The amusing correspondence in the Daily Telegraph concerning signs on Britain’s roads, which I alluded to in this column last week, has been continuing on its merry way in the days since.

George Chalmers, of Goring-on-Sea, West Sussex, raised a smile for me with this offering: “Whenever I drive past this local farm shop sign it makes me smile: ‘Homemade sausages – 80 yards left’.”

My amusement arose in large part from the fact that this reminded me of a newspaper cutting Rosemarie once told me of, dating back to her Wimbledon childhood.

This was a wedding report – I think that I might well have mentioned it here before – which announced that the bride had proceeded up the aisle in an empire line dress and with “yards of tool coiled on her head”.

Then somebody called Gervase – there really is such a name! – Hulbert, of Blakeney, Norfolk, chipped in with his offering.

“It is sad,” he wrote “that my favourite sign, which stood for ages on the M40 hear Oxford, has now been removed. It read: ‘Emergency toilet 20 miles.’.”

This called to mind for me the sign that used to be displayed outside the public lavatories that are situated at the Wolvercote end of Port Meadow.

This stated (I forget the exact words) that when the loos were closed an alternative was available in Diamond Place, Summertown.

As locals will know, this is a distance of well over a mile.

The information, in fact, was incorrect, for other public lavatories (but only for men) were to be found beside the Woodstock Arms, in Woodstock Road.

They were put there by the Morrell’s brewery managing director of the day who was dismayed to discover no emergency provision for people such as he out on a ramble.

The loos are still there though the pub is sadly gone.