Heros and Villains

General Discussion
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I came over all unnecessary a few moments ago remembering a hero I never, but almost, met, and who, though I obviously didn’t know it at the time, had less than 24 hours to live. Tony Hancock, for those who did not read the cause of this ancient nonsense.

Amongst many other employment pursuits in my life I have been a taxi driver in 2 of the world’s great cities, Sydney and Nottingham. It is a very old joke made mainly about London cabbies (and no, never there, have you seen what they have to learn to get a licence :astonished_face: :laughing:) whose conversation seems to always start with ‘you’ll never guess who I had in the cab the other day’. :roll_eyes:

But I have met some interesting people, some that I could have well done without, but some were a joy.

Amongst the latter was a man with a deep, booming bass voice, a balding comedian with an actress wife who was possibly equally as funny. He flagged me down in the square mile of Sydney and asked me to take him up to Kings Cross, not very far at all. Now while The Cross was the red light district of Sydney it was also the home of at least 2 large cab companies and some not too shabby hotels.

I recognised him immediately from his features but also the voice and, although I made it something of a point not to pester famous people there were others who I thought highly enough of to attempt a conversation . Alfred Marks was definitely one of those and the deep voice which came right back at me told me he felt the same way. We didn’t talk much about comedy, but we discovered in each other a common interest in lots of other things. Talking mainly, but on a variety of subjects, and by the time we had got to his hotel we were enmeshed in all sorts of stuff but mainly about language, its origins and use.

Only a 5 minute ride and not exactly an earner but when we got there and pulled up not far from the door, the engine was soon switched off and, never normally till a hand was releasing the door, the meter too. We sat there for over an hour, just talking, talking, talking. What a joy to be with and I was truly sad when I had to decline his offer to continue in the bar. I never saw him again, but never forgot him. :smiley:

They weren’t all like that sadly. There was a tv programme popular at the time, a spin off from Cilla Black’s one, or maybe a forunner, I don’t know. It was I think called Blind Date but, as I was a night driver I never saw tv so it could have been to do with fruit for all I knew. Anyway Yellow Cabs had the contract with the tv company and the plan was that, once the 2 winners had been paired on the show there was a grand night out to follow at a later date. I can’t remember the order but crammed into the evening was a visit to a night club, a meal at a swish restaurant and some kind of theatrical experience. In between each the master of ceremonies, Australia’s answer to Cilla, had to ring the cab company and just give his name and the job would be called. I won the job from Menzies night club to some other place in the city. Not far but quick and profitable. I turned up at the door and immediately my own rear door was almost torn off by this excitable young man repeatedly shouting blind date, blind date, which would have been a mystery to me even if I had seen the rotten show. I got very cross and returned the repeats with my own, the name I had been given which was this bloke’s surname. He would not accept that I had no idea who he was and, assuming that he was trying to ‘steal’ the cab for himself I began threataining to drive off with him hanging on to the open door.

Eventually, a shy young couple emerged and headed for me, they gently enquired if I was for them and I said unless your name is **** then no, I am here for ****. ‘Oh yes, said the young man, that’s him, don’t you know him?’ I replied ‘I do not but that is good enough for me, in you get’. We had a good laugh in the 2 minute journey to the next momentous event in their young lives and I especially enjoyed the view in my rear mirror of a bloke in very tight trousers shaking his fists at me. :rofl: :joy:

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I didn’t take you as the sort of man who would get stuck in Sydney :face_with_hand_over_mouth:

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You’ve had an interesting life David, I do hope you have written it down or told these stories to your children.

My father and grand father were both London taxi drivers. Dad had a few famous people in his cab over the years, John Cleese, the two ronnies, joanna lumley and probably a few he didn’t recognise. The knowledge in my dads day took an average of 18 months, now apparently up to 4 years. Sadly the black cab numbers are diminishing, beaten off the roads by Uber and the other young pretenders.

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I wasn’t, that’s why I am here now, but if I wasn’t here, certainly Sydney would be my next choice. :smiley:

@PeterJ , I can’t imagine doing the knowledge, and why on earth does it take longer now? There was a great tv film about it years ago with Nigel Hawthorn as the examiner.

In Nottingham, being a smaller city and many Private Hire companies (who weren’t allowed to pick up on the street, but did), there was no test but I had my badge from one of the adjoining suburbs.

