The days before roads had numbers

Nice car there. I had one like it in the 1960s. Not that much like it, as I think this is a Rolls Royce. But it was that sort of shape with a long bonnet, running boards and headlights on top of the mudguards. My local garage asked if I was interested in a 1936 Austin Ascot, the one previous owner being the wife of Major General Clutterbuck. And then we found, cruising at a steady 40mph, she made a clutterbuckclutterbuck noise. So that's what we called her.

She had a black roof and a caramel body, and you can sometimes see her (or her twin) on episodes of Poirot. She had window blinds in the back, with a cord for the chauffeur to operate the one over the rear window. On hot days the windscreen could be cranked up horizontal, turning a handle to make a length of bicycle chain push it up. (Never drive with your mouth open, then, in case something flies in.)

Anyway,  this is really about the extra. These days, we drive up the M-thingummy, down the A-whatsit, then turn off onto the B-fournumbers. In those days pre-WWII you just used a map and relied on signposts, or asked the regulation useful farm worker with regulation straw in mouth.

Now look at the map. No Kessock suspension bridge across the Beauly Firth from Inverness. No bridge across the Cromarty Firth by Dingwall. No A9 dual carriageway across the Black Isle. Ferries still running to get you across the Firths.

And if, on a long journey, you thought "blow this for a game of soldiers, I've had enough for one day", plenty of small hotels for you to stop on a whim and get a room for the night. Mrs Oons still talks about the best ever cranachan she had as a very small girl, one night in Carrbridge. But that's another story.