Before attempting this article, I am in the odd position of catching up on a pile of letters and email messages that have accumulated whilst I've been away on holiday. Odd? Well, it's the first holiday I have taken for over 10 years. Nowhere exotic, I was more than content to take a peaceful break on the Channel Isles. And a complete break it was; no mobiles, no computers, no emails, no having to wear shirt, tie and suit and, while on the tiny Islands of Herm and Sark, not one solitary vehicle to remind me of the chaos in London... unless of course, a pony and trap and the odd bike could be classed as traffic!
   Instead, in shorts (tailored, of course), armed with a strong pair of boots to climb and explore the twenty odd miles of breathtaking ragged cliffs and half a dozen long overdue unread novels, my objective was to see if I could go any length of time without thinking about work. I actually managed it for five whole days and in fact it could possibly have been longer had I not worn a Dial-a-Cab sweatshirt. I was just leaving a small café on a little cobbled back street, when of the three or four other pedestrians in sight, two just happened to be a DaC subscriber and his very charming wife! He told me the first thing he noticed was the DaC logo on my shirt, then he recognised my face. It made me smile because whilst it broke my spell of not thinking about work, it at least proves my point about the power of advertising and the importance of carrying our branding on your taxis...!
   In addition to catching up on my emails, my other immediate task was to read from cover to cover the latest issue of Call Sign. And, as much as I hate saying it for fear of being accused of sucking up to the Editor, I am forever amazed at the continuing high quality of Call Sign each month. It is an enormous feat to produce a regular, quality in-house magazine, particularly when the content is limited to the interests of those in one particular industry. Also, the fact that not only is it the product of one man, but more astonishingly is that it is done on a part time basis.
   I and other Board members, identify with Alan Fisher's achievements in some small way with the difficulty of producing our own individual articles. No Board member that I know of, including myself, have any literary qualifications, so at times it can be quite daunting when suddenly being told that a report is expected for the next issue. Writing for pleasure is one thing, but producing copy to a deadline without any immediate idea of what to write about is something quite different, even more so when a Board member has written so many articles in the past.
   We then have the added problem of making sure we are not repeating anything that has been written in the past. We have to be wary about political issues or writing anything that might benefit our competitors. The subject matter is limited in the main to the cab trade and care needs to be taken about the choice of words or syntax, or else it is taken out of context and causes offence. And lastly, there

is the much-needed time that has to be found which invariably, as is the case now, comes from writing on my PC at home.

Bitterness...
Another matter when producing regular articles, is the identity it creates of the author and whether the message (if one exists) is getting across. With Call Sign being the only means of communication, it is understandable that the impression drawn of an individual is from their writing. In my case, there have been more letters in Call Sign vilifying me than the whole Board put together! Understandable, perhaps, because of my job. Criticism is one thing, but the bitterness in some of those letters; one would have thought I had raped and pillaged their homes.
   The irony is, on the occasions I have managed to have a conversation with some of these people, they openly admitted I was nothing like what they had expected, not that I ever discovered what they were expecting! Horns and fanged teeth, perhaps...
   Although these letters have become fewer and fewer, perhaps I would have been wise to take a piece of advice given to me by a former Board member. He told me that if I wanted a safe and easy ride on the Board, then don't write anything contentious, keep it short, keep it bland and just tell the Members what they want to hear. I was not and am not prepared to do that. I joined the Board to do a job. If in achieving that aim - which in my case was to generate new business - it involved telling a few home truths, then tough. I worked very hard during those early years, on average 14 hours a day while being paid for 8 and I was not prepared to have it wasted by a small group of selfish drivers. Yes, as Paul Jenner mentioned in his letter last month, my diplomacy and tact have at times been open to question and yes, I have upset some members, including I might add quite a few Board members as the cracks in the Board room table from my thumping still testify!

Pressure...
Different jobs on the Board have different pressures. Anybody who has ever been involved in Sales will know that when business starts to drop, pressure, tolerance, tact and diplomacy are not always compatible. Take a typical scenario: Work starts to slow down; drivers are on the phone bitterly complaining; tenders start landing on my desk from a number of our long-standing clients. Then we hear rumours that competitors are approaching our major clients. Panic is building that unless we reduce our charges, we could lose them. Meetings are arranged and phone calls made to try and prevent these clients from taking their business elsewhere.

In addition, I am busy placating clients who are complaining about a whole gamut of problems from abusive unhelpful drivers, to high run-ins; from cabs not turning up to drivers waffling on their mobiles or bad driving, dirty cabs, excessive meter readings etc. And then, in the midst of all this, I get a driver barging into my office slagging me off because he  had just completed a £350 fixed price ride and he's moaning that the meter showed £363 and he is now £13 out of pocket. Needless to say my response on that occasion would not have impressed Mr Jenner.
   Pressure doesn't bother me. It's the selfishness, greed and lack of concern about our Society that upsets me. I could quite easily just shrug my shoulders and accept that if the members can't see the damage they are causing, then so be it. I have no vested interest in the company, why should I give myself a heart attack worrying? But I do worry, as do other Board members. I am a conscientious person by nature and I'm also a bad loser - whether it be failing in a bid for a new client or losing at a game of draughts.
   What makes losing worse, is when you know it could be avoided. Such as how successful our circuit and you, the drivers, could be if all of you would only accept the realisation that unless radical changes are made, our trade will be left behind. I know it's wishful thinking, but can you imagine a fleet of 2200 smiling, polite, courteous licensed cab drivers all wearing blazer and grey slacks, opening doors of smart clean cabs to the passenger, helping with luggage, assisting with a DaC umbrella when raining etc. It would not only claim the front page of every national newspaper in the land, more importantly it would annihilate private hire, re-generate confidence in the general public and secure your future for years to come.
   Yes it is wishful thinking, at least for the Licensed Taxi trade, but it may not be for Private Hire. I don't think it will be long once PH is licensed, before the big money men see the potential and build fleets the size of ours.
   But that doesn't mean we shouldn't work harder with what we have at present, hence the reason I try to make my feelings known in Call Sign. I know I take a gamble in the manner in which I write, but it is done for a purpose - to get your attention. I remember many years ago at school, having an RI teacher who in an attempt to get the attention of a class room of noisy, unruly, scruffy load of urchins, started his lesson by talking about sex. The sudden silence was electric. OK, it was a ruse but it worked...!
   Naturally I've never considered using sex as an angle in Call Sign, because I don't think it would raise (no pun intended) the slightest interest amongst members of my generation. So instead, when I need to get over a point, I sometimes write in a manner that is likely to get under the skin. And from the letters in Call Sign over the years, it obviously proves that the message does at times get home. But never, I might add, have I ever intended anything to be personal...

Allen Togwell