Katherine

Because the company I worked with had a Health Board contract I was always picking up medical staff  from the local hospitals.

One of my favourite customers was black South African nurse called Katherine.

She was quite a big lass with a brilliant bubbly personality, always happy and full of the joys of life.

I always got my Sunday name from her and it was usually "Good  morning Michael and how are you today?" in that great precise Afrikkan accent.

The only thing that hacked her off was some of her nursing colleagues.

She could never understand why young women in Scotland could come to their work and openly boast about how drunk they were the previous night or how they could (and this was a major Katherine gripe) smoke in public.

"Girls in my home town would be disgraced if they behaved in such a way" she would say.

Made me think of a mate of mine who taught briefly in Botswana and he would say that if a kid misbehaved in school the whole family would turn up and apologise to the teacher.

Loads of problems in Africa these days but with people like Katherine there is a great deal of hope.

Sheesh this is heavy stuff. Next post will be a good old taxi tale.  

Wee Snippets

Pulling a drunk guy out the back of the car and realising he's about 6'4". (I'm only 5'8" in thick socks.)

Getting invited up to a flat to finish off a bottle of vodka with a passenger twice in the same week .....unfortunately he was a he.

Meeting a world famous English international footballer and finding out that he was an incredibly nice guy.

Hearing about another driver getting a similar invite to above, only this time from a girl and when they get in the house she asks him to be quiet as her husband is in bed and has an early start next day.

New Years Eve

It's Hogmany (New Years Eve) and I'm bursting to get out working and make some serious dough.
The night starts off busy enough and I do a few good fares round the housing schemes and estates.
Then......the snow starts to come down, just a light flurry at first but soon it's heavier and within an hour it's a white out.
Fairly quickly some side roads are no-go and the main streets are looking dodgy.
I get a shout to an address I recognise and slowly head off.
It's a wee gay fella I've met before. He's a good laugh and I enjoy his camp banter.
We talk about the gay club he's going to and how I know lots of straight people who go there as the music is good and the atmosphere non-threatening and friendly.
He agrees and says it's amazing how even the most macho straight guys who go there get camper as the night goes on.
As we reach the town centre I'm crawling down a snow covered slope when the car in front swerves and skids to a halt side on.
I brake but it's that worst feeling in the world as nothing happens and I plough into the guy coming to an unscheduled stop.
Not much damage done or any injuries but my front end is crumpled so that's me off the road.
My passenger pays the fare and is off to celebrate but I'm stuck and going nowhere.
I call the office and they tell me to wait for the breakdown lorry.
I wait......and wait........ and wait.
Three hours late the harrassed guy turns up (it's been a busy night).
We're both freezing and severely hacked off.
We get the car on the trailer and he drops me off at the garage.
My own car is sitting there. I climb in ramp the heating up, put on some Steely Dan and thaw out.
I decide that's it for the night as even if another car becomes available the conditions are getting worse.
I scream out the garage and head for home.
As I get out of town the weather is clearing and by the time I am back in the house helping the wife and kids get rid of the best Indian Take Away I've ever tasted I'm making plans to get away from this crazy job.

