Call Sign February 2010 - Page 3

Views of the police?
   I recently had a very interesting chat about private hire with a serving police officer. What he said surprised me somewhat when he admitted that the police knew the majority of bad apples in the trade were on the minicab side. He also told me about being involved in several anti-tout missions and how they had caught minicabs attempting to tout for business.
   Then he spoiled it all by also admitting that they operated under a list of priorities and that minicab touting came very low down on that list. While he added that they would love to be able to devote more time to cleaning up private hire, they just did not have the time.
   He also admitted knowing that some private hire drivers – especially at busy times - were touting, while police looked the other way because they were busy dealing with other things. And even more surprisingly, he actually admitted that if there were just too many punters looking for too few taxis, they’d never get home without minicabs touting.
   An interesting, yet very sad, chat...

Paul for Music
   I don’t know how many of you were brought up in the East End in the mid-1950s and early 60s, but if you were then you will undoubtedly remember the record stall in front of Whitechapel Station and the shop in Cambridge Heath Road that stored every one of the latest vinyl releases in those early rock n’ roll years. Paul Shoben - better known as Paul for Music - ran both. I tend not to write about personal stuff such as this, but Paul for Music played a small part in my early years that always felt like such a big part, that when I read of Paul’s death in December at the age of 87, I just had to give it a mention.
   Together with friends, I would spend hours on a Saturday morning outside the underground station listening to Paul playing the latest vinyl tracks – starting, I think, around September 1957 when Lonnie Donegan’s skiffle sound was bidding a fond farewell and the American bubble-gum pop machine burst onto the UK scene. It was at that time when the non-stop sound of Paul Anka blared out day after day and week after week as his amazing music-changing Diana topped the charts for 7 weeks - with Paul playing it constantly throughout!
   Then from Diana, through Elvis and the early Cliff, we gathered around the Paul for Music stall listening to the sound that many just refer to now as "the sixties."
   Before The Beatles arrived on the scene, we’d moved onto the home of Tottenham Hotspur for our Saturday afternoon entertainment. But the mornings were still spent by Paul’s stall.
   The memory of those early years at Paul Shoben’s record stall will stay in my mind forever.
   RIP Paul...

DaC Credit Union
The past 12 months have finally seen a breakthrough in the Dial-a-Cab Credit Union with new members totalling well into three figures. The only mystery to me is

why every subscriber on DaC isn’t a member? After all, it costs you nothing and you never know when you might suddenly need a few shekels. Ok, you have to save a regular amount each month – as small or large as you wish – but that money is yours. You can take it back whenever you want, or leave it mount up so that you can borrow up to three times that amount and get it within a matter of days. With the cost of running a cab skyrocketing, it seems so logical to have access to loans where the repayments are so reasonable, rather than some of those small loan companies where interest charges are astronomical. The amounts you can borrow now runs into many thousands of pounds, but no one will ask you to sign over your house "just in case!" And as many subscribers have discovered, their 7% interest on savings accounts is just unbeatable. Not surprisingly, that offer only opens for short periods within the year so you not only have to be fairly quick, but you also have to be a member. And as I said at the beginning, the only mystery to me is why every subscriber on DaC isn’t one already!

Black power?
   Several issues back, Call Sign published a story by a DaC driver where he told of his fear when seeing a group of ‘hoodies’ walking towards his taxi. In all innocence, the driver said that the reason he quickly locked his doors wasn’t because they happened to be black, but because they were obviously hiding their faces. He went on to say that he would have locked the doors had they been white as well.
   A complaint came in from a member of staff in the DaC Call Centre saying that the driver’s description was racist and while not for one second do I think the driver meant it to sound that way, I could understand why the complaint was received and as Editor, I sent an apology to the Call Centre member and accepted responsibility. He accepted it graciously and we had a short but interesting exchange of views on the subject.
   Now it’s my turn to complain about what some perceive to be reverse racism. This column doesn’t particularly like minicabs and we’ve said so many times. However, I have over the years met some of the people behind the larger PH companies and many are just regular guys running a business – so yes, it’s the business of PH that I can’t bring myself to like and not necessarily those running the businesses.
   One "boss" I haven’t met is Roger Lynch, Chief Executive of the Ruskin PH group in Camberwell Road. He seems like a responsible businessman, a nice guy and I’m sure that he would be just as annoyed at his drivers if they were caught touting, as we would be.
   Yet according to Southwark

News, Mr Lynch was "one of a group of prominent black business people invited to Number 10 to mark the rising success of BME entrepreneurs." The paper writes of how Roger Lynch complained to Gordon Brown about the way Lloyds Bank were treating their customers and other items of interest to him. It then goes on to say:
   "Roger Lynch is a new entrant in this year's newly-published Black Power List, which identifies the most 100 most influential BME (Black and Minority Ethnic) people in Britain. He is also Southwark's reigning Black Entrepreneur of the Year." It then quotes the Prime Minister in saying how important it is for all black and ethnic minority people to go out and vote at the next election, whether they are Labour, Liberal Democrat or Conservative, because "...the BNP poses the greatest danger to you and diversity in our nation."
   Gordon Brown may well be correct about the BNP, but my problem is with the word ‘black’ and I have a feeling that the person who issued the original complaint to Call Sign may well agree with me on this occasion.
   Can you imagine the uproar if there were to be a White Entrepreneur of the Year award or if someone were to be nominated as one of the 100 most influential white people in Britain and they were then placed onto a White Power list? The thought is not just appalling, but chilling to the blood. Yes, there are problems between different colour groups, but they represent a small percentage of race relations and most of us get on as being just people, with the actual question of colour not arising.
   Then we hear something like the situation surrounding Roger Lynch and his "awards" that appear to be for him being black, rather than for being good at his job – something he obviously is. Perhaps it’s just me, but I considered the article in Southwark News to be far more racist than the driver in Call Sign who perhaps just didn’t express himself in the way he meant to...

Mike Son
   An article in the January Call Sign from Board member Mike Son, under the heading How can we win back our work, has led to an avalanche of both emails and phone calls – some in favour, some not so much so, but none violently against. Amazingly, one even came in from the private hire section. However, as that person is Martin Cox who has huge experience of both sides of the industry, I felt it to be relevant and taking my life in my hands, I have gone ahead and published it!
   I have asked Mike not to respond in this issue – especially as he was on holiday for some of the time anyway – but to follow up the article next month.
   Call Sign may be just an in-house magazine that can’t be bothered extolling its virtues, but it never ceases to amaze us at how often it leads the way in discussion groups...

Alan Fisher
callsignmag@aol.com