For those new to CabbieBlog or readers who are slightly forgetful, on Saturdays I’m republishing posts, many going back over a decade. Some will still be very relevant while others have become dated over time. Just think of this post as your weekend paper supplement.

Fluffers, harlots and herb-strewers (24.06.11)

People are always asking about what it’s like to be a cabbie and how we did “The Knowledge”; even Londoners ask it would seem the public’s appetite for enquiring into our fellow’s jobs is undiminished. But no matter how unusual a London cabbie’s profession might be, it has nothing comparable to some very strange ways to earn a living in the capital.

Take the Constable of the Tower of London who for 600 years has been officially authorised to extract a barrel of rum from any naval vessel using the river; any livestock falling from London Bridge he has the right to claim as his own, and should your pig stumble into his moat he will charge you 4d an old penny for each leg. One of his staff – The Ravenmaster – is charged with preventing the ravens from leaving the Tower, as tradition dictates that England’s crown will fall should they so to do. An unlikely event as he rather cheats by clipping their wings.

James Donalson is commemorated by a 17th-century memorial in St. Margaret Pattens Church, Rood Lane, as being the man who specialised in selecting spices – The City Garbler.

In the 1860s with London’s population one-third of today’s size, 80,000 prostitutes were touted for business giving the decade the nomenclature “the heyday of the whore”. During the Profumo Affair, Harold Wilson was quoted as complaining about a society which pays a harlot 25 times as much as it pays its Prime Minister.

In the days when London’s streets were not as clean as today’s, Lady Herb-Strewers were employed to scatter sweet-smelling petals wherever the monarch processed within the royal apartments as well as outside in the streets. Today the Fellowes family, of which Julian Fellowes – director of Gosforth Park – is a member still claim that hereditary right on behalf of their eldest unmarried daughter to be the official lady herb-strewer.

Now replaced by machines Fluffers were employed for years on London’s underground to walk the tunnels each night collecting waste material, the largest component of this waste left behind by the passengers – human hair.

For those new to CabbieBlog or readers who are slightly forgetful, on Saturdays I’m republishing posts, many going back over a decade. Some will still be very relevant while others have become dated over time. Just think of this post as your weekend paper supplement.

Cracking the Code (21.06.11)

With the news that the Olympics site has been designated with its own postcode, my question today is: “Does anyone understand postcodes in London?”

Until now, the E20 postcode of Albert Square in BBC’s soap Eastenders (no I don’t watch it either) was merely fictitious, but Olympic bosses applied for premises on the Stratford site to use the iconic postcode, and the move, due to be taking effect for the start of the Games next July, has been made despite the next available East London code being E19. Postcodes it would seem have no obvious logic to their designation and no relevance in relation to the adjoining areas.

To complicate life for a cabbie house numbers sometimes have even and odd numbers on opposite sides of the street, while on others the numbers run sequentially up one side and down on the opposite side, in addition, some houses are designated a street and number even though their front door actually opens onto an adjacent road; the lowest number on any street is supposed to be the house closest to Charing Cross or is that an urban myth?

If London’s postcodes are allocated alphabetically why is it that E2 is Bethnal Green; E3 Bow; E4 Chingford; E5 Clapton; E6 East Ham; E7 Wanstead; and then arbitrarily E8 Hackney?

Conversely, if the postcode number denotes its position away from the centre of London why is NW1 near Mornington Crescent but NW2 miles away in Cricklewood; and Sloane Square SW1 while Brixton Hill is SW2 and Scotch Corner just yards from Sloane Square near Harrods SW3? How does that work?

You have to ask yourself, just why it is necessary for Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens to be in five different postal districts unevenly divided between W1, W2, W8, SW1 and SW7, with the lines curving and twisting through the parks.

