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Janie
Administrator
United Kingdom
7268 Posts |
 Posted - 03/11/2009 : 16:18:03
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http://www.dailymail.co.uk/travel/article-1224682/M1-motorway-Watford-Gap-service-station-celebrate-50-years.html
M1 and Watford Gap celebrate 50 years...with a 6p cup of tea
By Sarah Gordon
Last updated at 2:40 PM on 02nd November 2009
Britain's most famous road and one of the country's best known service stations are celebrating a big birthday.
Both the M1 and Watford Gap are marking 50 years of iconic road travel by acknowledging their more famous users and offering 1959 prices.
The latter is even staging a play paying homage to the many travelling musicians from The Beatles and Dusty Springfield to The Rolling Stones, who have used it as a roadside watering hole.
Previously called the Blue Boar, the services became so talked about among stars that Jimi Hendrix mistook it for a London nightclub.
Beyond its celebrity fans, the arrival of the M1 also ushered in a new age of high-speed road travel. It had no speed limit and with just five million registered cars in the UK there was certainly no traffic.
Steven Dukes, from the Society for All British and Irish Road Enthusiasts, said: 'Before the M1 there was no real idea of long distance travel. It opened up a way of living we couldn't really have anticipated.'
Now, with 28 million licensed cars in the UK, the stretches of the motorway with the biggest queues are junction 19 north of Rugby in the West Midlands and junction 32 east of Sheffield.
Roads minister Chris Mole described the M1 as a 'motorway with an iconic past'.
'It's a road that's certainly grown in use. People know it and love it, and probably hate it as well,' he added.
The history of the 193-mile long motorway has also been shaped by some dramatic incidents.
In January 1989, a Boeing 737 flown by British Midland Airways crashed on an embankment on the M1 at Kegworth in Leicestershire close to East Midlands airport. A total of 47 passengers were killed but many walked away unhurt and no vehicles on the motorway were hit.
In 1997, sections of the M1 were closed as the funeral procession of Diana, Princess of Wales, travelled from London to Althorp in Northamptonshire with mourners lining the route.
However, the section of the artery that stretches from London to Leeds and its first service station are probably best known for the ongoing rivalry between England's north and south.
Watford Gap is often referred to as the unofficial boundary and today has unveiled a new sign with arrows pointing each way. The services company is even lobbying the Oxford English Dictionary to be included as an expression of the divide.
Janie  x56
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Watford Gap pays homage to Dusty et al!
