To wonder how people found unfamiliar places before Sat Navs

[Eastie77Returns]

Obviously IABU as I’m in my mid 40s and didn’t use a Sat Nav when I started driving but I can’t remember how I managed!

Things that puzzle me…if you were driving to another city, clearly maps and signs on the motorway would be used. But once you arrived in the city and then had to get to a specific address (not a well known attraction that would be clearly sign posted), how would you find it if you didn’t have a detailed map like an A to Z of the city. Presumably people wouldn’t go to the expense of buying those kinds of maps every time they visited an unfamiliar city. And yes you can stop and ask people but how would that have worked in large cities where a passerby is very unlikely to know how to get to 23 Random Street which could be anywhere from close to the city centre to miles away in the suburbs.

I had too much coffee today and can’t sleep so I’m awake ruminating over the little things in life that puzzle me😂

You still needed the internet for that though. Home dial up internet didn't arrive until the mid-late 90s.

You had an A-Z, you asked for directions, you could get route plans from the AA.

But also, people paid more attention then, because we had to. Those boring pub conversations about "what route did you take?" And discussing in depth "oh, you turned by the grit box with the broken handle, did you?" And "if you see the house with horses you've gone too far" and "you'll want to turn by the chippy, NOT the kebab shop or you've give too far". People genuinely paid attention.

It reminds me that when I was 17 and going to university interviews I had one in Durham (we lived in Essex) so it was decided I would stop off to see my grandmother in South Yorkshire on the way back.
I knew her address. So I got off the train in Sheffield, it turned out there wasn’t a bus to her village for ages so I got a bus to a village near to hers, asked a random man how to get to her village- it was dark btw, middle of winter- and he went, ‘oh I’m going that way, I’ll show you’ and off we walked, several miles, when we got to her village he pointed me in the right direction and I duly turned up at her house with no drama.
I look back at this and think ‘what the actual fuck?’ My dad was always the planning type and my grandma was a worrier so I can’t work out how they let this happen.
All I can think of is that maybe they just assumed there would be more buses than there were but they had been cut but my dad and grandma didn’t realise that, so it didn’t cross their mind I wouldn’t be able to get one. I don’t remember being particularly scared or worried either.

Sentences you don't head any more:

"Don't worry, you've got another four inches before we turn left"
"Sorry, that turn was in the fold"
"Oh, sun cream removes print. Erm, I think it's this road?"

My first job involved a lot of home visits and I have a poor sense of direction. I used to print off AA route planner directions. I'd supplement this with the A-Z (but the route planner told me the distance, for my mileage claim). My sense of direction did improve when I had to use it a lot, it is stagnating again now though.
Prior to that, I remember my parents driving me places and they would squabble. A lot. My uncle and later my cousin were London cabbies so delighted in giving directions anywhere in London, but I tune out verbal directions, I much prefer a map.

You also just payed attention more and learned by trial and error. So the first time you drove to a new place you’d get turned around and sort work your way back to where you intended to go. Then the next time you were in the area aiming for something different you’d think ‘oh yeah that was where I got lost the last time I stopped at that shop to ask directions’ then you’d just sort of build up your knowledge of an area.

This discussion reminds me of this that I see in my FB feed from time to time.

I agree with using pubs as a sign post , their name are much bigger than the average street name sign and most locals will know where it is.
There were also lots more pubs around then so it was quite easy.

Motor way driving took more planning, like pp my dad had several road atlas and A-Zs .
My poor dm was no good at map reading and could never figure out that if we were going south turning the map inside down doesn't work .
She often said things like
Follow that car he looks like he knows where he's going.

Can we pretend
to be broken down so the aa will take us there .

Some of that still happens in our car.
DH has more or less accepted now that I am no good at scaling up and my answer to ‘can you look at the map and tell me roughly how far it is?’ will be in inches not miles.

Some of that still happens in our car.
DH has more or less accepted now that I am no good at scaling up and my answer to ‘can you look at the map and tell me roughly how far it is?’ will be in inches not miles.

Mind you, I'm damned if I can see a scale anywhere on the various satnav app maps, so if DH asks how far to a junction or the end of a jam, there's a delay while I find where we are on a proper map and estimate it.

I had to walk from work in Soho to my home in Highgate on the day of the bombings. I was fine once I hit Camden Town but I was a bit confused about the Soho > Camden route. And I’ve pretty much lived in London my entire life.

I lived in London for 20yrs and I remember being stopped on the street many, many times – probably once or twice a day sometimes, by people looking for addresses. I do think people used to do that a lot, and I didn't find it strange.

This thread is making me think nostalgically of my lovely grandfather. My GPs lived about an hour away, and every visit would start with a conversation along the lines of

"What do you mean you came down the A23?. Didn't you know that there are roadworks at Hickstead. M3 would have been much easier".

My grandfather thought DM (his dd) was an idiot and didn't think highly of DDad. Goodness knows why we kept visiting!

I look back at this and think ‘what the actual fuck?’ My dad was always the planning type and my grandma was a worrier so I can’t work out how they let this happen.

Because it was normal at the time. Everyone was doing it.

It was like arranging to meet someone. There was no option to text to say you were running late or had gone to the pub instead of the park becaues it was raining. People turned up where they were meeting and would wait. Everyone knew if you didn't turn up it would be terrible for the person you were meeting who would worry about where you were so generally everyone was more reliable because it was how you functioned socially.

