SIR – Calling the other day for fuel at the Pool filling station, how refreshing it was to be politely asked by an attendant on the forecourt how much I required and asked to go into the kiosk and pay while he topped it up, a very civilised operation. I could not recollect when this happened to me last – probably in the Sixties.

On driving away, with all due care and attention, my thoughts went back to the time the filling station became the first self-service station in England – not many people know that.

Have we now come full circle and is Pool again going to revolutionise the way we buy our petrol in the future? Good luck to them, it gives the motorist a civility and calmness which may be transmitted to the roads and prevent accidents. Could it also help the unemployed we have?

At the start of the Second World War, the ‘triangular filling station’ was commandeered by the army at Farnley Park to refuel their tanks and wagons stationed there, before they went up to the moors above Leathley for manoeuvres.

Harry Fawcett, Slates Lane, Ilkley