Sydney was quite different. The largest cab company had put out a leaflet showing all that had to be learned for the test. But it concentrated on just 2 routes. In their wisdom the city fathers had designated 2 routes which went north south to the west of the city. Not complete ring roads but a series of jagged lines to keep traffic out of town. Trouble is, although we all learned them, if we had followed them once out on the road, we would have been breaking the law. This stated quite clearly that a driver must take the shortest, and therefore cheapest, route to the passengers’ destination. We all learned them, passed the test, and then ignored them for evermore. :joy:

Back to Nottingham.
On one New Year’s Eve, I battled my way through snow, ice and fog to get to a booking by a family of sisters on time, ignoring all the hand waving on the streets, only to get there to find they had made their own way home.

Got my own back though, a couple of weeks later I got their usual call to collect them and their bags from a shopping trip. We greeted each other like old friends as I loaded all the shopping into the boot and then locked the car. I said the locking mechanism is linked to a new policy, wasted journeys ie NYE, have to be paid for in advance, as does this trip, before the boot is opened at the other end. They refused, the shopping was unloaded and I drove away waving cheerily through my open window. :joy:

I set up on my own in Nottingham, and before long added another cab with a driver to operate it. It was a London cab, but modified by having a passenger seat alongside the driver in place of the open luggage space there. It was also pure white, having been used by Lincolnshire Health Service as a sort of walking wounded ambulance.

And I did publish a book, but deliberately limited the number of copies because it was intended, as you said, for family and half a dozen friends who had helped with some of the stories and thus got an acknowledgement on the 2nd page ( the first page proudly states ‘First Edition copyright David … 2008’. But you can’t please everybody.
One dedication reads 'Anthony Peabody for his expert help in the forensic aspects of ‘First Time’. It goes on to say ‘Also to Val Wilson for her non expert help with the same story’.

Val was a friend who lived just down the road here and was married to a very jealous, much older, husband. As she proudly showed him her free copy and pointed out her named dedication, his face immediately darkened as he growled ‘exactly what was the nature of the help that you gave him?’

And that is why from a print run of only 8 copies, I have 2 for myself. :rofl:

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I’ve had two spells mini-cabbing in London. The first spell was in my Citroen DS19. There was a gremlin in the fuel supply. Around the city streets it wan’t such a problem but on some dual when a bit of hurry-up was in order, it used to cut out, leaving it stuttering along in what would now be called ‘limp mode’

I had an American to take to LHR. Once up on the Hammersmith flyover one would be expected to give it some gas. There was enough traffic to make it appear I was being cautious but once down onto the M4 I did try but it went into limp mode.

There we were, trickling along at about 26.5 mph. Needless to say the passenger was not happy and made himself understood … :frowning_face:

The next spell was for a company with 5* accounts - M/Soft, BBC, the publisher of a range of glossy women’s mags. I remember one of a group of MS people commenting, just before the event occurred, “I think the dot.com bubble is about to burst.” Smart lad. I imagine he sold his holdings next day and made a killing.

I only remember one distinguished pax - Kenneth “They think it’s all over ..” Wolstenholme. Yet another dinner/guest speaker gig. I remember Stirling Moss saying, “My father would be amazed to find I’m paid to have dinner”

In my location truck - a different story. Three stand out - that nice Joanna Lumley doing a bit of modelling on Primrose Hill. A week with Jane Asher and ‘Tony’ [Lord Snowdon] and Liz Smith, fashion editor [at the time] of The London Evening Standard.

The Smith shoot was going along. She came back to the truck, took off her jeans, put on a leather mini skirt she’s just bought. Did a couple of twirls …

“What d’y think, Chris?” I was speechless. It was one of those occasions when a woman puts on a garment that produces a profound effect. Phew!

If asked that question today I would say, “Liz. You have transformed yourself into an improvised explosive device”

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Never mind Liz Smith, Jane Asher, really fancied her right from the first time I saw her in The Greengage Summer. She could have swapped mini skirts all day for me, but she married cartoonist Gerald Scarfe I believe.

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Many years ago, Inwas a telephone engineer( in the days when you had to fix faults and not just change electronic boards!) On my patch in Southampton, I had do do the phones in the Southern Television and BBC South studios. There, I met many famous stars and rock groups. Sting, Cliff Richard, Mick Jagger, Max Bygraves , bands like The Who, and Squeeze ( Jools Holland) and many other household names. They were great times, the 1970’s, no matter what they say.

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Nostalgia is always rose tinted.