It all started out so simple; during the 1840s the number of letters being sent in London was increasing rapidly, with many localities having similar street names, and letters were often misdirected. So in the 1850s, a committee was instructed to find a way to stop the confusion. They originally planned to rename the streets, but many residents objected, so they decided instead to split the city into various sectors. The two central sectors were EC and WC (East and West Central) and the outer ones were named N, NE, E, SE, S, SW, W and NW after the points of a compass. A scheme which involved people adding these letters to their addresses was implemented between 1857 and 1858. In 1866 in author Anthony Trollope, then a surveyor, who also introduced our red pillar boxes, suggested that NE be merged into E and then S vanished two years later, after being split between SE and SW.

While it is immensely helpful for the Post Office in locating addresses, without a vast knowledge of the postcode system it is of little use to the man, or cabbie, on the street, except to perhaps point people to a general area, say within 10 miles from their destination. If you want to find where you are going don’t rely on a postcode; use a map or better still jump in a cab and let him figure it out.

Some notable postcodes:
SAN TA1 – Father Christmas
GIR OAA – Girobank
RM1 1AA – Royal Mail Customer Service
E20 – Walford (Eastenders) or the Olympic Park
SW1A 1AA – Buckingham Palace
SW1A 0AA – House of Commons
SW1A 0PW – House of Lords
SW1A 2AA – 10 Downing Street
SW1A 2AB – 11 Downing Street
W1A 1AA – BBC Broadcasting House, Portland Place

For those new to CabbieBlog or readers who are slightly forgetful, on Saturdays I’m republishing posts, many going back over a decade. Some will still be very relevant while others have become dated over time. Just think of this post as your weekend paper supplement.

Toilet Caper (10.06.11)

London’s lost loos, were until the 1950s famous the world over, these magnificent Victorian edifices, both decorative as well as functional, were built in the first place simply that the government saw them as essential to the wellbeing of Londoners.

If you were caught short in London before their construction you would simply relieve yourself in the street. The delicate-minded and, of course, women found this unacceptable and the solution was provided by human lavatories. Men and women wore voluminous black capes and carried a bucket, for a farthing they would shield you from preying eyes while you sat on their bucket. Only one of these heroes for modesty is known: one Thomas Butcher of Cheapside who in 1190 was fined for overcharging his clients. Samuel Pepy’s wife in the 17th century didn’t want to pay for a caped crusader, as he noted in his diary at the time, how his wife squatted in the road “to do her business”.

No word in English has changed its meaning more than “toilet”. In about 1540 it described a kind of cloth derived from the French “toile” – a kind of linen. Then the term was used for the cloth to used to adorn dressing tables, later for the items upon the cloth, hence “toiletries”. The dressing table itself was next to receive that Monica, then the act of dressing, Georgians would use the word to describe the act of receiving visitors when dressing, next came the receiving room or any adjoining rooms, as indoor lavatories arrived that room became the toilet and now we politely call the ceramic bowl a toilet. It explains why in English you can describe something splashed on one’s face as toilet water or the liquid used to flush away faeces. The English noted for the reluctance to talk about such matters have given a plethora of euphemisms to avoid that unmentionable word: spend a penny; smallest room in the house; loo; lav; karsie; bog; john; head; water closet; and for obscure reasons in the 18th century “jordan”.

As these fine conveniences in London disappeared new names have sprung up for their modern counterparts, the automatic loos are known as “Metal Mickey’s”. These automatic machines perhaps reflect the lack of pride much in evidence in the first half of the last century.

I can vaguely remember a toilet near Chancery Lane station, with its polished brass and mahogany fittings surmounted by a set of superb cut-glass cisterns. The pride of its attendant knew no bounds as he then stocked these cisterns with goldfish, where they lived happily for many years until the local authority decided the public would prefer to use the nearby McDonalds toilets and closed this shrine to civic pride.

One of the last personalised loos to go was a splendid example in Covent Garden next to St. Pauls Church on the piazza. Here the attendant was a keen opera buff who decorated the walls with reproductions of some of the National Gallery’s famous pictures, and played well known operatic arias to his customers.

