Taxi Drivers

Taxi Drivers ©

By

Michael Casey

It’s the Sunday before Christmas, so that’s 18Dec2016 if you are keeping track, I was thinking about what to talk about today when I noticed a Toyota Avensis taxi outside, they are built like a tank and are so great for taxis. I did want my wife to buy one a few years ago when we changed our car but she insisted she was not a taxi driver. So she got something prettier instead.

So what can I say about taxis and taxi drivers? Well I did have a taxi home from work every night for a year, and I did run the taxis for 3 years when I worked at the hotel. So I think that gives me some experience, I don’t remember seeing the film Taxi driver with De Nero though I did enjoy the comedy Taxi with Danny de Vito.

So what can I say about taxi drivers, they are very sensitive and shy and unassuming, who would not say boo to a goose. And if you believe that you’ll see pigs flying pulling that sleigh in a week’s time. Though my graveyard taxi tended to be quiet as it was 2.30 in the morning when I finished work, I used to have them pick me up but after a couple of weeks I decided to walk down the road to the taxi office, then I had to wake them up so they could take me home.

If you don’t drive and don’t even have a car then a taxi is like a luxury, a bit smelly, nearly 20 years ago smoking hadn’t been banned in taxis, by passengers or by drivers. The roads were quiet at nearly 3am, apart from huge trucks delivering to supermarkets, we did nearly get totalled a couple of times by a supermarket lorry on a narrow stretch of the road. Iced by an Iceland truck, at least our bodies would have been preserved.

Getting home at 3am meant you could never sleep straight away so you have to unwind and have a drink and a snack before going to bed at 4am. I went to bed at 4am for a year, just like Sinatra no doubt. When I left that job, my wife was pregnant, it took me 3 months to deprogram my body to sleep before 4am. Though if any of you are hoping for a family 3am to 4am might be worth a try.

It cost a lot of money having a taxi for a year, lucky on the Friday I tended to get a lift from one of the crew at SMBC. I moved on and it was at CPNEC Birmingham that I ran the taxis. We had a great restaurant, then it was Brian Turners, but still the guests wanted to try other things, so I’d arrange the taxis as well as local food options. All I’ll say is that you have to be quick, very quick to keep the flow going, keeping the customer happy. If a guest wanted another pint  then I’d try and move up the taxis so my drivers didn’t have to wait 30 mins. You have to mix and match guests and drivers.

And yes I was very good at all this, the drivers were very sad when I left because I looked after them. If I looked after them, then they looked after the guests, so it was a win win situation, common sense really. In hotels the evening rush is something which has to be seen to be believed, there is a buzz you get, but you thank God when it is over.

You really do have to peel off your uniform and make the dash through the NEC to the train station, then the bus, then the walk home. I did this for 3 years, but if you have 2 toddlers you do what you have to do, standing up for 12 hours a day makes your legs strong, is that the irony, that’s why I had good veins for my quadruple  heart bypass 10 years later.

Another irony that I’ve just remember, Michael is the name of the old taxi driver in The Butcher The Baker and The Undertaker and it is he that leads the charge to save the life of an Indian corner shop’s daughter. You have to read the book for yourself. So circles in my mind lead to circles in my life. We had a neighbour called Mr Mann who was bigger than Jabba the Hutt who drove an old Humber taxi, when our lodger was drunk and fell and burnt himself on a gas cooking plate it was Mr Mann who drove my dad and a screaming Barney Rooney to the hospital.

Of course as it was Christmas Mr Mann was plastered and drunk himself, he had not expected to be an ambulance after all. But he did get Barney to the hospital, Barney lived another 40 years and drank and smoked like a trooper, and died the day after his 83^rd Birthday after my dad and sister gave him a Birthday card in hospital. Mr Mann did offer to drive dad home, he lived 3 doors away, but dad decided to walk home, I seem to remember him once telling us that they were nearly totalled as they steamed down the main road, they were steamed up, or drunk after all.

So I’ll finish for now I have to go to Aldi, no alcohol required, 12 pints a year is about my limit, if you grow up with alcoholic lodgers you see what a waste it is. Which brings us full circle, my regular driver died, alcohol was to blame.