We are #teamTIGHTWAD, and this day we found joy spending on...
- Park and Ride parking fee.
- Free ticket to historic dockyard.
There’s two words that spark joy in kids.
- 2x portions of chips and a sausage.
- 1x Lost coat at historic dockyard, we think in Boathouse Number 4.
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- Amazon ebook: Your One Word. The Powerful Secret to Creating a Business and Life That Matter by Evan Carmichael.
It's a really great book, but I can't work out what my one word is.
TightwadDad? teamTIGHTWAD? familyJOY?
What's that?
Are you sure it's just two minutes
Yes - it’s 2 minutes... three minutes...
Okay
So I made this especially for you
okay yeah
Okay so, here we go.
Wow that’s loud.
[LOUD MUSIC] Hello, I'm Neil Mossey I'm from #TightwadDad.
This is gonna be a weird video.
I've come to London today.
I'm shooting this on my phone, I don't even know if it's in focus--
I CAN’T SEE YOUR EYES. THEY’RE LIKE BLACK HOLES.
- so my family gets to see what I do.
YOUR EYES! I CAN’T SEE YOUR EYES.
I LIKE HOW YOU MAKE SOME COPIES OF LONDON.
YEAH, I LIKE HOW YOU’VE PUT BUBBLE WRITING ON “LONDON”.
--the amount of JOY it brought me? Probably 9. Cuz look it brought me here.
[LOUD MUSIC]
£23 QUID! TO GO HERE.
-- my toe is still bust, let's have a look.
UGH! HAVE YOU EXPLAINED TO YOUTUBE WHY? HOW THAT (HAPPENED)?
ARE YOU GONNA BE EMBARRASSED? WHEN YOU SAY, YEAH THIS IS EMBARRASSING.
But where I'm going next is somewhere very special.
[LOUD MUSIC]
AWWWWW!
I HATE YOU! DAD I HATE YOU! YOU GOT A MCDONALDS! IN FRONT OF MY FACE!
--the JOY was about 5.
WAIT, HOW DID HE KNOW THAT I WOULD BE JEALOUS?
WELL HE KNEW YOU WERE GOING TO WATCH IT, IF YOU WERE.
[LOUD MUSIC] So I'm going to a quiet area now, I don't know if I'm going to be able to film. I'll maybe sneak a shot.
"Doors opening" [SILENCE - PEN SCRATCHING]
[LOUD MUSIC] THAT’S TEN.
Okay so that was free because I've already paid and the JOY is about 10 - that was really nice. Now I'm gonna cross the river again... one more time. I've got to be in Tottenham Court Road by 3:00 for a meeting. [LOUD MUSIC]
I DON’T LIKE THAT YOU’VE DONE LONDON TWICE.
WHY DID?
BECAUSE PEOPLE WILL GET THE IDEA THAT IT’S THERE.
DAD, WHY DO PEOPLE SPRAY STUFF ON THE WALLS?
IT’S ART.
IT’S ART, STELLA.
WELL IT’S STILL BAD.
IT’S ART.
OH, OLLIE WOULD LOVE THAT, IF HE SEES THAT.
The JOY there was 10. I've got 5 minutes to spare so I timed that really well.
[QUIET TAXI STREET SOUNDS] LOOK AT ALL THOSE TAXIS.
WOW. NOT ONE OF THEM ISN’T A TAXI.
So the meeting went well, it's now half four.
YEAH THAT’S ACTUALLY QUITE TRUE.
There's a taxi protest here. It's really eerie, it's so quiet! Now I'm going over to finish my evening.
[LOUD MUSIC]
YOU DID IT AGAIN! WHY DO YOU KEEP DOING THAT?!
IT LOOKS COOL!
NO IT DOESN’T.
So I'm here with my friend Rob. We're gonna have food! [LOUD MUSIC]
FOOD.
AWWWWWW.
[LOUD MUSIC] So the cost was high, but the JOY was 11. It was gorgeous. But, if we take the total and add all the JOY up. Divide the JOY so I get an average JOY - the figure comes out at THIS.
NINE. £42 AND 79P. AVERAGE?
“NOT LONDON”
WHAT DOES AVERAGE MEAN?
THAT’S FUNNY
[LOUD MUSIC] Please help my Daddy get 1000 subscribers
THAT’S YOU.
-- just click on his face, thanks bye.
What do you think
I love it
I didn't like that and you showed your foot because that's part of your life not really to do with what you--
And the other thing I didn't like is you eating a burger in front of my face
I liked how you how you went to the bridge and when it said the “London” it shows the whole of London
I liked that you you filmed that video it's really short, and it went through the whole day
So that was 4 minutes because we watched two.
I’m out!
Dad can I watch “where baby powder goes?”
