Destination Nowhere: A South Mimms Motorway Service Station Diary

by Roger Green

Very few people have not interrupted a motorway journey to use the amenities of a service station. The author of this work, however, is not just passing through. His mission is to create a contemporary record in diary form of everyday life at a motorway service station. The result is a highly amusing yet informative account of this 'fantasy world'. With 'voyeuristic curiosity', the author faithfully describes all he hears and snappy mobile phone conversations, disorderly queues for coffee, intense business meetings and sexual encounters in the gents'. We are entertained by his astute observations of human the disorientation of visitors faced by the 'visual overload' of this almost surreal environment; their confusion at the drinks counter; their reaction to the high prices. The work has, at the same time, an almost journalistic appeal to it. The author includes snippets of traffic news, apt quotations from novels, factual information from government reports and interviews with staff, local people and visitors to the service station. We realise that the motorway service station is not simply a place to eat and drink; it is a social arena, a community apart that on our next visit we will regard with educated eyes.

228 pages, Paperback

First published November 30, 2004

Reviews

[Rich Murkin · Rating 4 out of 5]

It really is just a diary of visits to South Mimms service station during the early 2000s. But it's oddly compelling, even if the author likes to show off his ear for accents and critical eye for high street fashion.

I'm sad that the classy-sounding Red Hen restaurant is no longer there.