bishopofbowsden: June 2016

Thursday 30 June 2016

Thursday 30th June

Tuesday 28 June 2016

Sunday 26 June 2016

Extracts from my first solo book which I have recently published about the two years I spent driving a private hire car rather than being a clergyman. It began life as a piece of auto-catharsis and turned into a project. If I can sell some I can start recouping my costs!

The Collar and the Cab
Follow this link to buy from publisher, or you can order direct from me. Amazon also have it as well as a number of independent retailers.

25
Swinnow – Night Shifts

With almost a year’s experience under my belt I thought I
knew my way around pretty well, but whereas day shifts had
involved taking people to and from work, shops and health
centres, these rather run-of-the-mill venues were far less likely
to be frequented in the wee small hours. Only a few venues were
held in common, and this was true also of Friday / Saturday
nights compared to weekdays; in fact it was something of a
surprise to discover that each night shift seemed to have its own
particular pattern. There was always something different round
the corner, and in spite of now being considered something of a
veteran in the business, I was still capable of being surprised by
some of the more extraordinary behaviour I witnessed.
I think it was a Tuesday evening a little before midnight
that I was called to a pick-up from a respectable bar in the more salubrious end of town, and Sandra emerged to occupy the front
seat of the cab. Sandra was one of those women whose age is
almost indeterminate – could have been in her twenties or her
forties, slightly overweight, with nondescript hair of a vaguely
blonde hue and modest make-up that looked like it had been
applied in something of a hurry without the benefit of a mirror.
But two things were immediately obvious about her; firstly
she had had a little too much to drink, and secondly she was
cross – and cross in spades. ‘We’re going to Swinnow, love’, she
remarked in a tone that made it clear that her ire was directed at
some individual other than myself. ‘But we’ve got to pick up my
old man first.’
The ‘old man’ was, for some unarticulated reason, in a
bar at the other end of the city centre, a venue noted for its
association with the seedier side of life. Fights were almost
nightly occurrences, and illegal substances were available for a
modest price. Sexual favours were also on sale for a reasonable
consideration, but the chances were you could just pick someone
up for a night’s bedroom gymnastics so long as you weren’t too
fussy.
I decided the safe thing to do was not to try to make
conversation, and in any case she was soon on her ‘phone calling
the recalcitrant partner so that he would be outside waiting
for us. I could identify the equally inebriated individual from
the sheepish look on his face and the sense of foreboding at
the unpleasantness to come written on his features and in his
posture.
No sooner had he climbed into the back of the car than it
started. The first volley of verbal musket-shot directed from
the front passenger seat had no sooner made its mark than an
answering tirade of alcohol-fuelled abuse flew in the opposite
direction. I never was able to work out what the row was
about, but with the possible exception of performances in the
kindergarten we call the House of Commons I don’t think I have ever witnessed quite such an amazing episode of two people
shouting at each other at the tops of their voices without hearing
a single word the other was saying.
I managed, during a brief pause for reloading of weapons, to
extract the address for which we were heading and set off with a
certain amount of apprehension on the fifteen-minute journey,
fearful that the verbal exchanges would graduate into a fist-fight
with all the risks that would entail. Once we were on our way
the war of words resumed with renewed vigour, and I decided
to hope for the best and drive slightly faster than normal.
The route out of Leeds city centre took us on an inner ring
road which, for reasons I never really understood, was classified
as the M64, so the rules of motorway driving applied. The volume
and level of abuse steadily increased until their vocabulary of
profanities seemed to be exhausted. Where to go from here?
It was around this point that the gentleman in the rear of the
car hit upon the novel idea of “upping the ante” by opening the
window and, with a casualness clearly calculated to engender
reciprocal incandescence, tossed his phone out of the window.
The effect on the woman was to spark an eruption the equivalent
of Vesuvius in full flow. It became clear that the ‘phone had been
a costly present from a happier era in their relationship, and
he had just demonstrated, in the most dramatic way he could
imagine, in just how little regard he held her.
If you can imagine a human earthquake and volcano all
rolled into one you will have some idea of what happened
next. Removing her seat belt she erupted in a rearwards
direction preceded by a torrent of language that would have
caused a navvy something more than slight embarrassment.
Fortunately I was able to keep the car in a straight line and
shout loudly enough to read the proverbial riot act to them
both. The fighting subsided almost immediately, though the
verbal exchanges remained just as vitriolic.
After a couple of minutes the man asked if we could go back to pick the ‘phone up, and I was thankful to be able to
explain that this would involve breaking the law, as well as being
exceedingly dangerous. An expensive lesson, but perhaps one
they both needed to learn.
..................

The verbal volcano subsided and general sulkiness –
a tactic I am far more familiar with, being one of the nation’s
leading experts – took over. There was even a certain meekness
apparent by the time we reached their home. She stomped off,
making abundantly clear whose responsibility the taxi fare was,
and in what now felt like an oasis of tranquillity we had a short
conversation: –
‘Do you ever have that kind of row with your missus?’
‘No, not really.’ (mainly thanks to the longsuffering of my
wife we have a row about once a year just to keep our hand in)
‘We’ve been happily married for 28 years.’
‘So what’s the secret?’
‘Apart from being married to the most incredibly wonderful
woman in the world, perhaps also that we’re Christians.’
‘Do you think that makes a difference?’
‘I think so.’
I recommended a local church I knew that would be perfect for
them both, he thanked me and went his way. I have no idea what
happened to them both, but this kind of informal way of sharing
my faith was pretty common, and I often wonder if over the
course of those two years I contributed more to the Kingdom of God than at any other time in my life.

Wednesday 22 June 2016

Extracts from my first solo book which I have recently published about the two years I spent driving a private hire car rather than being a clergyman. It began life as a piece of auto-catharsis and turned into a project. If I can sell some I can start recouping my costs!

The Collar and the Cab
Follow this link to buy from publisher, or you can order direct from me. Amazon also have it as well as a number of independent retailers.

