Picture: © Press Association

Roadworks on the M1 near Northampton in 1965, when hold-ups like this were even more of a pain than today. No mobile phones to tell Auntie Flo you’d be late, while all the time your temperature gauge needle crept menacingly towards ‘H’...

Thermostatic fans, now taken for granted and able to spin much faster than an engine-driven equivalent on tickover, were a luxury accessory in those days. So we see cars as recent as a four-year-old Austin A55 Farina and two-year-old Anglia 105E on the hard shoulder with bonnets open, waiting to cool down. Other disabled Fords behind include another Anglia saloon, a 307E van and a distant MkIII Zephyr 4. Yet two ‘oldies’ in the centre lane are still going strong: a mid-Fifties Humber Hawk and further back, an Austin Sheerline.

Meanwhile, the rest of the pack, led by the Bedford TK horsebox, inches southwards, followed by a 1962 Ford Classic, Peugeot 404, Mini van, Austin A60, 1961 Jaguar MkIX, Thames Trader and an MG Magnette MkIV dwarfed by the high-riding four-wheel-drive Bedford behind.

The wheel angle of the BMC 1100 alongside this truck suggests a brave attempt to change lanes, but cars are so tightly packed on the outside behind Dolman’s new Thames Trader, that it’s hardly worth it. So stay behind that Victor 101 estate and be patient, Jim.

No breakdowns as yet on M1 northbound, where traffic’s down to one lane as it files past the police Humber estate.