Petrol stations have been with us for 100 years. They have been built on countless rural and industrial landscapes, often becoming a linchpin of the communities they serve. Men and women in slightly oily overalls would fill up your car's tank, wipe the windscreen and even check the oil for you. Football coins, Green Shield Stamps, soup bowls or wine glasses might be handed over to keep your custom - all in the days when a single GBP1 note was enough to buy hundreds of miles of happy motoring.

This vivid, illustrated history takes the reader on a journey from collecting a tin can at the local ironmonger's to filling up on the forecourt, and on to the possibility of not using petrol at all.