The Collar and the Cab

In an act of pure opportunist self-promotion and in the hope of selling some I am publishing some extracts from my new book The Collar and the Cab on this blog. There are 35 chapters so it will take a couple of months to offer a little from each. 

You can order the book direct from myself or from the publisher by following the link above.

11
Bramley – Twenty-four – Seven

 The acquisition of my “badge” – the licence granted by the local
council to those considered fit to drive private hire vehicles –
resulted in an irrationally exaggerated sense of pride, since
it was hardly the most exacting qualifying process I had ever
undertaken. I had a handful of O and A-levels gained in those
long-forgotten days when it was actually possible to fail an exam
at school, and a fairly decent honours degree in theology. It seemed
odd therefore to be quite so exhilarated about a piece of paper
confirming a status somewhere between a 25 metre swimming
certificate and a Blue Peter Badge.
It was, perhaps, simply the product of the euphoria
generated by the feeling of being able to give the finger to those
who had previously rubbished both my skills and qualifications
in an attempt to discredit me and undermine my reputation; so
successful had this process been that I think I too had begun
to believe their propaganda. I also had little doubt that there
were those of my former acquaintance who, having undermined
my credibility as a minister, were now prophesying my doom
in this new world in the sepulchral tones of Old Testament
soothsayers – and with a similar level of macabre glee. Now
I had not only learned a new trade, but was making a decent
living from it and had jumped through the necessary hoops to  gain a proper qualification. I also realised that I had learned how
to do something that could always be a fall-back in the likely
eventuality that I would return to the world of the Church. There
are a few professions – undertakers being perhaps among the
foremost – who will always be in demand. There will always be a
need, too, for people who will drive members of the public from
one place to another for a decent fare when public transport, for
whatever reason, will not suffice. Perhaps it is the case that it is
not just that the grass on the other side of the fence looks greener,
but the grazing in the field recently abandoned also takes on
a particularly attractive hue. As I write this some years after a
return to ministry I can honestly say that rarely a week has gone
by without some kind of nostalgic desire to return to the private
hire world.

 There were a number of other advantages to qualification.
For one thing I was no longer compelled to drive the “unbadged”
cars provided by the taxi firm; these veritable wrecks of vehicles
were kept for those who were new to the game and the most
likely to be involved in collisions; most had been “round the
clock” twice, and gave new meaning to the expression “a wing
and a prayer.” Secondly because insurance costs were cheaper
for drivers with their badge I now benefitted from cheaper rates
of hire, immediately gaining for myself the sum of £5 per shift
before I began work.
The most significant benefit, though, was that I was now
able to apply for a “Twenty-Four-Seven” car, one I could keep
at home and drive at hours to suit myself.

 

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Another attraction of the new arrangement was being able
to fill the fuel tank and not worry about running out of diesel.
This may sound a rather strange benefit, until you understand
something of how fuelling private hire vehicles used by shift
drivers actually works.
Renting a car by the day almost always resulted in a game of
brinksmanship with the fuel gauge and tank. It may seem a crazy
system, but the way it worked was that each driver who took a
car out was responsible for the diesel he used, the assumption
being that he would begin his shift with an empty tank. The goal,
therefore, was to bring it back with as little fuel in as possible
without actually running out. Should this particular catastrophe
actually occur and the driver needed to call Base for help it
would cost him £45 of his hard-earned cash, which prompted
some drivers to take a can of diesel with them whenever they
drove. This was problematic in terms of being frowned on by
management, not that management ever frowned in a literal
sense, they generally bellowed and hectored; if there was an
issue with a driver standard protocol was simply to blow a fuse.

Of course the sin that was only one level up from running out
of fuel was to bring the vehicle back with a few pounds’ worth of
diesel unused in the tank, representing a loss of available profit
from the shift, so the work of nursing a car back to Base at the
end of one’s shift became something of an art form. When at the
age of 21 I had passed my driving test the one fault I was advised
to correct was a tendency to “coast” – allowing the car to roll
along either in neutral or with the clutch disengaged. Far from
being a fault in my new world, this became a cardinal virtue,
and over time almost second nature, even in the early part of the
shift; as the day drew to a close it became almost an obsession.
Some drivers with several years’ experience of driving company
vehicles had seemingly so perfected the art of interpreting the
tiniest movements of the fuel indicator that the person using the
car next frequently ran out of fuel en route to the nearest petrol
station after picking it up.