Paul Herringshaw has written a series of spoof histories on individual London toilets, entitled Stall Stories.

For those new to CabbieBlog or readers who are slightly forgetful, on Saturdays I’m republishing posts, many going back over a decade. Some will still be very relevant while others have become dated over time. Just think of this post as your weekend paper supplement.

Fare’s Fair (03.06.11)

As the site is entitled CabbieBlog and is written by a Licensed London Cab Driver I thought on the anniversary of the blog’s 250th post the time was opportune to give a little of the history of London’s cab trade.

The name cab derives from the French, cabriolet de place and London cabbies have a surprisingly ancient heritage, the now defunct Corporation of Coachmen having secured a charter to ply for hire in London back in 1639.

Hackney Carriage is still the official term used to describe taxis and has nothing to do with that area in east London. The name comes from hacquenée, the French term for a general-purpose horse, it literally means, “ambling nag”.

In 1625 there were as few as 20 cabs available for hire and operating out of inn yards, but in 1636 the owner of four hackney coaches, a certain Captain Bailey a retired mariner, dressed his four drivers in livery so they would be easily recognisable and established a tariff for various parts of London and most important of all brought them into the Strand outside the Maypole Inn, and in so doing the first taxi rank had been established, this attracted the attention of other hackney coachmen who flocked there seeking work.

In 1636 Charles I made a proclamation to enable 50 hackney carriages to ply for hire in London, it was left up to the City’s Aldermen to make sure this number was not exceeded.
After the Civil War, in 1654 Oliver Cromwell set up the Fellowship of Master Hackney Carriages by an Act of Parliament, and taxi driving became a profession; their numbers were allowed to increase to 200 hackney carriages. The Act was replaced in 1662 under Charles II by a new act, which required the hackney coaches to be licensed, and restricted their number to 400. In 1688 the number was increased to 600, and then again six years later by an Act of Parliament to 700.

Despite licensing they failed to attract the right sort of passenger, however, so in 1694 a bevvy of females in one cab reportedly behaved so badly in the environs of Hyde Park that the authorities responded by banning hired cabs from the park for the next 230 years.

Between 1711 and 1798 some 24 separate Acts of Parliament were passed dealing specifically with the cab trade and increasing the number of drivers who could ply for hire. In 1711 800 licenses were issued and by 1815 the number had reached 1,200.

In 1833 the number of drivers became unregulated, and there was no longer a restriction on the number of taxis, the only limit was that the driver and vehicle be “fit and proper”, a condition that still applies today. This makes the licensed taxi trade the oldest regulated public transport system in the world, and it is the licensed cabbies in the trade that have demanded that it stays this way. With the passing of The London Hackney Carriage Act, the Metropolitan Police gained control of the trade for the next 169 years.

In December 1834, Joseph Hansom of Hinckley, Leicestershire, registered his Patent Safety Cab but sold the patient for £10,000 before he had it manufactured. Its design was improved by cutting away the body of the cab under the passenger’s seat at an angle, inserting a slope in the floor where the passenger’s feet rested, and raising the driver’s seat some 7ft off the ground; this produced the perfect counterbalance and gave us the most famous Hansom carriage to ply London’s streets. Because of London’s congested streets modern London cabs’ average speed is now lower than the 17mph attainable by the 1834 Hansom carriage.

By mid-Victorian times the drivers had acquired a bit of a reputation, prompting a number of philanthropists – led by a certain Captain Armstrong from St. John’s Wood, the editor of the Globe newspaper – to pay for the erection of London’s distinctive green cab shelters, places where drivers could eat rather than drink alcohol, and where discussion of politics was strictly forbidden, 64 were built although only around a dozen still remain.

In 1887 Gottlieb Daimler, having previously invented the internal combustion engine some four years earlier, built the first petrol-powered cab, but the Metropolitan Police refused to license such a crazy device until 1904.

