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When Dial-a-Cab
Chairman Brian Rice made the short statement on driver’s
terminals to the effect that former dispatcher Lou Gitlin
had died, many would have asked just who he was, whereas those
drivers that were around when Lou’s famous voice came over the
ODRTS / DaC airways would have felt a huge sadness. Lou wasn’t
just a name from DaC’s past, he had been a big part of its
history from that first day he walked into our office in
Pentonville Road in late 1957. His death also puts a definitive end to the trade’s longest running radio taxi partnership – that of Lou and Ivor Belkin (C97) – which ran from September 1961 up until 2006, when Lou had to undergo a double cataract operation and on his return to the dispatcher’s box at Brunswick House, found the VDU glare to be too much to take. He had told Call Sign at the time that he hoped he could return when his eyes improved, but sadly his general health also began to deteriorate and that opportunity never came about. Ivor – who still dispatches on Saturdays - told Call Sign: "I was so sad to hear of Lou’s passing. I’d known him for almost 45 years and worked with him for most of that time. He had been very ill for some time, but it is still so very sad to have lost a long-standing partner. I remember how sad I felt when he told me he was retiring from his dispatching job at DaC because it was getting too much for him following his operation. He used to talk of his passions in life - besides wife Ruth and sons Adam and Simon - the main one being a Mason, followed closely by collecting toy soldiers and cooking! He also loved reading and would often be seen with an historical tome. The sense of humour that kept Saturday evening drivers amused during the DaC voice years may have covered up a very intelligent man. |
A dispatching legend ends as Lou Gitlin dies |
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 Lou Gitlin, former Chairman Aubrey Siteman and Ivor Belkin |
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He was one of the last of the
old school of dispatchers and I will miss him..." Fellow dispatcher, Curls Villiers, also wanted to pay tribute to Lou. She told us: "It was very sad to hear of the passing of Uncle Lou Gitlin. He was not just a knowledgeable taxi driver, he was the fountain of knowledge for anything you cared to ask him. Any question - whether it be difficult or even insane - he would have the answer for you! I remember in the early days looking up to him for advice, as he was always good giving it but would never look down on you for asking. It has been an honour to have met a wonderful person like Lou and he will be sadly missed. God bless..." One thing Lou never liked was football and during those voice years he would often wind up drivers by refusing to give out the Saturday footie scores until drivers virtually begged him for them! That was, of course, before many had FM radios in their taxis. He also loved telling jokes, with his wife Ruth being the butt of so many of them. Yet there was a deep love between the two that would have amazed drivers brought up on those joke sessions! But it wasn’t all jokes because anyone that regularly worked on a |
Saturday knew that when it got
busy, both Lou and Ivor had just one priority – to cover the
work first. Joking came a long way down in second place! April 29th 1989 was a Saturday. It was also the day that Dial-a-Cab became the first radio taxi organisation in Europe to go live using just data dispatch and no voice. So naturally, being a Saturday, who would be the two dispatchers to see the process through – bearing in mind that this was our second attempt at going live, with the first one failing the previous November on a busy weekday? The Board of the time decided that a Saturday might be easier with the flow of work being a bit lighter, giving us a chance to "bed" in the new system. Call Sign has a video of the day and when you look at both Lou and Ivor at work with a system that took us years into the future literally overnight, you would have thought they had been using it forever. There was no joking, just their sheer professionalism shining through. Lou Gitlin will forever be a legend in Dial-a-Cab’s history and such was his association to DaC that the whole Board attended the funeral. Wherever you are now, Lou, rest in peace because you deserve it... |
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