Call Sign
: Firstly Derek, can you give me some personal details.Derek Chandler: Well, I’m married to Geertrude Anolda Van Der Berg, who we call Tiny to save our teeth overworking! We have two grown-up children Michelle and Anthony. Michelle and her husband run a staff finding agency and Anthony works for them. Michelle has two sons - Anton and Louie - which makes my wife and I very young grandparents Okay, if you are going to be pedantic, youngish! I met Tiny when she came over from her native Holland to learn English for the company she worked for, KLM Dutch Airlines.
CS: How long have you been driving a cab?
DC: I passed out in 1970. Four months ago and for the first time in those 28 years, I lost my badge so I trotted of to the PCO to report it. Lo and behold, after I gave my badge number to the receptionist, she came back and presented me with my own badge that had been handed in by someone. Unfortunately, a heavy lorry must have driven over it because it came back crumpled! I laughed and waited for the new replacement. But they won’t replace badges if the number is still visible and I now have to wear the crumpled one. So any autograph hunters following this interview, will not have too much trouble finding a black driver with a badge that looks
CS: And DAC?
DC: I have been on Dial a Cab for 18 years. To be perfectly honest, I wouldn’t have had a clue until the plc proposals came around giving me my starting date. I found it hard to believe that I had been here so long, but having been around during the years at Shirland Road as well as Brunswick Place, I suppose it’s right. I must have started with DAC when I was about three years old - approximately! I remember the Shirland Road days so well. In fact I still have the job sheets from our time there. Do you remember when we had to phone the office to clear dockets that we had done that week?
CS: Sorry Derek, I’m much younger than you. I only just about remember last week…!
Have you had any other jobs before driving a cab?
DC: I started as a mechanic but that didn’t last too long as I was never too keen on the grease! Then I worked for a company that produced Christmas Crackers. I used to travel around organising the gifts that went inside - and in those days they were much better quality than they are now.
CS: I thought Santa made those…
DC: Yes, well we helped Santa at Christmas but for the other 364 days we did it using our own initiatives! Then I was a Chauffeur for one of the directors of Burberry’s wives. As we were always told at the time, Harold Wilson used to wear one of their macs. I enjoyed working for Mr *****’s wife, but they used to have a strange living arrangement. Whoever it was they lived with, it certainly wasn’t each other! The only time they were really together was each summer when I used to take them to Lake Lugano for ten weeks. They let me use an apartment near their mansion so that my wife could also come with. Even then he used to vanish, suddenly phoning at the weekend for me to pick him up at the airport!
CS: Were you born here?
DC: Yes, as was my mother while my father was born in Jamaica. My
At the recent AGM allowing his hair to regain it's own colour.
early days were spent in Camden Town at my
grandmother’s flat. After marrying Tiny, we bought our own place in Bounds Green
before moving to our current house in Palmers Green when Anthony came along. We’ve
been there ever since.
CS: Can we talk about any problems you have encountered because of being black
without me causing any upset.
DC: I’m actually a deeper shade of pale and there is no way you could upset me
by talking about my colour. I get young black kids telling me that they are having a hard
time. I tell them that they don’t know what having a hard time is! When I was a kid,
if there was one black kid, a Jewish one and a couple of Greeks, I’d be the one that
got it. If there was any trouble in school, I would be the one who ended up in trouble.
You can’t tell me anything about racialism.
Where I lived in Camden Town, my neighbours were Italian, Welsh, Greek and English. I was
in the local ‘gang’ but if there was a dispute it was me that copped it. If
there was a fight, it was always me who was the recipient. But eventually, I think they
just got fed up with fighting because we all started to get on. But I still used to get a
bit of aggro from other gangs who used to shout "…you black *******" at me.
But as I got older I started to realise that it was just ignorance. The same people used
to call the Italians ‘Wops’ or the Jewish kids ‘Yids’. But the big
difference was that as a young black kid, they could spot me straight away. I think it is
a mental problem. I have had it in the cab with passengers when they sarcastically call
out something like: "Don’t you speak English well for one of your lot?" I
usually say that we all speak like this in North London or occasionally I’ll say with
a hint of
