Holding The Baby

Some stuff will just never find its way onto these pages, some stuff which I see and hear would just be too hurtful to the folks involved. Other stuff can be told after the passage of time this is just one such story. This took place a good few years back now and maybe the people involved have hopefully changed for the better, who knows let's hope so. The job was to pick a fare up from a large house which was split into flats, it was a rough sort of place and I had to wait a while before someone finally appeared. Then two guys walk out carrying a girl between them who looked unconscious, they heaved her in the back of the car and told me the address she was going to. I went to set off but one of them almost as an afterthought shouted for me to wait and went back into the house. The two guys both of whom were drunk then staggered out with a baby held between them.The baby of no more than twelve or thirteen months old was thrust on the lap of the semi-conscious girl. The girl was that far gone she could not speak or even keep her eyes open and so when we got to the address I was given, I took the baby off her and knocked on the door fully expecting someone sober waiting there to look after the both of them. After knocking for a while with no response, the girl roused herself enough to stagger to the door, open it and fall in. She then tried to take the baby from me, but looking at the state of her I was not so sure that was such a good idea. I had a look around the house in case someone else was about but found nobody at all. I then tried knocking on the neighbour’s door to see if they could help, but they simply didn’t want to know. 
 Very reluctantly I put the baby down and left, I suppose I was guilty of not wanting to get involved. But of course, my mind wouldn’t settle, I kept thinking about what could happen, but then I kept reminding myself that the child would probably be taken into care if the authorities found out. I radioed into the office and had a talk to the lady operator she didn’t hesitate “phone the police you’ll never forgive yourself if anything happens to that child” she said. I drove around aimlessly for a bit longer but the more I struggled with it the more I realised that something just had to be done. The phone call was made and I never did find out what happened over it. I just sincerely hope I did the right thing, but who knows what's for the best. did I make the right call I wonder?

Pie Eyed

I had two guys and one not so lovely lady in the cab this morning, one of the guys just happened to be gay.
 They had been out all night partying and were still totally steaming drunk. The over the top drunken lady all of a sudden comes out with the classic weird question “is your brother fat because you’re gay then”? 
There was a stunned silence for a minute or two and then the gay man said “no it’s because he eats too many pies” 
 Oh yes, she said," I eat pies too does that make me fat as well?” He just witheringly looked her up and down in scornful silence for a long moment and then they all started screaming and arguing at the top of their voices, luckily they had reached the destination and were getting out by then, boy was I glad to get rid of them.

Long Gone Landmark

My fare was a lady along with her two grandchildren who were roundabout ten and twelve.
She was trying to describe to them the place that she wanted to meet them later on, but was having no success at all. She was getting madder and madder and the grandkids more and more perplexed.
For the tenth time she said almost at scream level “by the bank on the corner down from the Railway Arms pub and the police station.” 
The kids just looked at each other completely baffled.  This is when I interrupted and pointed out that every single one of the landmarks she mentioned had all closed down, some of them many years ago. The poor kids wouldn’t have had a clue what the heck she was talking about. 
This got me thinking about just how many people use landmarks that are simply not in existence any longer. 
I still get asked to go for fares at the back of Stollers in town which is a furniture store which moved to the outskirts of town maybe twenty years ago and the fish market that hasn’t sold a fish for many a year. Or I get asked to turn left at the Astra lights as they recall the cinema which was demolished lots of years ago. There are many more of these long gone landmarks which folk use, as well as names of places which have long been changed some several times over. 
I feel sorry for the younger new taxi drivers who must get baffled by all this ancient history! 
But still it will get worse, the rate that pubs and clubs are disappearing nowadays. You know that most folk use pubs to give directions and so when they are all gone we shall all be completely hopelessly lost!   

Blue Badge

I see that down in the city of Manchester some cars have been impounded and the owners prosecuted for using fake blue disabled parking badges.(for overseas readers these badges allow parking on yellow lines for up to three hours).
 From what I see and hear every day on the streets of Barrow you don't need to fake a badge, it seems you get one even if it's your aunt's friend's sister in law that is suffering with an ingrown toenail. The town centre is littered with cars all badly parked using these badges as an excuse for their laziness and tightfistedness. 
I have watched these drivers park on yellow lines right next to a pay and display car park, and then stride several hundred yards across the car park to get to the shops, and even on occasion seen them run back for their forgotten walking stick. 
I had to double park and block traffic for a while today, as I helped my passenger a genuinely disabled lady into a shop. On the way back to the car I noticed that one of the cars blocking access was displaying a blue badge, but it was a large estate car filled with the tools and cable used by an electrician. 
There are obviously genuine users of blue badges but a large proportion are definitely taking the mickey. 

