his name on, pinned to his polyester shirt. I quit soon after. I love the forgotten places. In the book I visited one place last year, filled up, and bought a chocolate bar. When I get to the car I see it looks like a Snickers, but the packet said Marathon. It has not been Marathon since 1990... I have a Google map of all 450 locations marked. I don't think I should share it as I don't want to encourage Urbex/trespassing, and many have rare old signs and rusty cars around that oiks might steal. But I'd like to find a way to share all this research with those who at least buy a copy of one of the books. It's a ton of work. |
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fogey
Posted a lot
Posts: 1,556
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Seriously cool idea, well done, and yes, will deffo be putting an order in hopefully via my local bookshop as can't stand Amazon. Thank you so much. I can't stand Amazon either, but that's the only place I could sell it as it's a self-published series of books, supplied as print on demand. I would love to get it into bookshops, I love bookshops, the smell, the weight feel of paper (hence there's no digital version of the book) but find me one who will stock my books... Can you not do mail order from this site? (assuming that's within the site rules of course?) |
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Just my sort of thing. Years ago I worked in a very old fashioned, family owned and independent petrol station/garage for a few years and I'm always sad when I see another of the very few left closing down. Thanks. My first job was as a cleaner in an old filling station. After I'd been there a week or two, the cocky manager approached me and said " you'll never be as successful as me unless you take a pride in your work". I was stood in a puddle of truckers p*ss, picking pubes up. He was wearing grey, plastic slip-on shoes and had a badge with his name on, pinned to his polyester shirt. I quit soon after. I love the forgotten places. In the book I visited one place last year, filled up, and bought a chocolate bar. When I get to the car I see it looks like a Snickers, but the packet said Marathon. It has not been Marathon since 1990... I have a Google map of all 450 locations marked. I don't think I should share it as I don't want to encourage Urbex/trespassing, and many have rare old signs and rusty cars around that oiks might steal. But I'd like to find a way to share all this research with those who at least buy a copy of one of the books. It's a ton of work. Your p*ss story just made me spit out my tea  The place I used to work in was dilapidated really and I recall finding all sorts of stuff, rather like your Marathon bar in boxes and cupboards in buildings all over what was a fairly large site. Several years after I left it ceased to be a filling station and is now just a garage with the existing buildings converted into units on the land at the back. Hidden in a hedge at the far end of the site was a lovely old 30s pump, similar to the one below. It had patina but was in pretty solid condition. I always used to, half jokingly, say to the owner that when the garage closed I'd buy it off him.  Sadly I lost touch with the place over the years and heard that the pump, along with all the other 'old tat' was just chucked in a skip. |
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tdk
Part of things
Posts: 958
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Thank you so much. I can't stand Amazon either, but that's the only place I could sell it as it's a self-published series of books, supplied as print on demand. I would love to get it into bookshops, I love bookshops, the smell, the weight feel of paper (hence there's no digital version of the book) but find me one who will stock my books... Can you not do mail order from this site? (assuming that's within the site rules of course?) The book is printed by Amazon. It's print on demand, I do not hold any stock at all. Soz. |
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Anyone remember the ‘blue star’ ? (I think ?) Was the old Bawtry roundabout, bit further up from markham ? Going back to the early ‘80’s now. Left to Gainsborough going south. That’s very much my patch, I grew up a mile or two away. I think i got my first police attention at the current blyth serives in my old type 4 engined VW fastback 😂 The roundabout was actually called Blyth roundabout, then you went a couple miles up the road and turned off a Bawtry to get to Gainsborough. I don’t remember anything being where the interwebs said blue star was, it says it was the opposite side of the carriageway to where the current services are. , seems it was out of action by the time I was born. The whole area has gone under a lot of development over the last couple of years, they’re building a whole village ‘harworth south’ in the triangle between the A1, the a614, and the old glass bulbs site/pit tip to the north. What this meansi to normal people is there’s now a KFC... Yes, was the opposite side from the new services there. Don’t think it lasted much longer into the ‘80’s. Have seen all the work they’ve done around there as I used to be up that way visiting family. It had a big blue star on the roof so was a popular landmark for anyone using the roads at the time. |
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awoo
Posted a lot
Posts: 1,500
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my flat is one of two in a big detached 1930s building that used to be a petrol station, nothing of the petrol station remains other than the tanks under the front of the building and the breather pipes running up my side wall. I love that they're there still though, just as a little artefact.
will look in to the south east one for my dad. don't suppose it covers London does it?
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I love the forgotten places. In the book I visited one place last year, filled up, and bought a chocolate bar. When I get to the car I see it looks like a Snickers, but the packet said Marathon. It has not been Marathon since 1990... I had to be a harbinger of doom but snickers did a retro re-run of marathons last year for a limited edition. I know because I bought some and kept the wrappers so I can make a bar out of resin and sit on my dashboard for shows. www.southwalesargus.co.uk/news/18644936.marathon-chocolate-bar-back-supermarkets-30-yearsGood luck with the book though it's right up my street. |
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tdk
Part of things
Posts: 958
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will look in to the south east one for my dad. don't suppose it covers London does it? Yes it does. South East covers East Anglia, Essex, Kent, London, home counties, Oxfordshire, Hants, etc. It's the biggest edition of all the books. The ugliest, and the coolest, of all sites featured are in London. |
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Last Edit: Dec 3, 2020 16:13:44 GMT by tdk
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