THERE is an apocryphal – and true – story about my grandfather who once went on what is now known as a pub crawl with his friends and then drove home from Rhyl to Llandudno on the wrong side of the road just for the hell of it.

A shocking story in today’s buttoned up society, but regarded as nothing more than a hoot then for it happened not long after the end of the Second World War. I guess people were so glad to be alive that a certain carefree attitude was adopted.

Gramps ran a burgeoning family entertainment business in Rhyl (a ghastly place now) and with one of his brothers also bought the struggling local football club in the days before Roman Abramovich was even a twinkle in some Russian girl’s eye.

Of course, there were fewer cars on the road then. Indeed he never met one on that journey home.

I also had an uncle, a former pilot who lost a leg in the war, who lived in Weston-super-Mare and while staying with him once he drove me into town. We were stuck in a long queue of traffic when a fire engine, siren blaring, came blasting down the middle.

Uncle Don dropped down a gear, gunned the engine of his ageing Triumph Mayflower and tucked in behind the fire engine for a quick ride into town.

Of course motoring has changed a lot, even since the 50s and 60s. It was more fun then and there was a certain camaraderie among those taking to the open road. The AA officers, riding motorbikes, saluted you if you had one of their badges on the grille, MGB drivers waved to each other, there was no aggressive driving, motorists were much more courteous and you went out for a drive just for the sheer enjoyment.

There’s little of the camaraderie left between drivers these days. Apart from the occasional warning flash from a motorist coming in the opposite direction to tip you off about a radar gun crew, there’s only one other outpost left of the ‘good old days.’ It’s a sad indictment of our times. The motorist has been driven into poverty by withering taxes and in our increasingly aggressive society every other man or woman behind the wheel is seen as ‘the enemy’. If anything captures the radical change it’s road rage. It’s the anger of the modern age that boils over into gestures, screaming abuse and, on occasions, actual violence.

What has the world of motoring come to?

Oh yes, that last outpost of brotherhood. Well, it’s the car park. How many times have you pulled up in one and been approached by another driver proffering a ticket. Indeed it happened to me in Amersham only the week before last.

“Here, there’s still an hour left on this.”

So I was deeply shocked during an outing to Buxton last week when arriving in the Pavilion Gardens car park. Before putting in my money I had to punch in the registration number of my car.

It’s the first time I had come across this. What small-minded anti-motorist individual came up with this piece of petty thinking to squeeze the motorist’s pips even harder?

I even thought twice about writing this column in case it gave some bright spark the idea to introduce it into Wycombe and Chiltern car parks.

Fortunately I’ve still got enough of my grandfather’s genes to get a kick out of driving – last week’s journey involved a roof-down ride in glorious sunshine across the Staffordshire moorlands – but the golden age has long gone and for most it is little more than a functional and necessary business of everyday life.

My grandfather will no doubt be spinning in his grave – but in the opposite direction to everyone else, of course.