Way out West (incorporating Way up North)

The phantom minicab

When I used to work at Riverside Studios, in Hammersmith, if we happened to have to work beyond midnight (which was not an uncommon occurrence by any means), our management would pay for a minicab to take us home. This is standard practise in my industry, and no doubt in many others too.

One evening in September, we were working on a show called 'Ghetto' ('blast this ghetto off the stage'-The Times), memorable to me in so many ways (it was written by the boxing correspondant of City Limits magazine, with his gloves on I fear); there had been a late night paintcall, and everyone painting had got rather drunk and fallen over a lot. By this time I was living with the set designer, and we had to get back to Alexandra Palace, where her flat was. As I was the responsible (!) staff member on duty, I was last to leave, having locked the studio and handed over to the night security. We had phoned for a fleet of taxis, and everyone bar us had already gone; as we came out into the gloomy street behind the theatre I couldn't see a minicab, but then a car flashed it's lights from further down the street and we headed over to it. As we drew level, I was rather startled to see that it was a rather elderly Triumph Herald and the driver was not the customary young asian (this was a few years back, when all minicab drivers originated on the indian sub-continent rather than eastern europe as they do now), but rather a woman of uncertain age, but definitely heading towards vintage.

As it was a Triumph Herald, it was necessary to fold back the front passenger seat in order for us to climb into the back. The back seat had a tartan travel rug spread on it (which turned out to be stiff with dog hairs), but we were reassured by the occasional crackle of the minicab radio. Nor were we disconcerted to be asked where we wanted to go, short-term memory loss is commonplace among cabbies. So, having established where we were going, she picked up the microphone, and after speaking briefly to control; we set off.

It became obvious fairly soon that she didn't have a clue where we were going, not in itself unusual in a minicab driver, more unusually, she made no attempt to call in and ask for directions. Eventually I asked her if she wanted me to direct her, and without comment, she passed me an A-Z. As she did so, I noticed that the plug end of the microphone cable was just dangling loose, and had no plug on it anyway. The rest of our journey passed without incident, and in relative silence. I didn't ask for a receipt.

When I went back into work the next day, I mentioned my strange cab experience and one of my colleagues nodded sagely, 'you've had the phantom minicab. As far as anyone can tell, she's either lonely or insomniac, and listens in to minicab radios. Sometimes, when the mood is upon her, she goes and picks punters up, must be mad as a badger, but that that's all there is to it.'

I heard subsequently that the police eventually caught her (I don't imagine they looked very hard), and she was prosecuted, with what result I know not.

posted by Lampy @ 1/31/2006 12:10:00 pm