24
Burley – Personal Fuel Surcharges and
other means of making a bit extra

At least one section of the “notice wallpaper” with which the
drivers’ office was decorated was permanently devoted to the
retribution likely to be visited on those who were willing to
line their pockets at the expense of hapless customers. A typical
example ran something like this: –
ANY DRIVER CAUGHT OVERCHARGING WILL BE
DISMISSED IMMEDIATELY. NO EXCEPTIONS.
These bleak pronouncements of certain and terminal
retribution for miscreants almost always followed the same
pattern; printed in large capital letters, accusatory, intimidating,
all-inclusive and usually containing at least one error of
grammar, spelling or syntax that served to encourage the
moderately literate to take them with a pinch of salt. One such
notice adorned the door from the area drivers were allowed
in to collect keys to the main offices where they were less than
welcome: –
NO DRIVER’S ARE ALOWED PASSED THIS POINT
UNLESS THEY HAVE PERMISON FROM THE
MANAGMENT. NO EXCEPTIONS.
YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.
Some words, like “warned”, “dismissed” and “exceptions” were
such common verbal currency that those who typed the notices
had learned the correct spelling, but someone in the office
with a GCSE in English language would probably have been a
worthwhile recruitment move.
Such auguries sometimes rivalled the descriptions of the
plagues that befell Egypt at the behest of Moses, portending
dismissal from the bosom of the company as if it were on a
level equivalent to being evicted from a plane half way across
the Atlantic with nothing more than a large handkerchief and
a bit of string for a parachute. No shift would be complete
without encountering at least three or four pronouncements
of this nature, provided courtesy of another piece of rain forest
or on the datahead.

Most of these threats, if not entirely empty, were as likely to
be carried through as the promises in a political party’s election
manifesto; containing the broad thrust of the intentions of those
who ran the show possibly, but likely to represent little more
than a vestige of practicality. For one thing it was technically
impossible for the company to dismiss a driver since they all
worked for themselves; the worst damage that could be inflicted
was a refusal to allow access to company vehicles, radios and
dataheads. If the management felt particularly vindictive they
might make the odd ‘phone call to other companies to warn
them against taking on this particular individual should he
materialise on their doorstep; not that that was likely to make
much difference in anyone’s recruiting process.

On the odd occasion when draconian action was taken
and drivers were removed from the company’s books by far
the most common cause was because they had been trying to
charge customers too much. Of all the complaints made by both
customers and management against private hire drivers this is
by far the most common. At a conservative estimate at least 50%
of private hire drivers indulge in this practice, some to the tune
of 10% and some far more. The absence of meters, of course,
makes it easier to be creative about fares, and customers rarely
ask to see the car’s trip meter and compare it with a fare chart. In
any case those who habitually overcharged invariably suffered
a sudden bout of acute but temporary amnesia just at the point
when they should have reset their mileage. I was frequently
treated to stories of overcharging by customers keen to tell me
that they knew what the fare should be and “don’t try it on.”
Of course on one level this practice did no direct damage
to the company, but indirectly it had the capacity to cost them
a great deal. In an age of diminishing brand loyalty private
hire companies tend to lie in the relegation zone of the lowest
division in the league. Customers who were overcharged would
frequently take their business elsewhere, and a drop in the
customer base led to a fall in the quantity of drivers wanting to
work for the company and a consequent fall in rental income.
Conversely a private hire firm that could establish even a modest
reputation for employing honest drivers was likely to be on the
receiving end of a steady flow of new custom from victims of
previous sharp practice.
I resisted the not infrequent impulse to add a bit onto the
fare of customers who made my life difficult, or as one of my
colleagues put it, ‘include my personal fuel surcharge.’ To be
truthful this was less out of any sense of moral principle and more
out of a fear that once I started such a practice I would probably
find it difficult to stop, and would one day find myself having
to account for it on the carpet of a director’s office.

Some of the stories of passengers being overcharged made
me angry, particularly when they involved elderly folk or those
on a limited income who had no option other than to use cabs.
Many accounts, though, were hilarious, and caused me to
wonder about the place on the evolutionary scale of the brains
of some of my fellow drivers. The most vital ground rule if you
intended to add a few quid to the fare was to pick carefully the
customers you victimised, and particularly to make sure they
didn’t know what the fare should be. One woman I picked up
quite regularly to take to a bingo hall a little over two miles from
her home had been using the same company for ten years, took a
cab at least twice a week, and knew the fare to all the destinations
she frequented. She told me one day that the new driver who
had picked her up a week previously had tried to charge her £2
extra for a trip she made every week. She presented him with
the normal fare, and added to it a mouthful of choice verbal
abuse and a whack with her not insubstantial bag, reported the
incident to the company and asked not to have that driver again.
One of the more jaw-dropping attempts at overcharging I
heard about was during a night shift towards the end of my time
in the business. I was fortunate enough to pick up the manager
of one of Leeds’s manifold nightclubs catering for the student
market at the time of night when work is quite hard to find. It
was a good fare – out beyond the boundaries of the city, and
worth a good £12, but reachable in no more than fifteen minutes
at that time of night courtesy of the M621. Not only was it a
decent fare, but the customer was sober, engaging and interesting
– attributes that were all at a premium after midnight – with a
wealth of entertaining anecdotes. It was the kind of job you really
appreciate in the middle of a quiet night shift. He paid happily,
added a small gratuity in appreciation of my promptness, making
it even more worthwhile, and then told me about his previous
driver, whose stupidity really beggars belief. Having completed
the same trip he announced the fare as £26; he had picked on
the wrong customer. Instead of arguing about the fare he told the
driver to hold on a minute and called the company office on his
mobile ‘phone. Having been put through to the night manager he
simply asked why it was that for a journey he made two or three
times a week at a cost of about £12 his current driver had asked
him for more than double that sum. The manager promptly
asked to speak to the driver, told him not to collect a fare, and
return to Base immediately. The customer had a free ride, and
the driver lost both his fare and his livelihood.
I had no sympathy with him whatever – or others like him;
not only was he giving the rest of us a bad name he succeeded
in exhibiting amazing stupidity in his choice of stooge. It also
made life for the honest drivers more difficult. Almost every
customer I collected had at least one story of extortion at the
hands of a private hire driver they wished to divest themselves
of, and I always knew that the subtext of such conversations
was either a plea not to rip them off or a threat of non-payment
should I try.

Tuesday 21 June 2016

Extracts from my first solo book which I have recently published about the two years I spent driving a private hire car rather than being a clergyman. It began life as a piece of auto-catharsis and turned into a project. If I can sell some I can start recouping my costs!

The Collar and the Cab
Follow this link to buy from publisher, or you can order direct from me. Amazon also have it as well as a number of independent retailers.

