Royal Warrant
I read Al Fresco’s Royal approval article in TAXI
magazine with some interest and amusement where he wrote of
Dial-a-Cab having royal connections through its client accounts.
In that article, he writes of DaC being given a Royal Warrant
for its work in supplying licensed radio taxis for transporting
members of the Royal Household while carrying out their duties.
What Al Fresco may not have been aware of was that there was a
member of Dial-a-Cab who held a Royal Warrant for supplying a
Royal Household with motor vehicles. I know this for a fact, as
it was I who held the Royal Warrant, which allowed me to supply
new motor vehicles (not private hire) and relief chauffeurs to
Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother.
I still have the Royal Warrant framed on my office wall at home; it
reminds me of the 17 years of service that I gave to one of the
most respected Royal family members. During that time I met most
of the Royal Family, whether it was in London, Sandringham or
Scotland, it also allowed me to view them whilst they were out
of the public gaze and in a relaxed mood.
The residences were as far apart as Dover to Mey, which is close to
John O’Groats in Scotland, and as varied as castles to mansions
to log cabins! Then to be able to walk leisurely around the
grounds and gardens of the most protected estates in Great
Britain, this was a pleasure that not many are allowed in this
country.
A Royal warrant is issued to only one named person in a company and
if that person dies or leaves the company, then the company has
to reapply with a new named member of that company. If the
Member of the Royal family that issued the Royal warrant dies,
then the holder may continue to hold the Royal warrant for
another 5 years. But the holder has to change their notepaper
and any signage to state it was supplier to the "Late" royal
member.
So once again Call Sign has the most up to date news
and in depth information, and to Al Fresco, who is a friend of
mine, apologies. It seems that the scoops are always in the
magazine that belongs to London’s premier licensed radio taxi
service.
(Did you know? Sheep will not drink from running water, squirrels
can’t see red and polar bears cover their black noses with their
paws for better camouflage?)
Nasty Editor!
It’s difficult writing an article for Call Sign when
Alan Fisher begins nagging you to submit some copy around 3
weeks before publication of the actual issue. This makes it
difficult for the writer when they try to add some topical news
that will not be too stale before the reader gets the issue on
their doormat. When I submitted my last issue, I was happy with
the content; but as the month continued I noticed in The Sun
newspaper that some of the comments I had made in my article
were duplicated in their columns. Could it be just coincidence
or has the Editor of Call Sign got a secret
sideline - supplying hacks with items of interest for their
columns?
(Did you know? Pigeons can fly 600 miles a day, chickens that lay
brown eggs have red ear lobes, ostriches urinate on their legs
to keep cool and penguins have sex twice a year?)
It’s a Fairway to Waterloo!
On many Sunday evenings, I pick up my eldest grandson at Kings
Cross Station and take him down to Waterloo to catch his
connecting train back to his base and ship at Portsmouth. I know
many of you will say that I do not look old enough to have a
grandson in the Royal Navy; mind you, others will say I look
like Uncle Albert in Only Fools and Horses! Be that as it may, I
was shocked that at 9pm at Waterloo on a quiet Sunday, you still
have to pay parking fees. They even employ a parking warden to
patrol with just a few cars parked anyway.
But what I also noticed whilst walking into the station from the
back of the taxi rank, was the number of filthy old Fairways,
driven mainly by old fellows who |
Another batch of views from Tom that do not
necessarily reflect the views of DaC
THE WORLD ACCORDING TO TOM WHITBREAD
DaC’s answer to Victor Meldrew! |
probably just work on
weekends. Thank God all the Dial-a-Cab vehicles I saw were
clean, as were it seemed, taxis on other radio circuits. I
glanced inside some of these Fairways to see interiors as dirty
as the outside, some with ripped seats/head lining. Imagine the
impression this must give to overseas visitors; they must think
we have slipped back to being a third world country. This is not
how we should be thought of, even though we are travelling
through a recession.
(Did you know? Julian Clary, Sir Roger Moore, Arnold
Schwarzenegger, Eddie Murphy, Burt Reynolds, Selina Scott, Ross
Kemp and Terry Waite all had fathers who were policemen?)
Tom’s moans...
How are these and other retrograde steps that are happening at the
moment, affecting you in your working and home life? Firstly,
protection for you and your family whether you are at home or
out working. You expect, if trouble happens, that you can dial
999 and a policeman will appear from a car with flashing lights
and two-toned hooters. Well in the next couple of years, 3500
police officers will disappear as we are told that the
Government cannot afford to pay these officers - that is apart
from the 1000 or so that are off long term sickness.
But they can find money for the plastic policemen (PSCO), who have
no power of arrest and if you are getting beaten up, they will
just stand back, as Health and Safety states they could
otherwise get hurt! But they can vote for the persons that gave
them this cushy job.
As I write this article, the Jon Venables scandal has broken. He
has been returned to prison whilst on licence and Secretary of
State for Justice,
Jack Straw says that he will not give the reason
for his incarceration as it is not in the public interest. No,
he does not want to admit they were wrong to let Venables out of
prison and waste thousands on a new identity.