Scary Monsters Super Creeps

I'm sitting at a city centre rank, it's about 8:30 in the evening.
Two beefy looking skinhead types get in, turns out they're Poles and don't have very good English.
I take off and just round the corner it occurs to me that I've just seen them get out of another taxi before they got into mine.
"House...north of town" one of them says, so I head off up the main road that leads out of the city.
"Not far" says skin number two.
They seem to be looking for the address almost immediately and we stop-start all the way up the road until we are heading for the edge of town.
They're either taking the piss or there is confusion caused by the language barrier and alcohol consumption (theirs not mine).
Then I'm struck with a sudden paranoid fear.
These guys are trying to get me out into the country to rob me of my hard earned.
I look in the mirror and I see two of the most evil looking tossers grinning maniacally back at me.
The last housing estate in town appears on my left so I take the access road and stop in a well lit street.
"That's it guys end of the line"
They mutter in Polish and I'm sure one of them gobs in the back.
The meter says seven quid but the first guy puts a fiver in the wee tray.
By this time I'm getting seriously pissed off at these clowns so I tell them it's a tenner.
"Only seven pound" says Lech Walesa banging the Perspex safety screen.
"Nah you're out of town so there's an extra" I chance.
They mutter away and I quietly lock all the doors, I'm driving a TX2 tonight and there's no escape should they try a runner. One of the other drivers dealt with a troublesome passenger in one of these cars by locking him in, burning up and down the street doing sixty, breaking violently and knocking the boy senseless off the inside of the cab.
I'm crapping myself but in this game when someone tries to do you out of a penny it's conflict time.
I stand my ground
"It's a tenner and I can sit here all night "
I'm bluffing of course, but it's a Mexican (or Polish) stand off now.
Suddenly the whole atmosphere changes when they weigh up the situation.
They're locked in the back of a taxi on the outskirts of a foreign town.
Any hassle and I can call the police or a couple of other drivers, the latter being the least desired option for them as a some of my colleagues actively seek out this kind of confrontation and would be suitably tooled up .
They might even be illegal so they don't want any attention.
The fiver is promptly exchanged for a tenner and I allow them to escape into the night.
I almost felt sorry for them, until a couple of months ago when the town was invaded by an army of identikit Polish football hooligans who wrecked a few pubs, beat up some innocent bystanders and generally created mayhem.
Tonight's lesson?
A thug's a thug in any language and I think this was a narrow escape.
Had I been driving an ordinary saloon car they would have jumped me no problem.

The Question

The question that's usually asked along with
"What time do you finish?"
"Busy?"
"Is this your car?"
Is
"Have you ever been offered a special favor by a young lady in lieu of the fare?"
Speaking honestly and because the wife might read this someday I would have to say no.
There have been "incidents" though.
There was one fairly presentable older woman who told me I was a "very s**y man" no idea why and obviously alcohol played a major part in her forming this opinion.
I had to relate this story back to my mate Tam in the driver's lounge and incredibly that night he had experienced a similar thing when a young lass getting out his car had leaned across and "snogged" him as a thank-you.
This has resulted in us still greeting each other as sexy and snogger much to the bemusement of passers-by.

redneck

Get a call to pick this guy up on a street so the controller gives me a description that he's obviously phoned in (of himself).
Long beard , baseball cap jeans t-shirt.
I cruise up and down the street and yup there he is.
Bear in mind this is Dundee but this punter looks like someone who should be giving Ned Beatty a hard time in Deliverance.
He gets in and I recognise him from a previous encounter.
That time he had been droning on about kids that lived near him and how it was all gonna stop soon.
To be honest he seemed harmless so I'm not too concerned this time.
Soon as he gets in he's leaning across at me and I have to gently push him back to his side of the car.
He tells me his destination and it is about twenty yards up the road and easily walkable.
I start to feel nervous and when he starts talking about "Doing something tonight that I might regret" am getting seriously freaked out.
He then says he needs to take a detour to a cashline so we turn off at a quiet row of shops , this is one in the morning in the schemes.
We pull up and as he gets out he hands me 20 quid and tells me I'd better not move.
So what would you do?
Obvious nut job has left the car and is now ten / twenty yards away but has left me with far too much money for the fare.
I decide this is ample compensation for the stress he's caused ease the car into first and am off down that lonesome highway.......yeeehaw.
I look in the mirror and he is doing a weird kind of hillbilly dance in the middle of the street I can almost hear the banjos.
I laugh out loud , what a freakin' job this is.

you've got to laugh

Get a shout to one of the less salubrious parts of town.
A party is winding up and there are wee knots of people out on the street
A young couple move towards the car so I pull over to let them in.
A guy on his own also staggers over and I notice he has a huge wet patch on the front of his jeans.
"Sorry he's not getting in my car" I tell them
They are quite apologetic and try and persuade me but eventually accept it.
This boy's not happy though and opens the front passenger door and tries to get in.
He's also made a move for something in his pocket and the young lass screams.
I'm thinking it's a blade so decide that this would be a good time to split.
As the car is an automatic I take my foot of the brake and am immediately moving forward.
Start to pick up speed and reckon the forward momentum will shut the door.
As I'm cruising along quite nicely I am aware of a clumping noise.
I look to my left and this nutter is running alongside the car holding onto the top of the door.
Without really thinking, I slam on the anchors with the result that the car stops but the boy keeps moving and slams his chin quite nicely into the still open door.
For a split second he looks at me and almost like a two year old whimpers about me bursting his face.
This time I really am off, shaken a bit strangely euphoric .
One more victory for the good guys.