Also- my mum had a little keyring compass dangling from the rear-view mirror. If all else failed, she'd follow that until she found signs for places she recognised.

I still don't use a Sat Nav* although do look up location before I leave if I'm not familiar with the town (had a driving job in my youth, and only ever holidayed in UK so have walked/cycled trained travelled/driven to visit most towns and cities in the UK).

However a simple rule of thumb is that city /town centre places have older road names eg 'Street' 'Lane' or 'Road' . You can then pick up other clues as to location If you look around the town you are heading to chances are the roads to the nearest towns will be labelled accordingly eg for on any town along A4 , Bath Road heads west to Bath, London Road will be the opposite direction. Likewise 'West' 'East' will be to left side of town centre and right respectively, likewise the more modern sounding 'Southern Road' , will be further from the town centre than 'South Street' etc. High Street is obviously in the town centre, as will be Bank Street, Station Road/Hill will be by the station OR what WAS a station - a study of a map/Google maps will find you the approx location of the station. Abattoir Road invariably isn't too far from the station as the sheep/cattle etc often arrived by train. Market Place/Street/Square will also be town centre. Ditto Butcher's Row, and most other trades that are on Streets and Lanes. (Roads named after trades may be twee more modern locations) Castle will be at the top of a hill so Castle Hill/Road/Street usually leads from the town to it. Bars /Gates - are gaps in the city walls eg Above Bar in Southampton, obviously the city was a lot smaller in its day so edge of town centre there.
River Street - by the river. Likewise Moorings, Marina etc Bridge Street - look for the river or the railway. Friary/Church/Priory/Cathedral or School/College/University... - you know where to look!
Any road named 'Hill' will invariably be up or downhill. Valley Road - road along bottom of the slope.

From Victorian times especially 'Avenue' was popular, so outside of the immediate centre. Ditto Park anything - Victorians loved their parks - look for the green bits on the map and Park Road, Parkside etc should lead to it.

Crescents - Georgians onwards liked Crescents - look on the map for a curved bit of road, with bigger posher houses than the very centre of town.

Later still, so in the suburbs you have 'Estate' 'Gardens' 'Drive' 'Orchards' 'Parkway' 'Meadows' etc. so all on the outskirts. Boulevard is quite recent too, but can be an inner ringway sort of name where the original narrow road was demolished in the 1970s.. Most modern housing estates tend to have a theme eg trees, birds, poets , musicians etc, so find one and you'll find the others related.
Close - one or two can be very old, so town centre - or recent suburbia in my experience.

If stuck only then would I'd dive into a local shop and ask.

I do think that being able to read a map and find where to go is something inherited, my eldest is fabulous, started her with following the red road, 'when we go under that railway bridge there on the map, then we need to take the 4th road on the left' etc. When she started school despite being almost the youngest she was the only one reliably knew her left and right!

I absolutely LOVE maps and roads.

Recommended reading:
Mike Parker, Map Addict.
Tom Fort ,The A303: Highway to the Sun (Also view here )

*Edited to add I do have a Sat Nav but tend to argue with it too much.

Good old fashioned road maps, and asking people when they got lost.

What3Words is another location finding App. Can be used to pinpoint a location, and used by Emergency Services.

We used to find fields in the middle of nowhere by ringing a rave line, getting hopefully detailed instructions from say a point on the M25 that you'd start at and follow the instructions making the turns when you get to them, driving to rural Wales. If you missed a turn you had to retrace your route until you were back on course.

One of the first trips DH and I took to France, 1990 I think it was, we were heading to the Dordogne. The travel company gave us a really detailed route description to find the gite from the ferry terminal, without using motorways. For some reason we were still scared of French motorways back then.

We bought a detailed map of the area we were visiting so that we could explore when we got there, but figured we could manage with the 20 miles to the inch, all of France on one page, map for the journey down. After all, we had good directions, didn't we?

Well it was all fine on the way there but we came unstuck on the way back when we encountered a "Route Barrè" sign across the road we wanted. For miles after that we were navigating by using a compass to take the most northerly choice at each junction until we finally hit one of the major roads on our one page map.

Heaving a sigh of relief we managed to pick up our detailed directions again. Only to encounter another road closure in the middle of a small village who appeared to be preparing for some kind of event. In desparation we ignored the barriers and drove down the street anyway. People were on ladders on either side of the road hanging strings of bunting, shouting after us and gesticulating but we kept going and thankfully came out the other side of the village, still on the right road.

We had learned our lesson though. The following year we invested in a proper road atlas for the whole of France.

I rely very heavily on my sat nav for everything so this thread made me think, what on earth did I do before? I'm 39 now but I remember in my early 20s when I was off on girly road trips and weekends away etc, I'd print a list of directions, turn by turn, from websites like AA Route Planner, and my mates would read it out and navigate while I drove. Seems so 2008 - I mean; does anyone do that now? 😂

Maps and A-z

People would give pretty detailed instructions, and several times I would write these out on a series of post it notes and stick them on the dashboard in the correct order. 🤣
I actually did often buy the A to Z - for smaller towns they were inexpensive and thin.
In a foreign city, the first port of call would be the tourist office for a map!

You could order it from the AA. You gave them the start and finish points and you got a list of directions.

You could order it from the AA. You gave them the start and finish points and you got a list of directions.

When my parents got a car in the early 70s, they'd do this, it seemed quite 'Tomorrows World' to get the printout. There were even options eg avoid motorways or city centres iirc.