Trapped

   I seemed to be picking up lots of people from all four corners of the globe this week, including Poles, Slavic, Chinese and a real nice Australian couple from Perth.

One among them was talking excitedly in a strange language that I could just not figure out whereabouts was from. After many times of asking him to repeat what he was saying slowly things just kept getting worse, he was talking even faster and much louder.

 This went on for quite a while until I realised that he wasn't speaking in a foreign tongue at all.  Unfortunately, I had shut the electric windows accidentally trapping his hand. 

He was simply swearing with what turned out to be a very strong Glaswegian accent

  

Uber Madness

Lord help us if this madness spreads over here to the North of England. 
This would lead to part time amateurs cherry picking the trade and leaving the established taxi trade starved of trade. Utter madness and a licence for sex offenders to do what they want. 
 

Taxi Nightmare

Taxi (2013) Director Kevin Sharkey Producer Colm Sexton from Kevin Sharkey on Vimeo.
A Taxi ride turns into a nightmare for the driver and the female passenger. Caution: Strong language, racist and drug references. Shot on Canon 600D and 650D. Locations in Temple Bar and Clontarf, Dublin, Ireland

Fuel Frustration

Now being a taxi driver has recently been named as one of the ten most stressful jobs so it’s best to try and be calm and placid all the time whilst working, or else they say that the stress will eventually kill you.

Now nothing usually gets to me, I tend to try and ignore the bad driving and rudeness of the minority who are the morons of the road.

But one thing really gets my teeth gnashing and my rarely used stock of swearwords in full flow.

It was a busy day, I was low on fuel, and so during a lull I headed into my usual supermarket garage to top up the diesel.

But it looked as if every other driver in town had the same idea at the same time and all the lanes were backed up.

After doing the usual dip zoo magazoo to pick which lane to wait in I joined a line of cars.

Much later I was next in line and it was finally about to be my turn at the pump.

The driver of the car in front of me had got into their car and I moved eagerly forward ready to take its place.

The driver happened to be a woman but I have had the same maddening experience from both sexes.

 She firstly checked her hair and makeup in the mirror and then carefully stowed away her credit cards cash and sweeties etc, into her handbag.

 I started to edge forward as she put her bag on the floor and started to fasten her seat belt.

 But after fiddling about finding the buckle and adjusting the belt to her liking, she then found that her keys were not in the ignition, so it was off with the belt and back out with the full contents of the bottomless bag.

By this time, all the other lanes had emptied but another car had come up close behind me and I was helplessly trapped not earning and squirming with frustration.

A good few minutes later and the missing keys were found, the seatbelt was fastened, and my hopes were again rising.

Only to be cruelly dashed when a final mirror check revealed some defect in her eye make-up.

Yep you guessed it the make-up was in the bottomless bag on the floor and so it went on with her still blissfully unaware of the queue behind her.

That is until she noticed that my taxi was now only a coat of paint away from her car and that I was revving the engine and mouthing curses about her and all her ancestors before her.

She drove of looking quite flustered, I filled up whilst taking deep breaths, and considering a change of career perhaps a Buddhist monk or a soot juggler eh!

  

 

Arithmetic

On a bright Sunday morning, the job was to pickup from one of the more upmarket Lake District country house hotels and takes some folks the 100miles to Manchester airport.

The luggage was loaded and my fare turned out to be a German couple and an English guy in his thirties who had been attending a posh wedding at the hotel.

They were all flying back to Tenerife where they were living and working.

They seemed to be a reasonably intelligent and sophisticated group and the ride went quickly and smoothly enough, with the couple chatting and the guy playing with his i-phone.

That is until we reached the airport and its unloading point. Now as the airport is very busy and security is very tight only a few minutes are allowed to unload before you are firmly moved on.

The only thing which needed to be done before we unloaded the luggage was to quickly pay me the £90 owed for the taxi fare.

 They were it turned out splitting the fare between the couple and the single guy and so they each had some notes in their hands.

I could not believe it when the single guy instead of handing over the cash appeared to be concentrating on sending a text on his i-phone.

This went on for a full two minutes and I was getting more and more stressed thinking about the parking fine that I would surely be getting.

But then looking a bit closer at his beloved phone I realised with amazement that he was actually using the calculator function to try and figure out half of £90.

“Forty five” I blurted out a bit too loudly whilst rolling my eyes and shaking my head in exasperation.