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I’m perhaps a bit younger and @Volcanic, my ‘colour and scent’ memories of Soton and Eastleigh and other places in the late 60s and 70’S are:

The green Hants and Dorset double decker buses, smelling of diesel and fags.

The yellow cellophane film on shop windows.

The smell of creosote at train stations.

Slam door railway carriages.

People (mostly men) on bikes and scooters coming out of the railway works and Pirelli General Factory

Endless summers playing cricket

Boats and hovercraft….taking the boat from Soton to Cowes for no reason at all.

All thosea wonderful Carribbean folk coming into Southampton (I guess in the Windrush) and the incredible scents and sounds of the early Asian scene in Soton.

The transition from guitar bands to funk and disco

Going to the Gaumont in Soton to listen to bands

Shit food.

No one famous person but my sister was in the same class as Colin Firth (before he was famous).

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they were indeed… because it was all new and exciting and we were young enough to be thrilled and dazzled …. and simply enjoy it all “in the moment” :+1:

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nostalgia means “wistful longing” so it might well appear “rose-tinted” in that anything bad doesn’t feature in our happy memories :wink: (unless one is longing to remember “bad times” :thinking: )

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By programs like Tomorrow’s World, with it’s promise of cheap electricity :rofl:

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She did indeed.

I was running a custom designed truck - me and a pal put it together, the interior copied from a small exec jet. It had club seating 3 + 3, with a table between and a row of 3 behind. The table top was on hinges. Raised, it revealed a mirror with lights all round for make-up. A galley with two burner hob and full size fridge and a radio telephone. In those days there was no 1 to 1, You had to go thru’ an operator. Silver 905 was our call sign - will never forget.

I was booked for a week to work with ‘Tony’ Armstrong-Jones who’d been booked to shoot a collection of sub-Jaeger ladies shmattah. The model was Ms Asher.

I’d also been commissioned to provide the catering, as we were working in the grounds of Nymans. Jones’s mum lived in the only bit that hadn’t burned down … A very grand lady. She strode out one day

“Tony!” “Yes, mother” “Tony! Watch what your lot are doing. I’m off for lunch with the French Ambassador” “Yes, mother”

The woman I engaged to put the eats together did a really good job. Jane Asher was pregnant at the time. She was eating for two, with gusto. Kept having 2nds. One lunchtime she’s had plenty, stood up and her skirt fell to her ankles.

“I had to undo it, I’ve eaten so much” She was a charming woman. I picked her up in the truck and deliverd her home on Chelsea Embankment every day.

Jones, it has to be said, was a bit of a lush. I’d got in some Rioja and something else red. Jones tended not to eat but drink.

On one occasion he called me over “Chris, what am I drinking?” I took a swig from his glass. “You’re mixing these wines up Tony. A brew exclusive to you” I recall preparing him a plate of food and insisting he ate it. He loved being bossed.

During the shoot his assistant took me aside.

“After this one, I’m off. He likes you. He’s going to offer you my job”. Which he did but I turned him down. “Got a truck to run, Tony”

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It ain’t what it used to be.

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I do remember Tomorrow’s World (Raymond Baxter) although not it’s actual content. It was a family favourite so it must have been good stuff :rofl:

My nostalgia is for the Pop Music Industry and all that jazz :joy:

A very strange smell hung over the fields that night.. by the light of the many bonfires, I watched people being stretchered away to the medical vans/tents. What’s wrong I asked… huh… they’re “out of it” was the reply…
Seems the strange smell was some drug or another .. well, it masked the smell of hundreds of the (mostly unwashed) very enthusiastic young people, who’d been camping there all weekend :rofl:

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Not as far as the 70’s were concerned! I had just been demobbed from the Royal Navy! Like being let out of jail!

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Late 60’s one of “our gang” was in the Merchant Navy. When he was home on leave he would bring us souvenirs… once it was a genuine grass skirt. Wow.. it was so heavy (and nearly reached the ground)… us girls took turns trying to make the “hula” look easy and sexy?? but it was impossible and we always collapsed with laughter.

Great memories from a gentle “wild time” :+1:

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Sixties even better.

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Raymond, “Mine’s a gin” Baxter,

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no idea about the gin.. but this clip is rather interesting

1965: Paper pants
Raymond Baxter, launch presenter of Tomorrow’s World, confidently predicted that paper pants would replace conventional underwear within three years. Paper suits, dresses and even wedding gowns were on the way, he declared.

I remember paper dresses… had one myself in that longago haven of fun and daftness :rofl: