In defence of panic buying

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.

‘You people do realise I come up here to get away from you?’

I waved my arms in the air. ‘Does anyone want diesel?’ I shouted into the sea of cars. One woman, alone in her VW Golf, wound down her window and said yes.

‘Then you go ahead to that pump there,’ I yelled. ‘I’ll follow you.’ She nodded, looking petrified as all around her half-crazed people screamed and fought. Another car quickly came up behind me as I filled up, the driver begging me: ‘Leave some for me!’

Did I keep going until my tank was full? Yes, I did. There would be plenty for everyone, since the Hoyer tanker had pulled in only an hour earlier. The desperate people had descended from as far away as Hammersmith, the lady at the checkout told me as I paid, which is a good 30 miles north of this Surrey village.