My reference to "losing" a number plate was sarcasm, how can the licensing authority, who are supposed to be able to tell a police officer instantly, on the phone, who a plate belongs to, lose A1, which was the first number plate given to Lord somebody at the inception of car licensing

Because when the system started it was a non-centralized (lots of regional offices), paper based system...
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Remind me to change my signature to something more interesting someday