Can you please help my daddy get 1000 subscribers just click on his face thanks bye!
I can’t even remember what episode this is now...
Six.
It’s six, already?!
It’s six.
We’ve done six of these?
Welcome to the TightwadDad Podcast with me Neil, hello.
And Joe hello.
Welcome to the Happy Hut thanks for clicking on this.
It’s the podcast where we talk about me being a Tightwad Dad.
Yes.
And you living in a TightwadDad family.
A half tightwad mum.
I guess you’re a tightwad son?
Well no, you’re not a tightwad.
Oh dear.
[laughs] You want to start that as your catchphrase?
Oh dear!
So the question is... how can we get more money into the house. How can we get more money for the family.
Get a job where you can earn about 40 pounds and day, because we could just go like spend less than 40 pounds a day we'll have so much to spare.
What could I do?
Well have you heard of The Simpsons? Homer goes to this nuclear plant and he earns $40 a day.
Does he?! Okay, so I could work in a nuclear plant.
How are you gonna get to one? Where is one?
Well there isn’t one for a long way from here.
Oh dear.
[laughs]
“Oh dear” works. My idea for getting more money is to somehow get you and Stella to work, or earn money.
How?
I don’t know. I thought you could be a voiceover, or Stella could be a voiceover.
Stella could sing. Be paid to sing songs.
Yeah.
She can do loads of songs. Sing that, and she’ll look it up and then sing it.
You did an “Oh dear”? [laughs]
This is the only episode six...
If you’ve got this far into the episode, can you leave us a comment that just says “Oh dear”?
That’ll be funny.
If you have any ideas for how or where we could earn £40 a day, leave us a comment that would be really helpful.
Yes that’d be extremely helpful.
And thanks for watching...
That would be life-changing helpfulness.
Bye!
Bye!
[SINGS] Can you please help my daddy... Get 1000 subscribers! Just click on his face. Thanks. Bye.” How’s that?
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I wasn't ready by the way for this one.
Now I'm ready.
Okay this is Tightwad Dad podcast number 5 - thanks for clicking on this I'm Neil hello.
Welcome to the happy hut I'm Joe.
I think we're getting better at this... yeah we're getting better - it is already episode 5
So we're freezing in the Happy Hut still
I'm warm.
Today's question what should we be spending MORE money on in the family?
What do we need most?
Other than food.
Yeah what could we spend more on, more money on
What do you think we need most?
I don't know what we need most, cuz we got heat lights food erm-
DRINKS! yeah?
What you think we should spend more on drinks
Oh I like drinks
I like drinks too but we keep saying we should just drink water
Hey what happened to that Coke Zero because Mum had like 16 of them and now they're like none left
She's hidden them in a really good place
I think I've found them
Well you always find our hiding places wherever we put anything you usually crack it within about two days.
Where do you think they are?
I think they are either in the cupboard in your big cupboard in your room.
No they're not there
You gave me a clue.
You always make me crack you'll find them
That's one step...
Where else? Where else do you think the coke Zeros are hidden.
CLICK - The dresser.
You've done it.
You gave it away.
I'm gonna have a coke now
We don't spend any money on drinks do we that was really unusual that we got those cokes.
No, that's so untrue - you spend money on our water bills
Right, yeah, the water in the tap that we drink.
And apple juice
Yeah I drink a lot of that
Grape juice
That's for treats.
The fizzy water
The fizzy water is the economy 17p a bottle
17?
Yeah I buy 17p per bottle.
17P? are you kidding me For a big bottle of two litres
Yeah fizzy water
I did not know that.
Why, are you surprised by that?
That's really good
That's why we do it!
If you're American you wouldn't know what was talking about unless you actually know about pounds.
I feel like quite a few American people are watching us.
What because it's on YouTube - well no you wanted to do this just as a sound only podcast
No I like so I like it
Oh that's good.
Because you said could we make a podcast like the ones that I listen to in the bath where they have swearing on
oh yeah
But we're not gonna swear
That was really funny when he said "f-word Muppet" that was really funny
I think it's a James Altucher show.
Okay anyway if you got this far is the video thanks for watching if you have any questions or any ideas for what we could spend more money on or less money on put in the comments.
Why not hit subscribe button - really appreciate it - even though we said it on every episode
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(UK) (US)
[LOUD MUSIC] Hello, I'm Neil Mossey I'm from #TightwadDad.
This is gonna be a weird video.
I've come to London today.
I'm shooting this on my phone, I don't even know if it's in focus.
I'm going to log what I'm spending today - so my family gets to see what I do.
[LOUD MUSIC] So the first thing I spent on, was this.
My train ticket.
£23.30.
I guess I can put that up on the screen, the amount of JOY it brought me?
Probably 9.
Cuz look it brought me here.