23
Lower Bramley – God Bless

Like respectable Edwardian families, who were inclined to
have them institutionalised, most of us have a relative who is
embarrassing in company. The draconian options open to our
ancestors are no longer available, so we have to find other means
of marginalising their potential effect on respectable company.
Those who plan and govern major cities are faced with a
similar predicament; there are whole tracts of land that are an
embarrassment, usually featuring a fairly wide, but entirely
predictable array of local authority housing. These are the estates
that survived the great sell-off of council housing during the
Thatcher era, or failed to benefit from them, depending on one’s
perspective. The generally preferred means of coping with these
substantial bunions is a combination of denial and disguise, the
latter largely being a means of facilitating the former.
My own head was removed from the concrete desert
when my neck was yanked effortlessly by the force of sheer
necessity. It was simply not an option as a cab driver to avoid
this reality since so much of my work took me into the kinds
of urban landscape I thought had become extinct during
the slum clearance programmes of the post-war era. Most of
these dwellings were erected long after the Orwellian “flying
aspidistra” semi in the plush suburban districts that had been
the domestic staple diet of almost my entire life. My maiden
foray into one of the labyrinthine, arthritic byways that wound its way through a bewildering and depressing topography was a
jaw-dropping experience; how did people go about constructing
anything like a decent life in these surroundings? Row upon row
of once-identical buildings containing any number of dwellings,
sometimes configured together like one of those wooden puzzles
given as a gift on Christmas Day, dissembled, and laid aside
after an hour’s futile manipulation. The original uniformity of
appearance was distorted only by the largely, but by no means
universally, cosmetic scars, some inflicted by time and weather,
others by frustrated or malevolent residents, visitors or the
local criminal fraternity. The parts of the landscape set aside for
what was comically called recreational use were adorned with
the discarded detritus of broken-down domestic appliances
and redundant technology – fridges, washing machines, video
recorders, cassette players and the like that had once lured
underemployed credit cards from reluctant wallets. Whilst
on one level this provided plenty of hardware to function as
makeshift goalposts or cricket stumps, any sporting activity
would be the equivalent of a game of hopscotch in a minefield.
Were there any youngsters with the inclination or courage to
venture onto the putative recreational areas they would often
have had to brave not only the dangers of abandoned appliances
but the likelihood of coming to grief on a used hypodermic
syringe.
Some of the damage suffered by homes designed to give
ordinary people a decent and wholesome habitat almost
beggared belief. A tiled roof once the accomplished product of
a skilled artisan that had somehow been crushed from above;
craters in gardens that would not have done injustice to the
reputation of a decent Luftwaffe bombardier, and holes in walls
that might have been inflicted by a medium-sized wrecking ball.

It was these bloated blotches on the landscape that I, like so
many others, had previously been cheerfully ignorant of, that
now caused me a sense of profound shame. How could such
streets and blocks of housing and the people who inhabited
them be so unknown to me when I had lived within a few miles
of them for the last six years? Where was the Christian presence
that might have made some kind of difference to the erosion of
morale and hope that surely must be the by-product of being
brought up and trying to secure some kind of an education in
this setting? I surveyed one particular street whose principal
feature was a rather large pylon, and wondered why anyone
agreed to live there. Let them try to put that in a respectable
private estate where house prices were steadily rising and
provided one of the most popular topics of conversation, and
where most residents knew at least one city councillor; the
mountain of mailbags of protest from Yorkshire’s ‘Disgusted of
Tunbridge Wells’ (perhaps the ‘Horrified of Harrogate’) retinue
would have resembled Kilimanjaro.

Quite early in my venture into the world of minicab driving
I was directed to what I was sure must have been an incorrect
address, as none of the houses looked as if they could possibly
be inhabited other than by small rodents; most had windows
boarded up, hardly any front lawns had seen the business end
of a lawnmower for some years, and even were some kind soul
to make the attempt at such a feat they would have to clear
enough jetsam to fill a Cornish beach. A major excavation with
an industrial digger might unearth an eclectic mixture of weeds
and the odd blade of grass in the last throes of terminal illness.

Even if the address on the screen was correct, I surmised,
there was surely no one living in this kind of estate who could
possibly afford a taxi. Just in case there was someone around,
however, I decided it might be expedient to reverse down the culde-
sac to which I had been directed, steering carefully through
the slalom course of discarded white goods and builders’ rubble.
The further down the narrow road I drove the more it resembled
the East End of London in the blitz. Just in case I really did have
a customer I entered the code on the datahead that rang the
intrepid commuter to announce my arrival. I prepared to lock
the car doors and prepare for as rapid a departure as the worn
piston rings in the old Skoda would allow in the event of an
all-out assault by the living dead who must surely be the only
possible inhabitants of such a desolate landscape. It was far more
likely that I would shortly be radioing Base to report a no fare.
I hadn’t been waiting more than 30 seconds when with a
screech of protest what appeared to be the only door still in
proximity to its frame was yanked through about 30 degrees –
just sufficient to allow the egress of what were surely the only
survivors in the devastation that surrounded me.

Sarah looked like a woman in early middle-age, but I
suspect she was younger – a year or two either side of 30;
slightly overweight, with a careworn face etched with the pain
that was the inevitable companion of survival in her kind of
world. Her light brown hair was interlaced with prematurely
grey streaks and had probably not been styled for many a year,
but her smile was engaging, genuine and generous; in fact she
was rather attractive. Most of her clothing, from her threadbare
jacket to shoes that I suspect had holes in the soles that more or
less matched those in the uppers, would have failed to grace the
shelves of a charity shop. Her voluminous bag, like most such
receptacles, was a living example of Murphy’s Law of women’s
fashion accessories – the amount of paraphernalia carried
will always expand to fill however much space is available.
Nevertheless, whatever else it contained I knew what little cash
it could boast would be regarded by most people as pitifully
inadequate for the acquisition of enough food to feed a family –
before the taxi fare was paid – and the worn but anorexic purse
would not be replete with the array of plastic most of us regard
as essential to survival in the modern world. But as I was to
learn Sarah was actually a fairly typical customer.

Wednesday 15 June 2016

Extracts from my first solo book which I have recently published about the two years I spent driving a private hire car rather than being a clergyman. It began life as a piece of auto-catharsis and turned into a project. If I can sell some I can start recouping my costs!

The Collar and the Cab
Follow this link to buy from publisher, or you can order direct from me. Amazon also have it as well as a number of independent retailers.

