Call Sign: When did you first arrive at Dial-a-Cab, what did you think of it at the time and who did you take over from?
Trevor Clarke: My first visit to Dial-a-Cab would have been around the second week in January 1986, when I replied to an advertisement in the Evening Standard for an Office Manager. My impressions were of an organisation that was looking to go forward, but which needed a boost in some way. Over the next two weeks I attended twice more for interviews, the original being with the late Phil Messias, who was the Treasurer at that time. My second and third were with Phil and the-then Chairman Ken Burns. I commenced with the Society on the 2nd February 1986 as Office Manager taking over from Janine Gellman, who was leaving to take up a position in the travel industry. Within six months, the Board had appointed me Secretary to the Society, the position from which I now retire after just over fifteen years.
CS: How many Chairmen have you worked under?
TC: There have been four Chairmen during my time with Dial-a-Cab; namely Ken Burns, the late Phil Messias, Aubrey Siteman and now Brian Rice. Likewise there have been four Treasurers, the late Phil Messias, the late Frank Duncan, Aubrey Siteman and Keith Cain.
CS: How would you say that DaC has changed in your time here?
TC: Over the years, successive Boards have endeavoured to take the Society out of the dark ages. When I first joined, the basic method of paying drivers was still hand-written although the job sheets were factored to an agency. Over the years computers have been used far more widely, however with the number of drivers we now have, there is still a large amount of paper generated throughout the Administration both by way of payments and the necessary requirements to keep records in order.
CS: Are there any individual incidents, pleasant or otherwise, that have remained in your mind?
TC: There are many individual incidents that have occurred in my time and the majority are pleasant. It has always been very rewarding to be able to assist members and drivers in many ways. These were not necessarily major items, but routine matters that are a problem to the member or their family but which could be easily sorted and usually were by a little common sense.
   The non-pleasant incidents have been far fewer and normally revolved around drivers who have transgressed the Society's rules or regulations and normally who are looking to justify the indefensible.
CS: You have probably attended every AGM and EGM in your 15 years here, what single event at a meeting sticks out in your mind?
TC: Undoubtedly the most memorable single event concerned the EGM of 1986 when the Board of Management of the day sought the member's approval to install a data dispatch system. To watch the lobbying outside the hall by some misguided members who wanted to leave the Society in the dark ages, led me to wonder whether I had joined an organisation that loved free speech -provided it was done the way those opposed to the Board of Management required!
Undoubtedly the most significant event at Dial-a-Cab was at the second EGM when the membership agreed - albeit by a small majority - to give the Board of Management the right to install the first computer aided data dispatch system in London. At that time it was generally  acknowledged that we were the second circuit in London and in some respects the third, because Computer Cab had a virtual monopoly on being number one whilst Mountview and ourselves vied for second place. Being first with this system set out Dial-a-Cab's stall that we intended to be the market leaders, and the events of the past few years have led us into the position of being exactly that. However, this is not to say that we have a divine right to it and if as seems likely that within the next couple of years a recession 

Talking to
Trevor Clarke