The taximeter was invented in 1891 by Wilhelm Bruhn and it is from this that the term taxi is derived. The taximeter measures the distance travelled and time taken on all journeys, allowing an accurate fare to be charged. The word comes from the French taxe (“price”) and Greek metron (“measure”). Previous inventions for calculating fares included the “Patent Mile-Index” in 1847 and the ”Kilometric Register” in 1858. These were disliked by cab drivers as they did not want their incomes regulated by machines. Even though Bruhn’s taximeter ended up being thrown in the river by drivers and was not made compulsory until 1907, his invention is still being used today.

The “Knowledge of London”’ was introduced in 1851 by Sir Richard Mayne after complaints that cab drivers did not know where they were going at the time of The Great Exhibition in Hyde Park. Passing the Knowledge involves a detailed recall of 25,000 streets within a six-mile radius of Charing Cross station. The locations of clubs, hospitals, hotels, railway stations, parks, theatres (including the stage door), courts, restaurants, colleges, government buildings and places of worship are also required. In addition, Blue Plaques, statutes and London curiosities can be asked. The examinations take the form of a one-to-one oral test and take over three years to pass.

Taxi Trivia
• Drivers do not have to stop if you hail them, whether or not the yellow ‘taxi’ sign is lit. This is because legally, taxis are not plying for hire when they are moving. However, if they do stop, they are considered ”standing in the street” and cannot refuse a fare under 12 miles or that will take less than one hour.
• Many people believed the original 6-mile limit was to ensure that the poor old horse didn’t get too tired pulling the cab. In fact, it was linked to London’s chain of defences that had been erected during the Civil War in 1642. The defences were approximately 6 miles from the City and Westminster and it was deemed dangerous for Hackney coaches to pass through these robust emplacements.
• Taxi drivers do not have to wear a seat belt when they are working but must belt up when they are driving home.
• Taxi drivers are not legally obliged to give change. If a large note is offered the driver is entitled to take the cash and then offer to post the change to the passenger’s home address.
• The classic London black cab is the Austin FX-4 which was introduced in 1958 remaining in production until 1996. In 1989 a version of the vehicle went on sale in Japan badged as the “Big Ben Novelty Car”.
• In the 1960s the wealthy oil heir Nubar Gulbenkian had a luxurious limousine built on an FX-4 taxi chassis for his own use while in London. “Apparently it can turn on a sixpence”, he used to tell acquaintances, “whatever that is”.
• The reason London taxis are so high is so that the “toffs” didn’t have to remove their top hats.
• The rate of a shilling (5p) was set in 1662 when King Charles II passed an Act to control coachmen; this rate was not to be exceeded unto 1950.
• An Act of Parliament in 1784 gave the Hackney carriage trade the sole right to use their coaches as “hearses and mourning coaches at funerals”.
• The heroic explorer Sir Ernest Shackleton was a regular visitor to the old green shelter which originally stood at Hyde Park Corner; the shelter’s regulars presented him with a set of pipes and a pipe rack. His letter of thanks hung proudly on the shelter wall until the shelter was pulled down to make way for the Piccadilly underpass.
• The last horse-drawn Hackney carriage license was surrendered as late as 3rd April 1947.
• Rear-view mirrors became a legal requirement in 1968, but to prevent cabbies from ogling the legs of their lady passengers they couldn’t be adjusted, rendering them almost useless.
• Harold Wilson when Prime Minister wanted to nationalise the taxi trade and force drivers to wear a liveried uniform and be paid a salary.
• London cabbies are expected to abide by laws encompassed in the London Hackney carriage Acts of 1831 and 1843. Among these antiquated laws are terms of one or two months imprisonment for “misbehaviours during employment” and “use of insulting or abusive gestures during employment”.
• Take care that you don’t contravene the Public Health (Control of Disease) Act 1984 when hailing a cab for “No person who knows he is suffering from a notifiable disease shall enter a cab without previously notifying the owner or driver of his condition”.
• When a special Buckingham Palace Brownie Pack was formed for Princess Anne in 1959, one of the other nine-year-olds handpicked to keep her company was the daughter of a London cabbie.
• The actress Keeley Hawes’ father is a cabbie as are both her older brothers. Amy Winehouse’s dad Mitch, in addition to being a musician and singer, drives a London cab. Entertainer Brian Conley’s late father was once a London cabbie.

