Caution Cabbie's
on the LooseThe Link Operators
Caution Cabbie's
on the LooseLink operators in Guernsey as in other places throughout the World are a breed apart, not so much now with computers, but before those days every now and then a real character emerged, and they were also very very good at their job. Some of the very best links were people like Mark Brockway(Brockers), Peter Gallienne(Vieah), Chalkie White(The General), Keith Martell(Hercules), Peter O Keeffe(Von Bunglett), Ken Jordan(KRJ), Clive Ogier and Chris Baker to name but a few, of course including myself.
OOOPS:
This happened to a young link operator in the UK. A rather pretty
30 year old female taxi driver asked her link operator if the job that she had been given,
picking up passengers from the local Airport, was a transfer run, which the fare would be
by so much per head, or was this a usuall meter priced run.
The young male controller explained that he would ask the manager and get back to her. A
few moments later he called this female driver up and said" we will have to do it on
the meter". Well quick as a flash, the reply came back from this pretty female driver
" oh well, if you insist, but can i turn the meter off first as it is still hot and i
don't want to scorch my buttocks". Well the management staff in the office roared
with laughter, the young link controller realising what he had said, went every shade of
red ever invented, and a few more shades to boot.
This happened to a young link operator in the UK. A rather pretty 30 year old female
taxi driver asked her link operator if the job that she had been given, picking up
passengers from the local Airport, was a transfer run, which the fare would be by so much
per head, or was this a usuall meter priced run.
The young male controller explained that he would ask the manager and get back to her. A
few moments later he called this female driver up and said" we will have to do it on
the meter". Well quick as a flash, the reply came back from this pretty female driver
" oh well, if you insist, but can i turn the meter off first as it is still hot and i
don't want to scorch my buttocks". Well the management staff in the office roared
with laughter, the young link controller realising what he had said, went every shade of
red ever invented, and a few more shades to boot.
When one of the minicab link controllers phoned up a
local Chinese takeaway and ordered a meal, plus a pkt of cigs, he got an almighty shock
when the driver he had sent to pick it up, brought him in 20 cartons of rice, and no cigs
When he rang back the takeaway, the chinese man who answered the phone said, " ya you
order 20 number six", now you try explaining to a China man who no speak much English
that you want one portion of rice, and 20 Number six cigarettes.
From then on, we never ordered any number six cigarettes from a Chinese man, unless there
was at least 20 of us in the office to eat the portions of rice.
Just as a foot note, it was the Irish who invented rice, a man called Paddy Field, !!!!.
This next story happened to me in the late seventies when
we were still very much a mini cab firm, the names of the estates are not real ones, but
the situation is.
I sent a minicab, callsign Zulu, to pick up some passenger at number 24 Wilson Estate. A
little later he radioed to me that he had knocked on the door, blown his hooter outside
the house but could not make any one hear. " Okey, i said you've tried your best ,
head back into St.Peter Port. Blow me, he hadn't gone many yards when the lady passenger
was on the phone asking where her cab was. I explained that what the driver had done,
" no one has been here " she told me, " i would have heard him" she
continued. So i called up the driver, said to him " Zulu , go back to the house your
passengers have turned up" . so he did a u turn and went back.
A few minutes later he is on his radio again, " i don't know what is going on here,
but i still can't get any reply, i have sounded my horn so many times it's got a sore
throat, and i have banged on the door so loud it would straighten the Hunch back of Notre
Dames back, " he continued, "and the silly lady is stood in her porch peering
through her window looking at me, so it must be someone messing us around".
So i told the driver to head back, if she rings me again i will give her some jip. Sure
enough he had not gone far when lo and behold here comes this lady back on the dog and
bone, " where's my cab you keep saying will be here in a minute" she says quite
angrily , i replies " now listen madam, he has been twice, he has worn his bloody
hooter and his knuckles out trying to find you, and all your doing is parking your rear
end in the porch looking at him, the only other thing he can do now is to drive into your
living room so you won't have to walk far", " well i am sorry " she
answered, " but i havn't seen him or heard him" " ZULU" i shouted over
the radio, " i have got this bloody woman on the phone again from 24 Wilson estate
insisting she never saw you or heard you, just confirm over the radio so she can hear you
and what you have done trying to get her ass out of the porch" i continued, "oh
s..t, sorry " came the reply from the driver of Zulu, i could have sworn you sent me
to 24 Gladstone Estate.
In the eighties there was a night link run from a cab
firm in the Gravees. On this particular night shift there were three drivers doing the
work, driving and the link control, Machine gun 'Arry, Toppo and Stapes. By about 4 am the
hotel owner from accross the road had just about had enough of the noise, the link control
talking was too loud, and the drivers making a lot of noise driving in and out of the link
control carpark.
So out the hotel owner went, he thought that if he just had a quiet word with them, that
would solve the problem. However the poor man had the misfortune of going into the control
office just when all three drivers were in there.
Now Machine gun 'Arry was nicknamed because when he got excited which was very often he
would sound off sentences faster than Lynford Christie, and not a word could you
understand, so after the hotel owner had had a word with Machine gun 'Arry and had been
blitzed with a rattle of words he decided he would try having a word with Toppo. Now,
sadly Toppo, when he got excited talked as though he had just caught a snooker ball in his
gub from Hurricane Higgans, and the best you could hope for was a sensible , blob, blob
and a few more blob blobs. This was now getting the hotel man really down, heavens, he
thought, surely the remaining one would be able to talk to him and sort out this problem.
Now Stapes had a perfect singing voice, however when he was talking to you, (you guessed
there would be something didn't you?), yes sure enough he stammered, "wwwell ittt
llllikke ttthhiss" he tried explaining to the hotel manager," wwwwee arrre
trtrtrtringggg" he continued. The hotel manage turned swiftly about turn, and headed
as fast as he could back to his hotel, he was shaking his head so much that his false
teeth were asking for time out to get there breath back.
