Page 26
Call Sign October 2011
LOOKING AT (TAXI) LIFE
with Tom Quigley (Y33)
It is at this point that the whole scenario gets into
ents, grandparents and indeed the bride and
a grey area when money donated from the par-
groom, should enter into pre-nuptial agreements?
ents of (say) the bride, who only want the best
There is a saying: "Never do business with fami-
for their daughter, have put by the money from
ly and friends." It's not our business minds that
their late Uncle Lou and Aunt Tilly's Will to pay
get us into problems, but our hearts. It's with
for the wedding and a small £10,000 deposit on
these hearts that we enter an area of pleasure,
a house. Five years later the relationship has
which unfortunately is really a place of business
gone pear-shaped, while the property value that
and usually pain.
Uncle Lou and Aunt Tilly's money went into has
Pre-Nuptial agreements were once the exclu-
I wish I could have been a
quadrupled and is now being carved up to pro-
sive domain of the rich, I won't say idle, but the
hoodie...
vide a home (in this scenario) for the new girl-
rich nonetheless. Is it time that the so-called
After all the press coverage of hoodies in the
friend-partner of the groom, someone who is not
working class had them?
riots, the usual chorus of `it wouldn't have hap-
related, unknown and probably despised by the
The majority of us have made provisions in
pened in our day' came belting out loud and
very family whose money (and wealth) they now
the form of a Will, be it our own or an elderly
clear. Well, the simple fact is that London has a
have an entitlement to. The scenarios as we are
relative. We are more preoccupied about where
history of riots and protests and it probably did
all aware are endless and probably more realis-
our money goes when we are dead than when
happen in yours and everybody else's day.
tic when it's not Uncle Lou or Aunt Tilly's
we are alive. Is that because we would feel too
The difference today is that the very thought
money, but more than likely it could be our own,
embarrassed or prefer to adopt an ostrich head
of lifting a telly - never mind stealing it - would
generated with hard work, endeavour, scrimp-
in the sand approach to finances and the family?
have given you a hernia! Even if you tried to
ing, saving and doing without to do what we
Nowadays with the rise in house prices, the
move the TV, it would probably have been in a
have always believed to be the right and proper
average for a 3-bedroom house in Greater
massive cabinet with bulbs and fuses in the back
way to provide the best for our families.
London is around £420,000. The general likeli-
that would have blown (the microchip still being
The reality is that our properties involve large
hood and increasing probability is that working
decades away in the future). I can remember
sums of wealth, with ongoing changes to capital
class parents help to provide the deposit for their
when most people never actually owned their
gains tax, inheritance tax, plus stamp duty. Many
heirs to get a foothold onto that property ladder.
TV, just rented one. At one time, our family had
Sunday newspapers will devote pages of finan-
But all they have worked and strived for, in
a TV with a coin meter on its side. God help if
cial advice on the subject, but even as we read it
one bitter and unfortunate marriage or partner-
you switched on too early and the money ran
we do nothing to protect our and the whole fam-
ship, could disappear to a complete stranger, or
out during an episode of Rawhide, as your dad
ily's greatest financial asset.
counting the cost of the legal fees involved, sev-
would have left you with one coin.
Wendy and I have been married for 34 years;
eral law firms. It is said that the average cost of
As for wearing a lovely soft hoodie to wrap
we have 2 sons and a 3-bedroom house in
a divorce is estimated to be £13,000, with the
your tender cold head in, that would have been
Chingford. Maybe we should opt for the infa-
more expensive ones costing anything from
luxury! We had to wear rough woollen bala-
mous headline of Viv Nicholson and `spend,
£25,000 to £50,000.
clavas that itched and scratched your face off,
spend, spend'! Knowing my lads and their girl-
It is a real thought that although the divorce
normally knitted from another relative's old
friends probably the same as your relatives too
rate is dropping, fewer people are getting mar-
jumper or cardigan. When wet, they used to
they would prefer to see us enjoy it... As long
ried and instead are entering into a partnership
weigh a ton like chainmail, stretch to about four
as we have it in writing!
regardless of gender and it is right that when
times its size and there was no way you could
Tom Quigley Y33
entering that partnership, both parties are equal.
run with it on. If you had a cold and runny nose
or if it was cold and snowy outside, it would
stick to your upper lip like a leech and you
would end up with frostbite. Rumour has it that
our editor's mum made him a pair of swimming
trunks out of an old pullover. I'm not sure how
the young Alan would have coped coming out of
the water in that with its clingy doubled weight
not a pleasant thought!
I grew up in a large Northern Irish Catholic
family living in London at the height of the IRA
bombings. To lay awake hoping that there
wouldn't be a police or army raid on our home,
with them coming in and finding a balaclava
under the bed, would bring the sweats to anyone!
Back to the fuss about what to do with hood-
ies: Jail them? National Service? Army? I`d like to
see them be made to walk the streets in heavy
duffle coats, old army great coats or an old don-
key jacket with Murphy or McAlpine on the back!
Or worse still, if their trousers were hanging
below their rear, as is the fashion, they should be
made to wear a striped snake belt from
Woolworths with the lovely `S' buckle logo,
which came in one size fits all and left a nice red
welt on your side as it cut into your skin. No
lovely latest style trainers to walk about in; the
summer was normally a pair of crepe sole san-
dals, winters, army surplus boots and if you were
going somewhere special, a pair of plastic win-
klepickers from Curtess shoe shops. Yes I would
love to have been a hoodie...
Pre-nuptials no longer for
the rich?
Is it time that those so called working-class par-