For those new to CabbieBlog or readers who are slightly forgetful, on Saturdays I’m republishing posts, many going back over a decade. Some will still be very relevant while others have become dated over time. Just think of this post as your weekend paper supplement.

A bear called Martin (27.05.11)

I can never recall a time when we weren’t sharing our home with an animal. My father, and his father before him, held senior positions at London Zoo and from time to time he would, as they say, bring his work home.

Until recently I assumed that London Zoo was the capital’s first menagerie, little realising that not long after the Tower of London was built, it was to become London’s first house for animals.

Exotic creatures have long been considered an appropriate gift from one ruler to another, as early as the 12th century there is evidence that King John (1199-1216) received three boatloads of wild beasts from Normandy. Records show that in 1235 the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II gave Henry III three leopards on the occasion of his wedding to Eleanor of Provence, a lion followed and in 1252 a polar bear complete with its keeper both gifts from Haakon IV of Norway.

The only place to house these dangerous creatures was in England’s most secure citadel, the Tower of London, whose walls provided the perfect enclosure. At that time the creatures were locked away from public view, except the time when the shackled polar bear would be led onto the Thames foreshore to wash and fish for food.

When in 1255 Louis IX of France gave Henry an elephant the Sheriffs of London were asked to build and pay for a 40ft long wooden elephant house, later it was put to good use as one of the Tower’s many prison cells.

The menagerie grew and Edward I created the official position of The Master of the King’s Bears and Apes. By the 16th century the collection was opened to limited public view, and by James I’s reign within the Tower’s confines were recorded a flying squirrel, a tiger, a lioness, five camels and an elephant.

Christopher Wren was charged with designing a lion’s house in 1672. Built-in the southeastern corner it comprised two stories, an attic and cellars. I could never understand when in the modern London Zoo people would eat their lunch in the Lion House for a lion’s faeces have an odour all of their own. In Stow’s Survey of London published in 1720, he records: “The creatures have a rank smell, which hath so affected the air of the place (tho’ there is a garden adjoining) that it hath much injured the health of the man that attends them, so stuffed up his head, that it affects his speech.”

Animal husbandry was in its infancy: ostriches were believed to have the ability to digest iron – one died after being fed no fewer than 80 nails. An Indian elephant housed in St. James’s Palace was given a daily glass of wine from April to September as they believed it couldn’t drink water during those months.

By 1821 the collection had dwindled to four lions, a panther, a leopard, a tiger and a grizzly bear called Martin.

A new keeper was appointed, Alfred Cops, who was devoted to his charges. For the first time in the menagerie’s history Cops went out and purchased animals for the collection. Soon the Tower contained over 280 animals and the public flocked to view them. In one unfortunate incident, a boa constrictor wrapped itself around Cops’ neck as he was feeding it in a bid to entertain the tourists.

A victim of its own success most of the animals were transferred to the new Zoological Society of London, in Regents Park was the society had established London’s first zoo. That transfer started in 1832 and by 1835 the last of Alfred Cops’ collection had been rehomed ending 600 years of exotic animals at The Tower of London.

Now, this whole forgotten chapter is to be celebrated with a special exhibition at the Tower, called Royal Beasts, which opens tomorrow. Watching over the visitors will be one of its most unusual tenants a polar bear which will sit outside the Bloody Tower, where there was once direct access to the Thames. But really to welcome visitors to the exhibition it should have been a bear called Martin.