Well-travelled

All of Britain's motorway network has been built in my lifetime. I can just about remember when motorways were exciting symbols of progress and modernity; when service stations were interesting enough to be a destination; when it was assumed that the impact on nearby towns would be a reduction in 'through' traffic and a return to the imagined tranquility and stability of the inter-war years

It was a brief honeymoon. By the time we were newly-weds in our late twenties, the opposition to the London to Birmingham M40 was considerable. A few years later our primary school children came with us to visit encampments of protesters against the M3 extension to the south coast, engaged in the Battle of Twyford Down. The hard truth that more roads create more traffic, and that a nearby motorway utterly transforms a town socially, commercially, and structurally - which they made such a good job of bringing into public debate - took a while to sink in

This tin surfaced during the recent house-move of MrsM's brother. He had a bike, but not during the era when someone would have thought that 'Motorway' was a smart brand name. Perhaps this tin was an inheritance from their father. The empty, double-negative, non-inflamable rubber solution suggests it has been used. The small wire-brush, with razor-sharp bristles, is a borderline offensive weapon - I don't think you would get it through modern health and safety checks

These days we avoid motorways a lot of the time; not because I'm worried about driving on them, but because - on many journeys - I don't consider the benefit of the time saved outweighs the downside risk of long delays in more-or-less stationary traffic. The calculus changes on journeys of many hundreds of miles, of course but, where it is feasible, I enjoy the old roads and the greater engagement they offer with the country we are travelling through