2000 And All That...
Well, I guess that this is a pretty momentous occasion. I am the first
Editor in ODRTS history - going back to the time of Joe Toff and ODRTS
Monthly - to have the opportunity of wishing all the members and staff of
Dial-a-Cab together with all your families, the very best for the new
millennium. And in all probability, I will also be the last as Call Sign
intends operating via telepathy from August 2967 - although that plan is
subject to change depending on the Dial-a-Cab Forward Planning Committee's
trip to the planet Uranus in 2965 to view the new Equaliberatiousa
terminals! That plan is still top secret, so please don't tell anyone but,
if you do, please ask them not to tell anyone!
If I sound as though I have been on the Champagne rather
early, then you're wrong (hic!), this really is a momentous moment in the
history of us all - including DaC. The year 2000 represented for most of
us a time in the future that would always be exactly that - a time in the
future. Does anyone even know how we should address the date? 1900 was
called nineteen hundred, so are we just days away from 2000 as in two
thousand or is it twenty hundred? Whatever it is, my best wishes to you
all are sincere - and by all I mean all, Mark! Everything you have always
wished yourselves within an atmosphere of peace and harmony will hopefully
be yours. May those of you with problems find that they were much smaller
that you'd thought and that the light at the end of the tunnel becomes a
huge, bright beam.
My best wishes also go to our competitors Computer Cab and
Radio Taxis for a successful future - so long as it isn't at our expense,
Roy Ellis and all the staff at the PCO, all those uncelebrated mechanics
and fleet owners who help to keep the world's finest taxi fleet servicing
London 24 hours a day, seven days a week and 366 days a 2000 year.
Garages such as Jimmy Allen's North Eastern Motors who have
been in the same spot in London's
east end for over 40 years dealing with just taxis. Ivan Kovler's A1
garage which has also been around for longer than I have, is another whose
service to the business of keeping us moving can never be over-stated.
Then there is Mann & Overton. Look back through the
decades of any old trade magazine, and there you will see their name. All
that differs is the price at the end of the ad!
There are so many people that we would find it extremely
difficult to operate without, so on behalf of everyone at DaC, I thank you
all just as I'm sure you would thank us for our business.
Call Sign
This issue of Call Sign will be somewhat different to the usual
copy you receive. With the oncoming problem of the World virtually closing
down for two weeks - including the printers of this mag - I have had to
get the issue out in a matter of days and then hope that the post office
can somehow squeeze it through your Y2K-free letterboxes by December 30th.
If I have succeeded, then I hope that this souvenir issue helps to provide
some interesting reading material for you.
As usual, Mailshot will be filled with pages of gripes,
anecdotes, ideas, the occasional praise and
everything else that makes those pages so readable. Board of Management
reports are included in this issue, but will have been written by the 10th
December as against the 18th in a usual month.
But I have also included a look back as the end of a
millennium certainly warrants a look backwards as well as wondering about
the future. Because I have incorporated much original archive material,
please excuse any deterioration in the reproduction quality.
The December issue took a peep at the first 'official' 2000 years of the world and this issue will take a look back at the cab trade, especially ODRTS, with much of it - although not all - from around 1953 which was the year we were founded. Anything not pertaining to the present will be marked 'Flashback' as I don't want anyone running out thinking that they can go and buy a new cab for a few hundred quid and then suing me when they find that they can't!
End As You Mean To Start - Yet Another Apology!
Yes, it's true - yet another apology to put in your scrapbooks! In the
December issue of Call Sign in Allen Togwell's interesting article on the
practicality of keeping the inside of new cabs clean, somewhere along the
line, Allen's use of the word 'pretty' became 'petty' - which of course
puts rather a different slant to an article! It should have read Pretty v
Practical rather than Petty v Practical. So I apologise to AT and hope
that he doesn't take my apology as being too pretty!