Believe it or not, he then actually finished checking this simple sum on his phone for a further thirty seconds before handing over the cash.

Don’t think I have ever come as close to swearing before.

Overkill or Not?

Just got this e-mailed to me! what do you think is this really necessary in this quiet Cumbria backwater or should we not be taking chances nowadays?
Are things getting that bad nowadays that taxi drivers should really be considering investing in one of these. Maybe not but then again think back to just over twelve months ago since Cumbria taxi driver Derek Bird went on a rampage with a shotgun killing twelve people including a fellow driver and shooting and attempting to kill two more cabbies.  

Forgotton goods

Picked a fare up this week from where he worked and set off to take him to his destination. About half a mile down the road he reaslised he had left his beer at work in the fridge ready for a party and asked if I could go back.

Not a problem, I turned round, went back and waited a good 5 minutes for him to come back out. The journey continued and when I asked for the fare of £3.60p he gave me £5 and told me to keep the change.

He then said to me that I couldhave the change for "Not getting angry with him for having to turn back and wait". I can't understand this bit. Why should any driver get angry with a customer who wanted to turn back because he had forgot something

We are there to provide a public service which means being polite and courteous and there really isnbt any need to get angry with a customer when they have forgot something. Its one of those things.

It just makes me think that this guy has had bad dealings with a driver in the past.

RESPECT

RESPECT..... Wheres it gone...

This weekend, last job of the night around 4am I picked a young chav up and took him to an address in the town centre. On the journey into town he was ok and very quiet, you know the type, not very talkative but there again chavs do have a limited vocabulary.

On arriving at his destination he didnt have enough to pay the fare and got out the cab and knocked on a door to get it. After getting no response he kicked the door and shouted words to the effect of "Open this F****ng door now. A woman answered the door and he became very abusive with her. "Pay the taxi now you slag" was what he said to her.

5 minutes went by whilst he went in the house with her and then she shouted through the partly open front door for me to get the police. Just then, the young chav came out and paid me the fare using money given to him by the woman. At this point I learnt that the woman was his mother as he told me that his mother gave him the money.

I then notice his mother at the door with blood all over her nose and mouth. The young chav grabbed his mobile phone from me and flew towards his mother who immediately slammed the door and locked him out.

I`ve now been paid and am on my way but as I moved off down the street I could hear this young thug banging and kicking the door and shouting obscenities at the top of his voice. I did call the police for fear of his mothers safety and judging by the noise he was making then I`m guessing most the neighbours would have also called the Police

Maybe its me, maybe its the way I`ve been brought up but I was always taught to respect my elders and I never ever would have treated my mother like this. Whats the world come to???

The best of it is that this violent chav didnt seem drunk or high on drugs and yet he was violent towards his mother and had total disregard for his mothers neighbours.

Holding the baby

Some stuff will never find its way onto these pages, some stuff which I see and hear would just be too hurtful to the folks involved. Other stuff can be told after the passage of time this is one such story. This took place three or four years back now and maybe the people involved have changed for the better, who knows let,s hope so. The job was to pick a fare up from a large house which was split into flats it was a rough sort of place and I had to wait a while before someone come out. Then two guys walk out carrying a girl between them who looked unconscious, they heaved her in the back of the car and told me the address she was going to. I went to set off but one of them almost as an afterthought shouted me to wait and went back into the house. The two guys both of whom were drunk then staggered out with a baby held between them.The baby of no more than twelve or thirteen months old was thrust on the lap of the semi-conscious girl. The girl was that far gone she could not speak or even keep her eyes open and so when we got to the address I was given, I took the baby off her and knocked on the door expecting someone to be there to look after both of them. After knocking for a while with no response, the girl roused herself enough to stagger to the door open it and fall in. She then tried to take the baby from me, but looking at the state of her I was not so sure that was a good idea. I had a look around the house in case someone else was about but found nobody. I then tried knocking on the neighbour’s door to see if they could help, but they didn’t want to know. Reluctantly I put the baby down and left, I suppose I was guilty of not wanting to get involved. But my mind wouldn’t settle I kept thinking about what could happen, but then I kept reminding myself that the child would probably be taken into care if the authorities found out. I radioed into the office and had a talk to the lady operator she didn’t hesitate “phone the police you’ll never forgive yourself if anything happens to that child” she said. I drove around for a bit longer but the more I struggled with it the more I realised that something had to be done. The phone call was made and I never did find out what happened over it, I just hope I did the right thing.