The Suez Crisis Sedgley's Diamond 60 Sixty Years, Sixty People, Sixty Stories About Village Life

Sedgley’s Diamond 60 1956 Sixty years, sixty people, sixty stories about village life The Suez Crisis by Martin Jones My earliest memory is of my dad going off to work in the morning on the back of his colleague’s motorbike during the Suez crisis of 1956/57. At that time our family were living in Bishop’s Stortford in Hertfordshire and my father was a partner in a solicitor’s practice in Stevenage, around 30 miles away. He usually A three-year-old Martin in around travelled to work in our family car, a Wolseley 4/44. 1956/7, at the time of the Suez crisis. 17th December 1956 was different. Petrol supplies to garages had already been cut by 10%, prompting panic buying and long queues at petrol stations. On that day motorists were further restricted to travelling 200 miles a month, making a daily drive to and from Stevenage impossible. The family car, a Wolseley 4/44, It was the beginning of petrol rationing in the UK, which was abandoned during the caused by the nationalisation of the Suez canal by the petrol rationing of the Suez crisis Egyptian president Gamul Abdul Nasser. The Israelis, British and French had colluded to invade and occupy the canal region: an Anglo/French invasion of Suez began on 5th November 1956 when the 3rd Battalion of the Parachute Regiment captured El Gamil airfield. Nasser responded by sinking 49 ships and rendering the Suez canal unnavigable. The crisis stopped oil Nasser cheered by supporters in exports from travelling the short route from the 1956. Persian Gulf via the Red Sea to the Mediterranean through the Suez canal and posed a severe threat to oil supplies to Europe. Eventually, the Americans forced the British and French into a humiliat- ing withdrawal, and the UN took over and unblocked the canal. It was the death-knell for British imperialistic actions abroad. With petrol in such short supply, Mr Johnson, my father’s articled clerk, who lived nearby, offered dad a lift to work each morning The Anglo-French invasion of on the back of his motorbike. Suez, 5th November 1956. .

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