Dr David Lawrence

Well, most of us don't want to stop at the services because they are only a pausing point between home and where we need to get to.

It's not like going out for a meal in a town.

It's not a deliberate act.

We just have to stop.

So the time that people were prepared to give to the service stations was not sufficient to enjoy a three-course meal or...

or indeed to give a chef time to prepare something really good to eat.

But when the first service stations opened, so Newport Pagnol through to probably Leicester Forest East, so 1959 through to about 1966, people would drive out to the motorway on a Sunday in the family car with the family, dressed up, have an amazing cooked meal, maybe grilled food or bread,

proper dining food, and then drive home again.

And that would be a Sunday outing.

There was absolute glamour in the same way that there was glamour going to the top of the BT Tower and eating in the revolving restaurant.

That glamour is there, but for some reason the motorways lost it.

The main motorway service area operators, Granada, Fortes, Roadchef, realised that their big problem was they had no recognisable brands.

The service area operators realised that to...

Hire out space to a franchise meant that a brand name would come into the service station.

Through negotiations with the government ministries, that brand name could then appear on the motorway signs advertising the location of the service station.

And drivers would begin to recognise those brands from their own high streets.

And that familiarity of brand would therefore draw the travellers into the service station.

And none of them bid.

None of them bid.

And so my wife and I talked about it and we decided we would bid.