10-12-2023, 06:19 PM
(10-12-2023, 04:09 PM)Peter Naulls Wrote: I took my test in our Ruby, just as my mother had done 30 years earlier. The first time I drove it (on a provisional licence) was in the lanes of Hertfordshire between John Heath's workshop at Kettle Green and the Seven Workshop at Barwick.
Incidentally my mother had driven the car for some time without the need to take a test. Driving examiners were temporarily re-deployed to administer petrol rationing and driving tests were suspended. That was 1954 so not post-war rationing; possibly the Suez crisis?
I remember the Suez crisis and learner drivers being allowed to drive unaccompanied from November 1956. My eldest brother was learning at the time and I remember my mother being very annoyed with him for driving the bosses car home for dinner one day. He explained about the Suez crisis and my mother was still dubious. We thought it was just to not waste petrol driving around practising for the test. I was a few weeks less than three years old at the time.
Looking today on google..... it seems it was allowed to save petrol and because the testers were dealing with rationing.