The filling station on the road out of the village was like a scene from Mad Max.
People were all but jumping on top of the petrol tanker that had pulled in to unload its bounty. As desperate drivers screamed and shouted, it wasn’t so hard to imagine them swinging from the doors of the cab, attempting to hijack it, while the driver inside beat them away with the end of a sawn-off shotgun.
The forecourt was a seething mass of screeching people on the verge of savagery, not so different from the Thunderdome.
After a while, I noticed that everyone was fighting over the same four pumps while two at the furthest side stood empty. I leapt out of my car and ran over to the vacant pumps, which turned out to be diesel only.
Who was in charge here? Nobody, it seemed. But then again, I wouldn’t be surprised if a diabolical Aunty Entity, played by Tina Turner in a chainmail dress slit to the waist, turned out to be running this Waitrose garage just outside Guildford.
I waved my arms in the air.
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