He scarpered straight into his hotel bar, poured himself a large Brandy and said to
himself "thank god morning is only just around the corner", then the three
Nightshifters would be handing over to the day shift and the hotel owner could get himself
back to normal.
One day on the mini cabs, the drivers were calling the
link , no reply, they kept calling, calling and still more calling, still no reply or a
peep out of the link op. So down some of them go to the office, which at that time was in
the Bordage, lo and behold, there is no link op sat sitting in the control seat.
The driver who had now sat in the control seat called out to one of the cars that the link
op had gone walkabouts. Then shortly after, one driver called up," i have found the
link op, he's sat in the barbers chair havin' 'is flamin' 'air cut".
On the mini cabs they used to do a 24 hr manned service,
the night link would start at 12-30 a.m and finish about 7.30.
There was also a driver doing a one week stint as night car, nearly every owner driver did
a weeks night shift.
One night a particular driver was on shift, he could be at times a real misery ass, and
this particular night he was well on form. All night long no matter how much he tried the
link chap just could not please the driver, by the morning he had had enough.
This particular morning the driver was taking his car up the road from the link office to
the garage to have his car serviced, and so he told the link op that he would walk back
down to the office where the link operator could have a cab ready to take the driver home.
The driver walked back to the office, stood outside the office door, and shouted to the
link, "is my cab on the way yet", "be here in a second" grinned the
link op, which if the driver had had any sense he would have cottoned on that something
was not right.
Sure enough with in 30 seconds here comes a London FX4 cab, shoots across the road to pull
up outside the door where the driver is stood.
BANG, was the next very large sound heard, and the next
was hysterical laughter, for the miserable driver was covered from head to toe in milk,
and it was dripping off him. What the link operator had done was while the driver was at
the garage, he had put a half empty tetra pak milk carton in the gutter by the office
door, knowing that the driver he had givin the job to , to pick up misery guts always
drove fast and left his braking till the very last second, the misery driver waiting by
the door failed to notice the carton sitting in the gutter, the whole thing worked a
treat.
Of course the link operator denied any knowlage of knowing who put the milk carton there.
A few years ago, one Winters friday night, about 11.30 in
the evening, on one of my link shifts a driver called me up and said", i have a
passenger in my cab who wants to know where he can get some condoms this time of
night", "oh nice one i thought".
Now i didn't know, so i put a message out to all the cars, asking if any one knew where he
could get condoms. Well , as you can imagine, the switchboard in the control room lit up
like a christmas tree, there were all sorts of answers coming back at me from the other
cab drivers.
Then one driver calls me up, " the passenger in my cab will sell the person a couple
of condoms", this is how the conversation went from link to cars, bearing in mind
that on a friday night there would have been nearly thirty other cabs on this link wave,
most with passengers in their cabs all listening to this conversation.I have used the
callsigns as they were used on this cab firm.
LINK TO BLUE 3: Passenger in Blue 6 will sell your passenger a couple of condoms:
BLUE 3 TO LINK: Yes, thats great, how much
LINK TO BLUE 6: How much for the two
BLUE 6 TO LINK: £3.00 each, (hells bells i thought, black market in condoms or what)
LINK TO BLUE 3: passenger in blue 6 says £3.00 each
BLUE 3 TO LINK:Yes that great, he is on a promise and he is desperate.
LINK TO BLUE 6: Price is agreed , where can you cars meet.
BLUE 6 TO LINK: We are in Trinity Square at the moment.
LINK TO BLUE 6: Stay there and i will send down Blue 3
So at 11.45 in Trinity square, much to the amazement of two oldish folks watching, there
they were, two taxi cabs, swapping money for condoms. One went off £6.00 richer, the
other with a smile on his face from ear to ear.
It was rumoured that for a long while after, some drivers were driving around with packs
of 12 in their glove compartments, at £3.00 each, to coin a phrase, "it was a nice
little earner".
This next story involves the same unfortunate driver
involved in the Yorkie Story
One winters evening a few years ago, on one of my link shifts, which was a typical quiet
night, i had given out the few jobs that were on our sheets and then got down to some
serious micky taking and jokes over the radio air, which i became quite well known for.
I then proceded to ask one driver if he had read to-days Guernsey Press. "No"
came the answer but in a questionable voice not knowing quite what to expect, " oh
" i replied " you haven't heard about the 3 Nuns being expelled from one of the
Islands Convents" i carried on.
Well of course all the other drivers on shift that evening were all listening, and making
one or two comments, and then i said to them " oh yes it was because they got caught
doing pressups in a cucumber patch" Well the usuall coments flowed, most un printable
in a family show. The phones starting ringing, i gave a few more jobs out that had just
come in, and carried on with the other work, etc.
About 10 minutes later, or so, a voice over the radio from one of the cars came and said
" you had to didn't you". well this threw me, what i have i done now , i
thought, " done what " i said to the driver.
"Look back on the last job you gave me" the driver called back.
Well a cold feeling went down my spine, sure enough the last job i had given him was from
The Cotills, which at that time was a convent, nursing home. He had picked up three nuns
from there to take them to the very Convent i had mentioned in the joke, and the poor
driver was sat sitting behind his steering wheel with these 3 nuns in the car , and he was
thinking, for gawds sake Bernie shut up, no chance of that. Of course everyone listening
to the conversation was getting the jist of what was happening, so drivers and passengers
alike were in hysterics of laughter.
I asked the driver what happened once he had dropped them off at the Convent, " well,
the oldest one did a cross sign across her chest, and looked up to the sky, the younger
one went very red, but the other nun crossed her legs, which baffled me a lot, but i dare
not ask her why".