Tube strike: Archive footage shows how London commuters coped in 1962

Skating to work or hitching a lift in a car boot - coping with the tube strike in 1962 meant coming up with more inventive modes of transport

With Londoners across the capital currently spontaneously combusting out of sheer annoyance at the Tube strikes, it's worth reminding ourselves that these slight disruptions to our day have a storied tradition.

As the below archive footage from British Pathé shows, commuters have been dealing with similar strikes since at least 1962 - although it seems that without the pressure valve of Twitter to fill up time spent in a queue Londoners instead turned their minds to alternative forms of transport.

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The film shows that while some tried their hands at roller skates, others decided to car-share - with seven people packed into a convertible including two "second-class passengers" stowed in the boot.

One 'gent' is even seen setting off to work dressed in the 60s equivalent of sports wear - a white vest and a pair of boxers. And although the bowler hat is a bit of a giveaway that the footage is more than a couple of years old, the gentleman's fixed stare at his newspaper is oddly familiar to anyone who's collided with a smartphone zombie.