Travelling by car and petrol rationing in 1940s and 1950s Britain
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1939-1940 driving licence for my mother-in-law.
Young women with no pre-school children had to go into employment, by law,
during World War Two to fill the men's jobs. She drove ambulances.
At the outbreak of the Second World War, petrol was
the first commodity to be rationed. Then in 1942 petrol for private use
was withdrawn
completely. It was only available for work deemed essential,
and a special permit was needed to
obtain it. Cars were therefore absent from the roads. All large cars were
confiscated and converted into vans and ambulances.
Peter Johnson
As there were no private cars on the roads in Britain while I was growing
up in wartime, my friends and I would play on the streets without any
concern about traffic. We knew nothing else. My husband tells the story of
regularly skidding down a long, steep road on a trolley-cum-sledge without
ever seeing a vehicle of any sort. (People used the railways a great deal, as
even small villages had their own rail stations. The severe and extensive closures
of the railways, known as the Beeching Cuts, came in the 1960s.)
In 1945, after the war finished, things started to change, but only very slowly.
Petrol for private use did become available, but it remained rationed until
1950.
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1946 petrol coupon for 2 fuel units, courtesy
of Francis Duck.
1946 petrol coupon for 3 fuel units, courtesy of Francis Duck.
Cover of petrol coupon booklet, courtesy of
Francis Duck.
Petrol pumps outside a petrol station (then known as
a 'garage'). Photo courtesy of Send and Ripley History Society.
My recollections of car journeys start around 1950. Older cars that had been garaged
came back on the roads, and I well remember a long journey in one of them. There
was no heating, and it was very cold. I don't think that the seats had any springs
and the frequent twists and turns in the road - there being no motorways - kept
throwing me around.
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1953 car-tax disc for a dark green Lanchester
family car DXB 556,courtesy of Francis Duck.
Like many other ordinary families, my father bought our first family car in the 1950s, and my recollections
come mainly from that time, although the descriptions would probably have been
similar immediately after the end of the Second World War. He belonged to
the AA (Automobile Association).
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Cover of 1957 book of petrol coupons, courtesy of Francis Duck.
1957 petrol coupons, courtesy of Francis Duck.
Petrol rationing was re-introduced for five months as a result of the Suez
crisis of 1956.
