This image is not some wry comment on the price of petrol following the British Budget announcement which will take place later today. It is, in fact, one of the few photographs I was able to find of me working! Dating from some 45 years ago, when I was working as a petrol pump attendant (and when petrol was 25 pence a gallon), the photograph was taken by my brother Roger after he had just called into the filling station asking for his petrol lighter refilling!
I am using the picture to try and explain my comparative absence this week : I am working! Not the kind of work, I hasten to add, that provides you with a fat pay packet at the end of the week or stimulation for your over-addled brain, The kind of work that involves chauffeuring The Lad to and from his current placement at the local hospital, and chauffeuring the GLW to and from the shops during her week off work.
So my apologies for my absence, normal service will, I hope, return very soon. And the way the price of petrol is going at the moment (even before the budget, prices have climbed to about £6 per gallon) it might be that I will have to resign from my role of chauffeur and buy both The Lad and the GLW a bicycle each.
When I passed my driving test, I think I was paying 35p a gallon. Now it costs me £50 to fill the tank...gulp!
ReplyDeleteWere you were trying to squeeze out the last drop?
ReplyDeleteI'm glad my chauffeuring days are over. I practically lived in the car for two decades. The bicycle idea sounds like an excellent one, considering your ridiculous price of gas. I've been thinking $2.90 was bad!
ReplyDeleteWe were thinking, just the other day, that when my wife first passed her driving test in 1966, we went for a drive to Matlock Bath in Derbyshire in our little grey, Morris Minor to celebrate. When we filled up with petrol it was 4/6d a gallon (that's the old 'real' money, of course). Now, it costs us £50 for a fill - unfortunately, not in a Morris Minor. Can't quite believe it, really.
ReplyDeleteI always find when I have to drive a lot during the day that I get really sleepy. Hopefully that won't happen to you! ; ) Here's to lower gas prices.
ReplyDeleteOH YES! It is ridiculous the prices of the petrol! We will all be bicycling soon.
ReplyDeleteI love the photograph...you look a bit like a mad scientist trying to fill up that lighter! ;)
what you don't earn in monetary pay is more than offset in quality time with two of your favorite people!!
ReplyDeletewishing you safe chauffeuring!
Sounds like us, its going through the roof but at least it makes me think about whether I should drive or walk to the shops. Ah I remember pump attendants! I was terrified he first time I had to put petrol in myself. Nothing to fear but fear itself it seems.
ReplyDeleteCute photo, AB...That would have been the era in which my mother owned a Corvair, the car that made Ralph Nader famous as an attorney and consumer advocate. Fortunately, we never faced a situation in which it was believed unsafe...She got decent gas mileage and drove well, so my mother never worried. I take the bus and still worry, not that it does any good, mind you.
ReplyDeleteOh, another thing we have in common! I had a Saturday job in my local Esso petrol station when I was still at school. They made me wear a little blue mini-dress with an Esso badge. Since in those days we still actually served the petrol (no self-service) I was often having to bend over. I suspect they sold more petrol on Saturdays as a result! Sadly I don't think a photo of me survived.
ReplyDeleteDo you remember, the Christmas you worked delivering mail for the Post Office? There was a bomb scare on at the time and I slipped a ticking alarm clock into your mail bag. As I remember the bag was cordened off on the front lawn until declared safe. I guess I'd be jailed for life if I played a prank like that today!
ReplyDeleteAlan, you have a wonderful quality that transcends even cyberspace. Love the charm.
ReplyDeleteI still remember my then fiance arriving at my house on his motorbike and saying he had seen the first petrol station displaying £1 per gallon (no litres then of course!). At the time, it seemed outrageously expensive! That must have been around 1980.
ReplyDeleteI hope you have the proper chauffeur hat to wear while behind the wheel! :)
ReplyDeleteAlan! Six pounds converts to over 9 US dollars!!!! How can anyone in Britain afford to drive?! It's $3.50 here and we think that's awful!
ReplyDeleteI love the photo but I wish it were face on. As one of your other commenters suggested, at least you can enjoy quality time with GLW and the Lad!
Alan! That Job Must Have Been A Gas! I Hope Your Week Is Going Well.
ReplyDeletesounds like you're running a taxi service there Alan.. hee hee. :)
ReplyDelete