22
Rodley – Time to Take Stock

It was that time of year when Spring finally breaks free of the
shackles of Winter – even if only to succumb periodically at
any point up to the end of May. April was giving notice to
quit, and the air was rich with the scent of nature reasserting
its immortality. Much the same was happening to my mental
health. The psychological injuries I had previously sustained
had given me some idea of the trauma experienced by those
involved in serious road traffic accidents and unprovoked
assaults. My life had never been threatened physically but my
sanity had; even the odd suicidal thought had crossed my mind
on more than one occasion. I had come out of the operating
theatre, done my time in intensive care, and was now officially
off the danger list.
Easter had passed by in a blur. This of course was nothing
unusual for me, but the manner in which it had passed was,
to put it mildly, unfamiliar. I had made a special effort to be
in church on Easter Sunday – something I managed on most
Christian Sabbaths, though rarely before the service started.
But Good Friday had merited its epithet this year only in the
sense that it had been exceptionally profitable, and there was
something about the triumphalism of the familiar hymnody of
Easter Day that seemed strangely hollow.
The period from Maundy Thursday to Easter Sunday had
hitherto been a maelstrom of frenetic clerical and ecumenical hyperactivity with little or no variation in pattern for the last 20
years or more.
Thursday evening generally witnessed a respectable and
insipid re-enactment of the Last Supper, with small cubes
of bread and individual glasses of sweetened, non-alcoholic
communion wine that assuaged the thirst of the sensitivities
of traditional nonconformity rather than connecting with one
of the most dramatic episodes in the gospels. The real Last
Supper featured large chunks of roast lamb and an almost
limitless supply of decent red plonk, and took place against
the backdrop of looming disaster and certain, agonising death
following the spineless betrayal of a friend. Too much of that
kind of atmosphere would have been considered inappropriate,
and very likely put the good churchgoing folk off their late night
cheese and biscuits.
Good Friday had always provided the opportunity to do
something with other local churches, the argument being that
if we could not work together on the occasion on which we
remembered the death of the Saviour of us all, how could we
even pretend to claim a common heritage and purpose? For at
least one day of the year we laid aside petty resentments over
recalcitrant former members who were now part of another
local flock, allowed theological disputes over the correct
quantity of water to use in initiation rites to lie dormant, and
almost reached the idyllic state of wanting all churches to do
well. Typically this exercise in ecumenical camaraderie took the
physical form of a march down the local high street. We would
pass bemused onlookers exhibiting modest levels of admiration
at our courage and perhaps just the tiniest trace of guilt that
they were out shopping on such a sacred day; over the years the
guilt seemed to diminish and the bemusement to morph into
incomprehension about the whole exercise. We would walk
more timidly perhaps past diverse hostelries hosting the sort of
people I had always convinced myself were not having nearly as good a time as they appeared to be, and was certain that they
knew nothing of the deep joy of the faithful such as I.
Everything culminated, of course, in the triumphant
assertion of each Easter Sunday that “Christ is Risen, He is
Risen Indeed” never again to die, the gift of God to assuage
sinful mankind’s guilt and provide a guarantee of eternal life to
all who believe. Perhaps it was familiarity rather than a loss of
faith, but it seemed to me that the power of that simple message
to change lives, indeed to alter the course of human history, was
largely lost in the background. Thoughts of Sunday lunch and
the anticipation of plans for the Bank Holiday assumed centre
stage after the second verse of “Thine be the Glory”, or five
minutes into a sermon reinforcing the same eternal conviction
with varying degrees of certitude.

I had to face the harrowing truth that along with the dismantling of my selfconfidence
and professional reputation my carefully constructed
spiritual hermitage had also fallen around my ears, and now lay
like so much rubble at my feet. I stood leaden-footed, exposed
to elements that had previously battered unavailingly on the
walls of my carefully constructed house of faith. Leaden-footed
I might have been, but it would be erroneous to mistake lack of
movement for any kind of stability. I realised just how efficiently
I had worked to keep the arguments against my faith at bay
using a combination of pseudo-spiritual semantics and recalling
memories of the few occasions when the presence of God had
seemed so palpable as to dismiss doubt as so much chaff to be
blown away by the wind of a single line of a familiar chorus.
The quest to delve into my soul to look for the remains
of a belief system amidst the rubble was neither an academic
exercise nor a leisure pursuit. More than six months had
now passed since I had relinquished a pulpit in favour of the
driver’s seat of a private hire car. Whether out of a sense of
puritanical masochism or because I had still failed to learn my
lesson I was meeting leaders of different churches to look at the
possibility of returning to ministry by the autumn – a process
called “settlement” in my denomination – that usually takes at
least three months. There are doubtless clergy who have lost
their faith in a God who has become anything other than a
metaphysical image and who are still able to trot out Christian
dogma quite happily with fingers crossed behind their backs; I
have never been one of them, believing that St. Paul was stating
the bloody obvious when he commented “If for this life only we
have believed in Christ we are of all people most to be pitied.”
It was time to ask hard questions about how much of the faith I
had spent almost all my adult life propagating I still believed.

Monday 13 June 2016

Extracts from my first solo book which I have recently published about the two years I spent driving a private hire car rather than being a clergyman. It began life as a piece of auto-catharsis and turned into a project. If I can sell some I can start recouping my costs!

The Collar and the Cab
Follow this link to buy from publisher, or you can order direct from me. Amazon also have it as well as a number of independent retailers.

