A HELICOPTER pilot who invented a solution to untameable supermarket trollies in Reading is the subject of this week’s edition of nostalgia.

Working for Safeway, the pilot was tasked with creating a device that would stop the “supermarket menaces” from causing collisions.

The American company trialled a lever which allowed users to fully control when trolley wheels turned or travelled in a straight line in 1994.

The experiment was captured on film by BBC South, which can be viewed at BBC Rewind, as one of more than 30,000 videos recently released by the broadcaster dating back to the 1940’s.

“The supermarket trolley curse of shopping expeditions, cause of collisions,” reported Liz McKean at the time.

“We all know the problem, independently-minded wheels which go their own way, refusing to be steered.

“Fed up with customer complaints, a taskforce from safe way has spent a year pushing back one of the great engineering frontiers: They think they’ve found a solution.”

A bar built into the handle of the trolley allowed customers to lock and unlock the wheels in straight line.

Customers were invited to test the new invention and found the trollies better, lighter and easier to control.

“The problem is that you can come up with a device that makes the wheels stay straight, that’s the basic principle,” a spokesperson for Safeway told the BBC.

“They problem is if you do that on a permanent basis you can’t pull the trolley backwards and forwards at the aisle and so therefore your trolley doesn’t behave in the way it should behave and customers get very irritated.

“What we’ve got here is a device you can apply at your discretion and use it when you want to use it.”

As part of its centenary celebrations the BBC launched ‘BBC Rewind’ across the UK.

This is the largest release of digital archive content in BBC history, categorised by the nations and regions of the UK and containing many emotional and powerful stories, many of which have not been viewed since their original broadcast.

“As we celebrate 100 years of the BBC, we’re opening up our unique and deeply valuable archive, an important part of the nation’s collective memory,” said James Stirling, Executive Editor of BBC 100.