IN 1957 James Payton of Blackburn, celebrated 50 years of motoring.

He had first got behind the wheel of the newest car of the time, a carriage-built Stanley steamer , with folding hood and gleaming brass work, back in 1907.

And he wore goggles, three quarter length leather coat, worn with knee breeches, leggings, boots and a peaked cap.

He was just 19 and employed as a chauffeur by a local doctor – driving him on his rounds of patients in Blackburn and on occasional longer trips into the Ribble Valley – where cottagers stood puzzled at how this horseless carriage moved along the road.

The car was often enveloped in a cloud of dust as he drove along – and reaching 20 mph was speeding.

In 1957 James, then 70, retired from the service of Mr and Mrs T Rowntree, who lived in East Park Road, Blackburn and also celebrated his golden wedding.

He had held a continuous driving licence for 52 years – a feat that not many others in Blackburn could match.

A procession of cars had carried him through the years – he drove a Swift, a Rover and a Ford for Doctor Marmaduke Bannister, whose first licence was taken out in 1904.

Said James: “The Stanley steamer was better and quieter than the early petrol driven cars, but it was a bit of trouble to start.

“You lit a paraffin burner, jacked up the back axle, raised the bonnet as a precaution against a flare up and sat in the driving seat for about 10 minutes, until the hiss of a valve told you the steam was up.

“When you had enough steam to turn the back wheels, you unwound the jack and you were ready for off.”

From 1911, when he left the doctor’s service James drove a Renault laundalette – petrol was 11d a gallon – until he joined the Army in the First World War and drove an ammunition wagon on the Flanders’ battlefields.

Back as a civilian chauffeur in 1919, he drove Mrs John Thwaites of Troy, which in 1957 had become a girls’ school, on scores of pleasant summer journeys all over the country, with petrol now costing 1/6 a gallon.

Next, he drove for Mr T Forrest of The Meins and had been in the service of the Rowntree family since 1935, driving their Rovers, Chrysler and Daimler.

With the experience of thousands of hours behind the wheel, he thought the biggest boon to the motorist had been the covered car – “at least for the British motorist.”

He also told how driving standards had changed for the worst, though it was not a question of better or worse.

“When I started, you really had to drive. You had no pre selected gears or gadgets; you had to put up with the force of the weather and you needed stamina and skill, to negotiate the twists on the narrow, pot holed roads.

“Much of the pleasure has gone out of driving now, roads have been straightened and become far more congested – when I first got behind the wheel, there was plenty of room on the roads for a long time.”