21
Dawson’s Corner – Answering Bail
and Retail Therapy

The area known as Dawson’s Corner boasted only one major
additional feature to the shopping complex that generated steady
if unremarkable income for the Flask of Tea Brigade, and that
was the local police station, serving a significant area of West
Leeds at the border with what most saw as its poor relation, the
city of Bradford. But work to and from this establishment was
a world removed from the haven for retail therapy that was its
immediate neighbour, and almost always significantly more
interesting. The more mundane, though always pleasant jobs,
involved taking police officers to or from the station; the key to
this work was to encourage less than discreet disclosures about
recent shifts both because such tales were generally fascinating
– if sometimes toe-curling – and because it discouraged the
passenger from looking too closely at the speedometer. I have
little doubt that these worthy public servants had far better things to do than concern themselves with the minor violations
of speed limits of their transport, but I often entertained a bizarre
nightmare fantasy of an officer paying his or her fare whilst
simultaneously serving me with a speeding ticket. Not that I
drove excessively fast – I had discovered that stress and anxiety
levels were significantly reduced by keeping to a reasonable
speed, but it would be a little too creative with the verities to
pretend that I abided rigorously by the posted speed limit. In
truth it would have been difficult to earn a good living were I to
have done so, particularly when travelling to pick-up points.
Even more entertaining than transporting officers of the law,
however, were those jobs involving taking people to the police
station as part of their bail conditions, providing a gateway into
what seemed like a parallel universe in which almost anything
could happen.
Before I found myself in the world of taxi-driving almost
the last people I would have expected to find in the back of a
minicab were those without jobs, homes or obvious means of
earned income who subsisted in a hand-to-mouth fashion on the
fringes of anything resembling respectable society. Such notions
are seriously misplaced, and one of the more frequent thoughts
that would go through my head in the course of a shift was “how
can these people afford a cab fare when people like me generally
can’t?” Perhaps this was really a manifestation of the innate
Puritan drive for austerity that eschews such extravagance when
public transport, bicycle or legs are available. On the other hand
it may have something to do with many of my customers having
shares in an alternative economy, and the simple fact that there
were good reasons that compelled so many of them to answer
bail on a regular basis.
The first fare to this particular police station involved one of
those “I’m in a hurry and stuff the consequences for your driving
licence” conversations. The social miscreant, “Dean”, according
to my datahead, sported an ankle tag that clearly caused him no embarrassment whatever and was accompanied by a girlfriend
of the “Stacey” type (“I know it won’t last, you know it won’t last,
but we’ll have a kid together then try something different.”) He
barked his orders peremptorily. “I’m going to Dawson’s Corner
nick and I’m in a fuckin’ hurry. Shit – is that the time. Can
you get there in ten minutes mate? O yeah – we’ll be coming
back again afterwards so can you wait for me?” This sense of
urgency appeared not to be contagious – his female companion
embarked languidly with an air of having seen it all before –
probably with a number of different men. With heavy traffic
and a couple of speed cameras to negotiate I did well to arrive
barely five minutes after the announced deadline, and Dean
disappeared into what was probably for him the equivalent of a
hornets’ nest assuring his girlfriend and myself that he would be
out again in a couple of minutes.

The two minute deadline came and went without event, and
after ten minutes the female companion, who had demonstrated
her anxiety by making and receiving ‘phone calls and sending text messages to friends and family alike with the dexterity of
a double-jointed touch-typist, seemed suddenly to come round
and express at least passing curiosity as to the fate that had
befallen her man within the confines of the “nick.” At fifteen
minutes it occurred to her that the simple way to find out might
be to darken the door of the establishment to make enquiries, so
off she went in leisurely pursuit of Dean while I tried to work out
how I was going to break the news of the waiting time charge.
The “Stacey” emerged quickly with an air of relative indifference
tinged with chagrin that she had been put to the inconvenience.
‘They’ve nicked him, love. Turns out there’s another three
warrants out on him, so he’s in the cells. Take me back home.’
I confess to being at a complete loss to know what I should
have said to someone who had just witnessed the incarceration
of a partner and was exhibiting about as much disappointment
as she would in ripping up this week’s losing lottery ticket.
It seemed as if recording one’s presence at a police station to
answer bail was one of those regular hazardous pursuits like
learning to ice-skate. You know you are going to fall over, it’s
just a question of when and how much it’s going to hurt, so you
might as well get on with it and deal with the consequences as
they arise. Fortunately I didn’t have to attempt any linguistic feat
of interested concern in her lingua franca because she spent the
return journey letting half the world know that “Dean’s been
nicked again”; I was not privy to the responses to this bland
statement of fact, but had the impression that it was received
on much the same level as being told the cat’s been sick on the
doormat. ‘Oh alright luv, thanks for letting me know. Must dash,
I’ve got a cake in the oven.’

Sunday 12 June 2016

Thursday 9 June 2016

Extracts from my first solo book which I have recently published about the two years I spent driving a private hire car rather than being a clergyman. It began life as a piece of auto-catharsis and turned into a project. If I can sell some I can start recouping my costs!

The Collatr and the Cab
Follow this link to buy from publisher, or you can order direct from me. Amazon also have it.

19
Hunslet – Paranoia – Feeding and Shite

Certain mild forms of psychiatric disorder appear to be almost
essential requirements for particular professions. Currently
dentists and farmers are the most likely to suffer from levels
of depression severe enough to precipitate suicide. Politicians
experience periodic bouts of narcissism and delusions of
grandeur, depending on their popularity ratings. Football
managers and players seem to suffer from manic depression,
their place on the bi-polar scale determined by the results of
their team and the perceived merits or otherwise of the match
officials. But if the conditions known as “housemaid’s knee”
and “tennis elbow” relate in any way to those occupations there
should certainly be a condition called “Taxi Driver’s Paranoia.”
I encountered quite severe forms of the illness not so much
from day one but from hour one in the private hire world. Several
drivers arriving at a similar time to collect a car seemed to share
the common objective of outdoing one another in relating
accounts of how awful a hand they had been dealt.

