Stuck in Traffic

It's a bank holiday, so I've been doing bugger all and can't really be bothered to come up with a proper post.  So, here's a reminder of those Easter bank holiday weekends of yore, when everyone used to pile into their cars and head for the South West of England, but ended up stuck in interminable traffic jams.  I remember many similar situations from my own childhood.  Back in the sixties and seventies our motorway network was still in its infancy (especially here in the South), so many journeys still had to be made on the old A roads, often driving through the centres of busy towns and cities, (bypasses were also a thing of the future back then). 

For many, many years, Easter and Christmas inevitably meant long car journeys to stay with relatives (not necessarily in the South West) - it got to the stage that I dreaded both holiday seasons.  It's probably the reason that, as an adult, I've always tried to avoid driving anywhere at those times of year.  While other kids were happily sat at home enjoying holiday TV programmes, I was stuck in the back seat of my father's car with an annoying younger sibling.  Still, at least the car didn't break down on those trips.  Some of my earliest memories are of my father's old Ford Consul conking out during days out in the New Forest and having to be towed back home behind my Uncle's tow truck, (he ran a garage).  The bloody thing did that with monotonous regularity.  I lost track of the number of days out it ruined - days when I could, like any other kid, have been at home watching summer holiday TV programmes, but was instead jammed into the back seat of a Ford Consul with several older siblings.  Holidays, eh?