OPINION
Time has cer tainly moved on as far as Nick is concerned
Susan Stranks is 85-years-old. Whaaat? Or you may ask, who? I’ve just discovered that it’s half a century since the legendary lady left Magpie, basically an earthier version of Blue Peter, having been a presenter since 1968, dare I say causing blood rushes to many a teenage boy? I was a regular viewer! So why am I mentioning this? Well, it seems that to many of us, who spend a lot of our time with classics, reading magazines about them and watching YouTube videos, the Seventies are still part of our daily lives. And we forget half a century has elapsed!
Somewhere in my subconscious must be a parallel universe in with Thames Television still cranking out Magpie starring a young Susan from its Teddington Lock studios, with Austin Allegros in the car park and that Mick Robertson with his extraordinary hair? Music from the decade is constantly on countless radio stations, we can buy the fashions online and even drive around in an Allegro, a car surely no-one in 1974 thought in a million years would become a much-loved tribute to British quirkiness.
Who would have thought that a happy example would be more than capable of coping with 2024 traffic when a substantial number of people would dedicate themselves to keeping these cars on the road. No need to order a book… a few strokes of your keyboard and you can enjoy everything Allegro, from road tests to vintage commercials. We can expand the search to British Leyland, and oh, where did the evening go?
Nostalgia hit
We do love our original street scene photographs, and yes, we can go back to 1974 to see almost new Allegros parked outside horrific concrete edifices housing branches of The Golden Egg and Brentford Nylons, alongside Ford Cortinas, lots of BMC Farinas and rusty ten-year-old Vauxhall Victors. Things were different then. Buses often had conductors, many a senior would serenade you with tales of experiences, on occasions even World War One and everything from offices to trendy nightspots and Allegro interiors were blurred by a haze of cigarette smoke. A smart phone was merely a landline receiver that had to be ordered from and fitted by the nationalised