For the first week I assumed that I had just come across a few disgruntled drivers who had for whatever reason not enjoyed a
very good shift; three months into the job I realised that this
kind of attitude is endemic, and in some perverse way acts as
a kind of soothing balm to anaesthetise them from the more
unsavoury aspects of the job. ....... those who drive for hire and
reward seem to acquire a variety of persecution complexes that
provide succour for their distressed souls. These are expressed
in a variety of forms; from the Mazurka of Martyrdom through
the Sonata of the Scapegoat to the full-blown Symphony of the
Sacrificial Lamb with full highly-strung orchestra. The detail of
the score would typically contain several stories demonstrating
to any reasonable listener that they had been picked on to
perform a succession of thankless tasks adding up to a shift that
not only failed to keep the wolf from the door but positively
welcomed him over the threshold and into the kitchen. Only by
working their butts off could they prevent the rapacious invader
from ascending the stairs to devour their families. All such jobs
and periods of work were known collectively as “shite”, the final
“e” affording the opportunity to lengthen the middle vowel and
thus facilitate the expression of a greater level of disgust than
the simple monosyllabic “shit”, though the two terms were used
more or less interchangeably. The root causes of the persecution complex are to be found
in the thought patterns encouraged by the isolated nature of the
job on the one hand, and the value attributed to the work allotted
to them on the other.
The relative isolation the driver experiences from anyone else working for the company during a shift was, for me, one of
the most attractive aspects of the job. It is impossible to survive
two decades in clerical ministry without being a decent “people
person” and being able to cope with the often unreasonable
demands of the average churchgoer. Twenty years or so of
constant pressure from people with problems and needs – some
real, many imaginary – had, however, left me with a powerful
longing to hold the human race in general at arm’s length. At
one point in my life this had resulted in an attempt to buy an
isolated croft in the Outer Hebrides and move there lock, stock
and barrel. The attempt was thwarted in the end by the owner,
one of Stornoway’s loyal army of Free Presbyterian churchgoers,
pulling out of the contract at the last minute when she was
presented with a better offer. I have since come to regard this
episode as divine deliverance; I would have loved the barren
landscape of Lewis, and could even have coped with the weather,
but would have very rapidly despaired of this particular brand of
Puritanical hypocrisy.
So when I began to drive a minicab for a
living the discovery that once ensconced in the car I was unlikely
to have to speak to anyone with any kind of call on my time
and attention, and indulge only in the superficial conversation
typically held with customers, was one that made my heart feel
very light indeed.
Given that most taxi drivers register at least half way up
on the schizophrenia scale, however, the apparently arbitrary
manner in which most work arrived via the datahead was almost
certain to result in some measure of paranoia. There would be
few problems when work was plentiful and profitable. Shifts like
these allowed very little time for thinking about anything other
than work. When a job was completed the driver was required
to enter a code into the datahead which cleared the vehicle for
the next assignment. In busy times this would appear instantly,
to be replaced by another when that job was completed. This
non-stop flow of work could easily last for several hours, and messages would appear on the screen pleading with drivers
not to take a break until it died down. Occasionally this state
of affairs would last all day, a twelve-hour shift would pass in
the eponymous twinkling of an eye, and there would be little or
no opportunity for reminding oneself that we were a persecuted
minority oppressed by the arrogant plutocrats who believed
they owned our souls.
Most days, however, there was at least one sizeable lull in
the flow of work, providing ample opportunity for exercising
one’s paranoid imagination. No amount of staring at the
inactive screen would induce it to cough out another piece of
work, however much willpower or hypnotic effort was applied
to the uncooperative electronic circuitry. When such periods of
enforced idleness extended upwards of fifteen minutes, and still
no work emerged, it became increasingly difficult to attribute
the dearth of earning opportunities to anything other than some
malevolent individual who had decided for whatever reason that
this particular driver on this particular day should be deprived of
a decent living. These attacks of paranoia would begin in quite a
mild way, with perhaps just the odd stray thought about a recent
conversation with one of the telephone operators that could have
been misinterpreted, but the longer the wait without work the
more frequent and the more intense they became.

Tuesday 7 June 2016

Extracts from my first solo book which I have recently published about the two years I spent driving a private hire car rather than being a clergyman. It began life as a piece of auto-catharsis and turned into a project. If I can sell some I can start recouping my costs!

Follow this link to buy from publisher, or you can order direct from me. Amazon also have it.
The Collar and the Cab

18
Weetwood – Getting Maureen to
do the Work

There are ways to use a satellite navigation unit – and ways not
to use one.
This was the era in which they were still something of a
novelty, and of course Santa, in my view somewhat irresponsibly,
had stuffed them into tens of thousands of decorative stockings
across the country on Christmas Eve. By Christmas Day the
roads were replete with motorists who knew the route to their
destination as well as they knew the proverbial backs of their
hands, but insisted on programming it into their new Tom-Tom,
Garmin or Navman, and then driving with one eye on the traffic
and one on the screen. The consequences were predictable;
insurance companies were rushed off their feet keeping track
of the claims for minor collisions, and the recipients of the new
toys discovered that the voice database of their unit did not
feature one that announced “You have just had a crash.”
For many it took barely two or three days to realise that
whilst it was a wonderful toy to own that was about all it was
– yet another car accessory with about as much practical day
to day value as a pair of fluffy dice, though far more expensive
and certainly less embarrassing. Any practical worth would
have to wait until an excuse could be engineered for a journey
to unknown parts. In all probability there were thousands of
neglected great aunts and uncles living in obscure parts of the country with exotic post codes who received a surprise visit from
a vaguely remembered great nephew that Christmas, as well as a
distinct drop in the revenue gained from speed cameras.

I never had any real doubt about the value of my new
acquisition, but if there were any lingering reservations they
were dispelled one dark and wet evening rush hour. The fare
was a well-dressed young gent who had travelled from London
by train, arriving just as the traffic was hitting its peak and,
as always when it is raining, creating havoc on the roads with
drivers who believed that a spot or two of precipitation required
them to travel at half their normal rate and check their brakes
were working several times a minute. My customer gave off an
air of ineffable superiority, clearly regarding me as occupying
the rank of something like an assistant footman, and calmly
announced his hotel destination with the tone of one who
assumes that since he is travelling there it must be well known
to anyone who lives within a hundred miles of it.
By this time I knew almost all the hotels within five miles of
the principal railway station, but this one I had never heard of,
and neither had the operator who I radioed for assistance in the
office. The customer had never been to Yorkshire before, and
gave the impression that coming back would be the equivalent
of dining out on dead dog with a side dish of fried sawdust,
which from his superior demeanour he probably thought was
a Yorkshire delicacy anyway. ‘Do you have any idea which area
this is in?’ I asked ‘None at all’, he replied, and then fell silent
as one who has passed the baton of intractability to someone
else and now expects to see them run off into the distance with it. ‘Do you have a street name for it?’ I ventured ‘No, but it’s
in Yorkshire somewhere’ he helpfully offered. He might just
as well have told me that there is a needle in his haystack, but
then I remembered that he was a Londoner and may well have
considered that Yorkshire was a small blob on a map roughly
the size of Kensington. ‘What about a ‘phone number, could you
ring them?’ ‘Afraid not’, he responded with the air of one who has
made a final contribution to a conversation with someone both
culturally and intellectually on the level of primitive protozoa.
At this point I remembered that Maureen had a database of
things like hotels in her memory; I had no idea how complete it
was, but it seemed about the only hope I had short of throwing
him out, which at that point was admittedly quite an attractive
alternative. This was where I would find out if the sat-nav was
really as good as I had hoped.
I entered the name of the hotel more in hope than
expectation, and awaited the results. To my amazement there
it was, the very place. Yes, I know that this is what satellite
navigation systems are designed to do, and nowadays if the
sat-nav couldn’t handle it a smartphone would. But these were
the medieval days of electronic navigation, and I was still lost
in wonder that something barely the size of a tennis ball could
not only know where such a place was, but even have a decent
stab at directing me there. The screen displayed the location –
somewhere the other side of Halifax – no wonder I had never
heard of it. But for me it was a lucrative fare with which to end
my shift, even if the company was to be of questionable pedigree
and the conversation facile.
I instructed Maureen to navigate the way there and then
just followed her instructions, leaving the city and hitting the
motorway network. Twenty minutes later Maureen directed
me to leave the M62 and take a road I had never used before.
From that day to this I really have no idea where I went. Another
twenty minutes obeying directions ensued, taking turn after turn, passing through villages and even glimpsing the distant
lights of Halifax as we skirted it, ploughing on through the rainy
night. I found myself fighting a rising anxiety as the arrival
time on the screen drew ever nearer and all we had seen for
the previous twenty minutes was inky darkness punctured by
the occasional light from a remote cottage. We were somewhere
high up in the Pennines, but exactly where I had no idea. Could
it be that Maureen was to prove a capricious lover and dump
me naked on a minor road outside an obscure village with a
sinister laugh of derision? At least this would have generated
conversation of a sort; the sullen silence from the back seat and
a monosyllabic discouragement of all attempts to engage him in
conversation only added to my anxiety.
The screen showed one minute to arrival; still no sign of
civilisation. Then it displayed the picture of a chequered flag,
Maureen’s signal that arrival was imminent. Still no sign of
life whatever, and anxiety gave rise to ill-disguised panic. The
chequered flag grew closer, and a confident voice instructed me
to turn left in point two of a mile. Still an inky blackness that fed
my fear. What on earth was I to do when Maureen announced
our arrival at a farm gate in Lower Who-Knows-Where?

