The Automobile Association, or AA as it is often called, is
one of the organisations that was around in the 50s and the 60s and is still
there now. Not sure when they changed to
vans, but I am pretty sure that, in the 50s, the AA man rode a motorbike with
tools in the sidecar. The AA man had to give member motorists a smart salute as
they passed them on the road and it was generally accepted that if an AA man
did not salute it was because there was a police speed trap further ahead.
Because people did not have mobile phones, there was no easy way to contact the
AA for help in case of a car breakdown other than hoping that a patrolman would
come past; to get round this, the AA had boxes at strategic points around the
road network where an AA member could use his special AA key to open the box
and use a ‘phone – and no, in the 50s, these did not seem to get vandalised.
May be wrong but I think that eventually a member of the AA could use an RAC
box and vice versa.
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