When I want a reminder of gentler, slower times I find them next to a motorway. In a world of haste, of apps and hustle, service stations are a soothing throwback to childhood trips, when I’d get a rush of excitement as Dad turned the car off the motorway and into the slip road leading to one of these temples of capitalism. As I returned to the back seat I would be chomping triumphantly on the chocolate bar I got from the shop or sucking the lollipop I was handed at the end of the Little Chef meal.
Perhaps we never entirely grow out of that feeling. Our first joy at a service station is to stretch our legs as we stroll across the car park, past the water features and landscape ponds they put outside the entrance to calm us all down. Then we’re inside, under the fluorescent lighting and with that familiar array of comfort food options spread in front of us like a gastronomic galaxy. Which treat will we choose? Will we go full Burger King, pick up a takeaway latte from Costa, or just grab a simple water from WHSmith? Whichever we opt for, we’re going to be overcharged but that’s just how it is in this liminal paradise – and who wants to be one of those sensible bores sitting outside on a bench, smugly eating a packed lunch from a Tupperware box?
The shops are bizarre and can be great fun to browse in. On our high streets, stores are dropping like flies, but these service station stores live on and on like cockroaches, even as they knock out bizarre products like compilation CDs, discounted, basic-bitch history books and oversized cuddly toys.
The roped-off mini casinos add to the sense that a service station is a mini-Vegas– a purpose-built commercial venture that emerged un-organically. There are arcade games, too. Driving games, naturally, because after spending two hours driving, what you really want is to spend £2 pretending to drive. Even kids can get in on the mock motoring with those coin-operated stationary cars.
But have you ever tried one of those vibrating leather chairs, which offer you a massage delivered by a machine? I did and self-conscious doesn’t even begin to describe the experience. I could have done naked cartwheels down the M4 and felt less conspicuous. It turns out that getting a massage surrounded by people eating sausage rolls isn’t that relaxing.
Service stations are anonymous and democratising: whether you arrived in an Aston Martin, a haulage truck or a simple old banger, your business here is basically the same. You join the same queues, buy from the same outlets and use the same bathrooms, where the hand dryers sound like jet engines and where, at least in the men’s, vending machines optimistically offer contraception, viagra and chewable toothbrushes. Do they think we’re going to bonk in the car park?
But have you ever tried one of those vibrating leather chairs, which offer you a massage delivered by a machine?
The companies behind service stations – Moto, Welcome Break, and Roadchef – use corporate blueprints to make them familiar and because drivers have limited options on the motorway, the operators face less pressure to offer unique dining or distinct local character. It can feel like they’re dishing up convenience at the cost of character, but I adore this slice of predictability in an increasingly confusing world. You know why you’re there, you know what you’re going to get. Something, at least, makes sense.
Despite how interchangeable they are, I have my favourites. Newport Pagnell, between junctions 14 and 15 of the M1, is one of the UK’s oldest service stations, and it includes a footbridge over the motorway which I feel godlike when I cross. When it celebrated its 65th birthday the BBC quite rightly covered the anniversary and a food artist created a birthday cake in the shape of a bright yellow car.
Leigh Delamere, on the M4 between Bristol and Swindon, is another behemoth I adore but the relatively small Pease Pottage services, at Junction 11 of the M23 motorway near Crawley, shows that size isn’t everything. Ultimately, it matters less which service station is your favourite but whether you have a favourite. When the characters on Gavin and Stacey sat in the pub fiercely debating which motorway services is the best, I was thrilled by how seriously they took it.
It’s not just wet-eyed, middle-aged nostalgics like me who enjoy service stations. My youngest niece, Verity, was born in 2005 and she has known only a digital world. So I was delighted when she announced one day that she loves service stations so much that she aspires to hold a future birthday party at one. I’ve rarely felt as close to a relative.
My partner once suggested that I could check into one of the mini hotels they have at some service stations and then spend a weekend strolling around, like a lone but thrilled Alan Partridge. It was a tempting proposition but I think that part of the fun of the service station is how little time we spend in them. Familiarity breeds contempt but we’ll never hang around long enough in a service station to get cheesed off by their uglier features.
Instead, those twenty minutes we spent in them have set a high bar for our outing. Whatever happens at our destination, it will have to go some to be quite as simply fun as all this.
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