I suppose many of you can understand the motive
behind most of what the double top secret cabal put me through. Take for example the prime minister of the UK
at the moment David Cameron. How many
people look at him and see nothing more than a spoiled public school boy who
had been buggered rotten by every other boy at the school. Most people look at him and state that he has
never had a real job in his life, what does he know about real people? When I take the throne of Ireland, with your
help of course, not many people will be able to say that about me. I am talking about the job of course, not the
buggery; I can honestly say that I was never aware of even the slightest rumour
of that at our school. Mindless violence
yes, plenty of that, along with cold showers, a daily dose of mass in Latin and
the realisation of how alone you could actually feel when standing in the
middle of a crowd.
So although you may think that my new job of
airport transfer driver was just something I came across, we all know that that
would never be the case. Once again,
there was no driving test, and you would think that for a driving job you would
at least be asked to show how well, or badly, you could drive. I mean those of us who do drive know only too
well the varying standard of drivers that we meet on a daily basis. It was more
or less agreed that I would be given the job so I waited at home for a
telephone call. When it came I was told that
I was to be trained that evening by Norman, the night controller. Lugga Bus was based in Southport which would
have been one hour’s drive from Manchester airport with Skelmersdale neatly
sitting in the middle. Norman was taking
two elderly ladies from Southport that evening to Manchester airport, I was to
be picked up from my house and accompany them up and down to the airport.
I wasn’t sure how I should prepare myself for
such an intense training course, so I did nothing, but wait. When the van pulled up I went out and got
in. Norman was one of those chunky
middle aged men who had tufts of hair bursting out from his collar and
cuffs. I wasn’t sure if he had twenty
air fresheners in his cab, or wore cheap aftershave, but I did have a strong
desire to open all the windows. He wore
lots of oversized jewellery, which I could never understand why men wear. Tell me, identity bracelets, how often do you
forget your name? To complete my picture
of Norman, which I am sure you have pretty well formed in your mind, please now
dress him in the most garish Hawaiian shirt you can imagine. The sort of shirt that is so loud it would
give you a headache.
The cab of the vehicle was littered with maps
and magazines, chocolate bars, cans of soft drink. Imagine that you are taking a caravan away
for a week’s holiday. Pack everything you
will need, for your weeks holiday, into the caravan. Take the caravan, hold it by one end and give
it a good shake, everything will fall out of the cupboards and collect at the
far end of the caravan, that’s what the cab of Norman’s van looked like. Norman proved to be a very chatty fellow and happily
explained the ins and outs of Lugga Bus to me as we sped along the motorway. I have to say that if I were the boss of
Lugga Bus and gave each of the drivers a driving test before taking them on to
the books, Norman would not be working for the company. He explained that the company operated cars and
vans and offered a three tier service.
People could book a specific car or driver and that would be theirs exclusively.
Second tier was that people booked a private trip so that they would have a
vehicle to themselves, which could either be an eight seater van or a car.
The third tier, don’t you just love the British
and their fecking class system, was that you booked a trip to and from the
airport and you might find yourself with six other people wedged in to a van,
on the other hand you might find yourself in a private car on your own. It was as they say the luck of the draw. Each vehicle was equipped with a radio so that
not only could the company in Southport keep track of us but we could share
traffic information and plan ahead ensuring that the passengers got to the
airport in time. It was a twenty four
hour a day service so there was usually always somebody out on the road. It was quite a clever operation, especially
for the passenger, for no matter if your flight was delayed, or diverted, there
would always be someone waiting for you, so that within five minutes of you clearing
customs you would be in a vehicle, heading home. No worries about if your car would start, or
how much the car park would cost.
We arrived at Manchester airport, I leapt out,
grabbed a trolley as instructed, put the ladies cases on it and waved them away
promising that we would be waiting for them in a fortnight. That was it, that was the end of the intensive
training course. I could see that TPT may have some fierce competition. The company used countries as call signs for
each vehicle so I became known as Ireland, imagine that. I had to wait a day or two before I was asked
to come through to Southport where I was given the one vehicle that belonged to
the company, well; Arthur really. All
the other drivers were self-employed and owned their own vehicle. At the beginning I wasn’t that aware of the social
geography of the area, but I soon did begin to get a bit of an understanding of
how and where people lived.
What I soon found out was that everyone was
posh, and I mean dead posh, apart from me of course. I was ‘the driver’ but not only was I the driver
I was a bloody foreigner. As a taxi
driver you know that almost every single person that gets in to your cab is
going to ask you, “Have you been on long?”
It’s like blessing yourself every time you pass a church in
Ireland. What do you mean you don’t,
fecking heathens? I soon became used to
the one question that I was asked over and over again. “How long have you been in our country
driver?” Initially I wanted to punch the
cheeky feckers in the mouth but I learned to bite my lip, as they say, and
smile and nod. “Ever since I joined your
air force,” I would say. But now they
would ask, “And now you’re doing this?”
I could see that my consideration was correct that driving a taxi would not
be regarded as socially acceptable employment, well; not in the proper circles,
and it pleased me.
I soon learned that most people felt that I was
socially beneath them. I was the forelock
tugging, simple, Paddy who would carry their cases for them and drive them to
and from the airport. There was a big
difference between driving a taxi and driving the airport transfer bus. In a taxi you might spend, on average, five
minutes with a passenger but now you would be spending an hour with them and
although some people were far too grand and important to so speak to me, most were
desperate to tell me just how important they were. Many people would give us a tip for conveying
them across the county, the people from the posh houses would squeeze a fifty
pence piece into your hand, making me feel very like Bob Cratchett on Christmas
day. Sometimes their generosity would
simply pour out of them and they would give you one whole pound.
These were the people who would complain that
they shouldn’t really be sharing the vehicle with anyone else, they were quite
important people don’t you know, couldn’t someone else pick the others up? All they had to do was pay a couple of quid
extra when then booked and they could have had the vehicle to themselves but I
suppose important people are far too busy to consider things like that, or someone
else booked it for them. I had a van
full one day, four or five pickups in and around the back streets of Liverpool,
Aintree in fact, near the racecourse. I
loved driving all over, meeting new people and seeing new places. With my eight working class Scousers safely
on board we set off for Manchester airport.
They were off for their fortnight in the Spanish sun and were all quite
excited. I still got the usual question
although they would ask, “How long ave you been over here mate?” There would be no deference or superiority suggested
in their tone.
Spread around the area were a number of
celebrities, there were all the millionaire footballers, well-known actors and
musicians and many of the drivers would scramble to try and get one of the
elite into their vehicle. I count myself
lucky as along with never begin interested in football I could never bring myself
around to get involved in celebrity worship.
And for those clever clogs among you who think that with me being a
ghost writer I was involved in the world of celebrity worship anyway, you’re
wrong. I was happy driving working class
people about, chatting with them, laughing with them, and learning with them. In fact it was this group of eight people
that confirmed that view for me. We got
to Manchester airport; I leapt out and grabbed four baggage trolleys, so that
by the time they assembled at the rear of the van, I was already dumping their
suitcases on to the trolleys. I promised
to see them in a fortnight and went through the rear of the van checking that
they had left nothing behind. I got back
into my driver’s seat to find the passenger door being opened and one of the
eight lean in to the cab. “This is for
you mate. Thanks very much,” says the
fellow handing me a handful of cash. A twenty
five pound tip, for a forty minute drive.
Tell me, what social class would you try to stick with?
No comments:
Post a Comment