You also have Maxine Carr, who assisted Ian Huntley with his alibi
after he murdered the two schoolgirls, Holly Wells and Jessica
Chapman. We paid for her to have a new identity, new teeth and
breast implants. All the money for these new identities and
cosmetic surgery could have paid for a patrol car or two AND two
qualified police officers to protect our community.
If you get hospitalised, you will need to get back to work as quick
as possible to pay the bills and get some money for a well
deserved holiday, but the NHS pen-pushing employers say they
cannot afford more qualified nurses. So they will be reducing
the General Registered Nurses and replacing them with
unqualified nurse assistants. This follows the scandal in the
north of England where hundreds of patients have died through
lack of nursing care after administrators cut costs on medical
care, but not on their own wages or bonuses. These patients not
only died through a lack of medical care, but in filthy beds and
in some cases, malnutrition. Do you think anyone ever be charged
with the deaths of these beloved family members? So far as I am
concerned, these corporate killers will not be brought to
justice, but they will be left to vote for the ones that will
protect their jobs.
Then you have the greatest tax of all - the one that can even be
charged after you are dead by taking a lump sum from your
estate. This so-called tax is for looking after you when
becoming demented through driving your taxi18 hours a day and
having to be cared for in a council home! You need to drive 18
hours a day to pay taxes during your working life and then when
you think you have provided for your partner’s life after your
demise, you can forget it as they will grab another chunk of any
money you have left! Then there are the councils who
say that they do not have the money to repair the roads you
drive on or to supply the grit for when it snows. Yet they have
£millions to rent mansions for large families who should not
even be living in this country. Or a Government that says it has
no money to build enough jails to accommodate thieves,
murderers, rapists and those committing benefit frauds. Remember
the days when if you murdered someone, you faced the hangman?
Nowadays you could get as little |
as 2 years in jail.
These are people you could meet when out driving your taxi, people
who have been given a caution, community service, ASBOs or a leg
tag. These are people who should be incarcerated to protect you
and others so that you can go about your lawful business. It
seems as though all the laws are being implemented for the
criminal fraternity and penalising the law-abiding taxpayer.
Maybe a certain party should be renamed The National Criminal
Party.
(Did you know? Mark Twain was born on the day in 1835 when Haley’s
comet appeared and he died when it reappeared again in 1910?)
PCO v HoC?
If you overcharge by 50p, the PCO will hang you out to dry, but if
you work in that big building in the shadow of Big Ben, then you
can fiddle as much as you like with no penalty. So if you have a
decent education, why not consider joining a political party and
putting yourself up to become a Member of Parliament? If you do,
I hope you remember your mates who are still driving taxis and
that little old fellow who lives in Dalston Lane that gave you
the idea!
Dial-a-Dream luxury Villa hols
On a lighter vein, elsewhere in this magazine you will see an
advert for Dial-a-Dream’s villas in Florida and I assure
you that if you intend going to Florida for your holiday, you
will not get better value for your money. If you know anyone who
has stayed at one of these villas, ask them how well furnished
they are and all the extras that are available.
These villas are only minutes from the Disney theme parks, not like
others that say as much in travel brochures, but which in
reality can only be achieved if you travel at midnight on the
freeway!
We bought these villas when we had some money behind us, which
turned out to be very good thinking as it is now the main income
we have to allow us to fulfil the dreams of terminally ill
children. Due to the recession, we have been restricted to the
number of dreams we can fulfil, but we are still in there giving
the children the will to try and live another day.
As with other taxi charities, nobody on the five-person committee
gets a penny in payment for the work that is done on behalf of
the children.
If you’d like the chance to win a free holiday in one of these
villas accommodating 4/5 people, we’ll be holding a raffle
during the spring and summer to win a one-week stay in sunny
Florida. For tickets, contact me on TomW@dialacab.co.uk. All
money raised by Dial-a-Dream go to realising the dream of a
child with a life threatening illness; for many of them, it is
the last dream in their very short lives, so that is why it’s so
important.
Thinking of having a pop???
Over the 30+ years I have been on Dial-a-Cab - 24 of them as a
Board Member, I have seen many subscribers try and fail to bring
the Society down with spurious complaints. At the moment, we are
the most buoyant and powerful radio taxi company in England,
with MPs, leaders of Transport for London, heads of businesses
and media services asking for our advice on serious money issues
in connection with the taxi trade. Not about potholes in the
roads or bicycles on the pavement, although if asked we could
give some serious answers!
So before you think of knocking the Society and the Board, look
around at the companies that cover the same type of work and if
you can find a better one, I will praise you in my next article.
And to the drivers over the past years who have ridiculed us for
letting large companies get us to allocate their work through
our Concierge system, I suggest you look at the article that
Brian should have in this magazine regarding the Glasgow
Licensed Taxi drivers and the Private Hire NHS contract...
(Did you know? A year contains 31,557,600 seconds and that ‘eleven
plus two’ is an anagram of ‘twelve plus one’?)
Tom Whitbread
DaC Board member |