Sunday 5 June 2016

Extracts from my first solo book which I have recently published about the two years I spent driving a private hire car rather than being a clergyman. It began life as a piece of auto-catharsis and turned into a project. If I can sell some I can start recouping my costs!

Follow this link to buy from publisher, or you can order direct from me. Amazon also have it.
The Collar and the Cab

17
Seacroft – Christmas – the season
of peace and good will

The world of clerical ministry is hardly replete with incentives,
bonuses and perks in the material sense, and no one in their
right mind would seek admission to its hallowed ranks for the
pay. The televangelists from the American Bible belt dripping
in bling and oozing confident predictions of untold wealth
should you subscribe to their anointed ministry are a world
removed (thankfully) from the comparatively uninspiring
English vicar’s existence. ”Stipends”, which clergy are generally
paid, are thus named in order to distinguish them from salaries
in much the same way that a civic banquet is different from a
bowl of stale vegetables. Many churches struggle to pay their
clergy a living wage, and most incumbents accept this as part of
the package, as well as an almost complete absence of tangible
fringe benefits. The promise of the Bible that the reward for such
selfless commitment is great – especially in heaven – and the
satisfaction that comes from making a positive difference to the
lives of individuals, usually suffice to keep the ordained nose to
the ecclesiastical grindstone. I had entered Christian ministry
well aware of this, had rarely complained, and really had found
until recent years that the non-fiscal compensations more than
outweighed the paucity of earnings. Likewise I had accepted
quite cheerfully that I would not be the happy beneficiary of
large bonus payments and inducements carefully packaged to
avoid the attention of the Exchequer. I was comfortable sharing
a similar standard of living to those at the more meagre end of
my church’s wealth range, knowing that in global terms even
this relative frugality classified me among the filthy rich.
Christmas was always the one notable exception, when the
promise of other-worldly rewards was supplemented by adhoc
gifts of biscuits, chocolate, sweets, goodies for the children
and even sometimes small wads of cash dropped anonymously
through the letterbox. It was almost always the best time of year
in the church calendar – the chapel was at its fullest, there were
more mince pies and chocolates to eat than you could shake a big
stick at, and even the most obnoxious and awkward members of
the corpus were in a good humour. This had even been true in
my most recent appointment. Hostilities between minister and
those who had tried to recreate the verbal equivalent of a World
War One bombardment with ceaseless salvos of criticism and
the mustard gas of disinformation emerged from their trenches
to pull a cracker with the minister and his family and even kick
a ball around before regaining their trenches and resuming the
barrage.
I was certainly going to miss Christmas as a minister; I had
always loved planning the candlelight carol service, and leading
the service on Christmas Day, seeing members of extended
families in church, including those who came once a year just
to keep Mom happy. The Christmas Day “service” had little
to do with God, but I never thought he really minded. It was
simply an opportunity for the children – and some of the less
self-conscious adults – to show off their presents, and there was
always someone with an underdeveloped fashion sense who
really believed that the cardigan from Aunt Betty they were
sporting wouldn’t look out of place at a Paris fashion show.

Being used to having a few perks around the festive season I
started to wonder, as December wore on, what kind of bonuses
and displays of gratitude were offered by the company whose
own coffers were being inflated by my dedication to duty. Would
it be fiscal, edible or practical, something to eat, wear, use or
spend?
Messages of a general nature were displayed at regular intervals
on the datahead. This suited both those working in the office and
the drivers; both groups tended to have something of a superiority
complex in relation to the other and remote communication
facilitated the perpetuation of this rather puerile outlook. By the
third week in December I began to anticipate the announcement
that would encourage me to call in to Base to receive my Christmas
bonus; perhaps this would even include two or three days free of
rent so I could earn a little extra for the season.

Sure enough the messages for Christmas week appeared
on cue, though not with the content I had anticipated. The free
handouts, bonuses and goodies failed to achieve a mention.
There was, however, something about rents for the Christmas
period; we were encouraged to call into the office to receive
the latest missive from the directors, and I eagerly anticipated
a demonstration of largesse by those whose pockets I had been
so diligently lining. Perhaps on arrival I would be regaled with
a range of other goodies along with news of a reduction in rents
for the festive season.
The office was not decked out with boughs of holly; the
mistletoe was conspicuous by its absence and the Christmas
tree had either not been ordered or had not been delivered.
Tinsel did not adorn the staircase nor was there any of that nice
candyfloss type material that makes Christmas trees look as if
they are inhabited by angelic spiders. The only thing waiting
for us on arrival at the office was a sheet of paper telling us
how much additional rent we had to pay for our cars over the
Christmas and New Year period – and for owner-drivers how
much per week extra would be levied. No word of appreciation
for those who worked up to 80 hours a week to make a living,
and in the process enabled the directors, had they so chosen, to
change their name by deed-poll to Rothschild, and not even a
few choccies to sweeten the taste of the extra cost.

