A childhood belief about traffic lights

As a child, I was firmly convinced that all the traffic lights in the entire country (Britain) were operated by separate, large teams of people based in subterranean offices.

Each set of traffic lights was fitted with a periscope, like the one on a submarine. The leader of the team would spend most of his time staring up through this at the street, whilst his minions brought him sandwiches, cakes and coffee.

When traffic approached, he would alert his second in command, who immediately bellowed into a desk microphone: "Action stations!"

The rest of the team members would then jump up from their desks and turn a giant handle that changed the colour of the traffic lights.

If the leader was annoyed with the local council for some reason, he would deliberately wind the officials up by creating a massive traffic jam and making everybody late for work that day. If he'd heard about a bank raid on the news, he'd use the jam to help the police capture the robbers.

I used to look forward to being a student when I was older, as I reckoned they helped change the traffic lights during the college holidays - and got paid tons of money for doing it. During quiet periods, you could read the paper, watch the telly, drink mugs of tea and eat biscuits.

The walls of the traffic light changing stations were padded with empty egg boxes, to muffle the sounds of the traffic passing overhead.