I discovered that in actual fact the few pounds extra that were paid in rent – largely
to recompense the telephone operators for taking those shifts
– were compensated for several times over. It was not just the
increased fares that generated the income but also the tips that
were liberal sometimes to the point of munificence. These were,
I suspect, largely the subconscious by-product of feelings of
good will fuelled by gastronomic excesses and artificial feelings
of wealth, the by-products of even the most unsubstantial
Christmas bonus. I had long since accepted that the world of
private hire driving was one of the most feral to be found on the
planet, but still the completely barren and spartan appearance of
the premises, as well as the conspicuous absence of Christmas
cheer even of the most basic kind, was rather depressing.
Perhaps, however, this approach was simply a more honest
one. The date arbitrarily set by spiritually-minded medieval
oligarchs which has defined Jesus Christ as a Capricorn has
increasingly become an opportunity for businesses to make
some extra cash on the back of the sentimental sanctity of the
message of the angels. “Peace on earth, good will to all men
and a healthy bulge in the profit margin”; the wolf of avarice
is deceptively dressed in a sheepskin that tips a hat to the
perceived, and usually misunderstood, message and mission
of the Messiah. With an outlook that was as blunt as it was in
some bizarre way refreshing no such pretence was adopted here.
Drivers were likely to enjoy higher takings as a result of increased
fares, benefitting from the influence of alcohol and a generally
misplaced sense of bonhomie among the general public; it was
only reasonable for the company to take a slice of this cake with
an accompanying cherry.

Friday 3 June 2016

Extracts from my first solo book which I have recently published about the two years I spent driving a private hire car rather than being a clergyman. It began life as a piece of auto-catharsis and turned into a project. If I can sell some I can start recouping my costs!

15
Sheepscar – Crashing Out.
Accidents, Collisions and Scams

There are two things a cab driver of any description should never
do; firstly be involved in a collision – and secondly be involved
in a collision. This is true irrespective of where blame lies, if for
no other reason than it makes the few insurance companies still
willing to underwrite the risk of covering taxi drivers rather
nervous. The average insurance bill for drivers who run their
own vehicles is up to ten times what it would be for private
motoring, and the cost for covering the fleet of cars owned by
my company was reportedly not far short of an eye-watering
£200,000 per annum.

Taxi and private hire drivers have a reputation for driving
too fast and too aggressively, but in my experience this was only
true of a small minority, mainly because the greater the speed
the greater the risk of collisions, and the greater the risk of a
hefty financial hit. Those who had learned the trade well had
long since discovered that avoidance of accidents was one of
the main keys to survival, and the small number who refused to
learn this lesson were almost universally among those who did
not last long in the business. As with almost any profession it is
principally the miscreants who are noticed by the general public.
It was much the same in the world of vicaring.

There is something about a vehicle sporting a private hire
licence being driven aggressively that seems to excite anger more
readily than would be the case were the offending piece of plastic
bearing the legend “private hire” not present, and a significant quantity of the public appear ready to smear, with the broadest
possible tar brush, the reputation of all who drive for hire or
reward. In the “perception of who are bad drivers” stakes, White
Van Man and private hire drivers usually run neck and neck at
the head of the field, closely followed by motorcycle couriers
and young men in cheap sports cars. I learned very early on that
the drivers who fancied themselves as the taxi world’s James
Bond behind the wheel of a car usually had insurance premiums
to make the jaw drop and enough convictions for speeding to
make their continued existence in the business precarious to
say the least. A driver once showed me three speeding tickets
resulting from his ignorance of the placement of a new speed
camera, all issued in the space of 24 hours. A further ticket –
which was probably in the post even as we spoke – would result
in potential disqualification.

I considered that I had little to worry about; I had not
experienced a collision where the fault was mine for some twenty
years, and my two months of professional driving had witnessed
no near misses. What was more I now had a piece of paper
confirming my expertise and more than ample competence to
drive a private hire car, and my status in the elevated stratosphere
of expert drivers was confirmed.
I could not have been more mistaken. Poignantly it was in
the same week that I passed my taxi drivers’ test that through a
sheer lack of concentration I drove smack into the rear end of
a poor female driver who wondered (literally) what had hit her.
This was no minor shunt; the victim’s vehicle looked a complete
wreck, and my front end was like something that had competed
in one destruction derby too many. There was nothing to do but
have the car recovered back to Base and await my fate, which I
feared could signal the end of the line. Shame-faced I arrived
back to be met by one of the directors of the company who
asked for an explanation for the pitiful spectacle now skulking
in the shadows that had so recently been a bright shiny company
vehicle. There was nothing to do other than to admit that it was
completely my fault and offer to cough up the requisite £500.
I then braced myself for the verbal onslaught and apocalyptic
sermon on the peril in which my new career now stood. Instead
I was greeted with the almost comforting “You’re not the first
and you won’t be the last”, following which he disappeared back
into his office and I was given another vehicle and life continued
much as before.

What makes a collision even more likely are other factors that
load the odds against taxi and private hire drivers. Firstly there
are a not insignificant number of drivers – particularly though
not exclusively young males for whom a vehicle functions as
a penis extension – who appear to collect occasions on which
they have beaten a taxi away from the lights, or succeeded in
cutting in front of one, as so many notches on the belts of their
machismo. An inability – or an unwillingness – to exercise selfrestraint
can very easily lead to disaster. The second factor is
more sinister, and this involves the scam artists who set out
quite deliberately to cause minor accidents in which they can lay
blame at the door of the third party. As I write now the “crash for
cash” and “flash for cash” artists are hitting the headlines, and
most drivers are aware of at least some of the methods used, but
this was in the days when the crime was in its infancy, and not
well known outside the fraternity. Of the three accidents I was
involved in two fell into this category.
There are a number of variations on the scam, some more
sinister than others, but most of them involve engineering a
scenario in which the front of the victim’s car meets the rear
end of the vehicle driven by the perpetrator. Since collisions of
this nature are almost always seen to be the fault of the victim
insurance claims can be lodged worth a great deal of money, and
a taxi is a safe target because it is bound to be insured.

One of the more sinister variations consists of a car full of
people reversing at speed into the front end of the target’s vehicle,
after which there are not only four or five victims claiming
horrific neck injuries, but the same amount of witnesses more
than willing to perjure themselves in a court of law by laying
the blame fairly and squarely at the feet of the cabbie who
drove recklessly into the back of their car. Knowing that cabs
will almost certainly carry full insurance this has been seen as
a safe way of making money for some time now, though there
is evidence that the insurers are becoming wise to it and are
fighting back.
Some months later this lesson proved immensely valuable
in saving me money and grief.

The Collar and the Cab
This link will take you to the publisher web site where you can order one. Or you can get one direct from myself with free p&p - just ask.