[LOUD MUSIC] It's a bleak day in London, my toe is still bust, let's have a look.
I'm just hobbling around town with this.
I've borrowed a sock from my Long-Suffering Wife.
The outer sock is fluffy - white stripey one.
But where I'm going next is somewhere very special.
[LOUD MUSIC] Yep it's one of these - they've got some kind of computer problem, so the restaurant's nice and empty.
I know my son will be really jealous but honestly, the JOY was about 5.
Gonna find somewhere else to sit now, for one hour.
[LOUD MUSIC] So I'm going to a quiet area now, I don't
know if I'm going to be able to film.
I'll maybe sneak a shot.
"Doors opening" [SILENCE - PEN SCRATCHING]
[LOUD MUSIC] Okay so that was free because I've already paid and the JOY is about 10 - that was really nice.
Now I'm gonna cross the river again... one more time.
I've got to be in Tottenham Court Road by 3:00 for a meeting.
[LOUD MUSIC] Time for a bus now because I can't walk up there.
I don't know how much this is gonna cost.
[LOUD MUSIC] So there it goes.
TEN.
The JOY there was 10.
I've got 5 minutes to spare so I timed that really well.
[QUIET TAXI STREET SOUNDS] So the meeting went well, it's now half four.
There's a taxi protest here.
It's really eerie, it's so quiet!
Now I'm going over to finish my evening.
[LOUD MUSIC] So I'm here with my friend Rob.
We're gonna have food!
[LOUD MUSIC] So the cost was high, but the JOY was 11.
It was gorgeous.
But, if we take the total and add all the JOY up.
Divide the JOY so I get an average JOY - the figure comes out at THIS.
£42.79 JOY 9.
I'm trying.
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We are #teamTIGHTWAD, and this day we found joy spending on...
- Swimming lesson.
- Tap dancing lessons for the month.
- Choi Kwang Do martial arts belt grading fee x2 to enter for Gold Belt Senior.
- Ebay: Toy yellow bus for my nephew (He's obsessed with buses, like I was at his age. So I like encouraging this.)
Red red red red red red red.
So welcome to episode 4 of the TightwadDad Podcast with me, Neil, and Joe.
And we're here in the happy hut and it's freezing, isn't it!
Yeah, it's cold.
It's pretty cold, you've got a cold.
I don't like this red I'm surrounded in it.
You don't like the colour red?
They might think that I love the colour red just because my headphones are red.
The covers are red here, and the sofas are red. I think blue’s my favorite colour.
Which is what you're wearing.
Yes I think it cheers up the Happy Hut, so I'm sorry if--
I think of it as blood and death.
I've got a question, but I've left it on the computer so I'm gonna have to - do you wanna just talk while...
In episode 3, “Earning money on YouTube how to” - so you could try and get a thousand subscribers - that's what Dad says.
Yeah we're on 320 at the moment, so we've got another 680 - we've got to do that 2 more times to get close to a 1000.
I remember, the question I should've asked last time I got it wrong
“What should we be spending less money on?”
Food.
Food?
We do spend a lot of money on food.
I think we should buy stuff that would last longer for cheaper.
Do you think we should eat less?
Wouldn't you be really hungry?
We would, we would.
I'm one very hungry child.
And I'm one hungry dad as well so that's the problem, but we should spend less money in the supermarket.
And buy more stuff for less money.
No. It'd be like buy as least as possible for at least amount of money so find a better
bread. You use a lot of bread.
I do.
You do.
Okay, so if we had less bread and spend the money on other stuff?
Dad?
And then we can eat the same--
I just wondered this. You’re kind of obsessed with yellow.
Your hut is kind of yellow--
It is.
Your paper that you write on is yellow.
It is.
And then your bread is yellow.
I do like yellow.
But I thought you love blue as well.
Do you know what, the one I like the most is pinkl
I got pink phone. I've got pink trainers
Oh yeah! (Sniggers) Pink phone.
And I dyed my Choi Kwang Do dobok, I've put it in the washed with the red jacket and it came out pink.
[laughs]
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Okay it's episode 3 of tightwad dad podcast.
With me Neil and Joe.
So hi thanks for joining us - Joe you were just saying these podcasts are very short.
Yes.
But Mummy read that micro-podcasts are gonna be the thing, so maybe this is a good thing.
Yeah.
And I did want to mention - you didn't want to talk about it.
Sorry, I've got your headphone lead wrapped round.
I've got a cold.
You've got a cold, so that's why you sound a bit...
Runny.
I can't remember what my next question was.
Do you want to blow your nose while I look up the next question?
Oh yeah, I know the question: do you think I spend too much money?
I think you spend a decent amount money Just the right amount?
Yeah not too much not too less.
If I feel like we haven't got enough money, it's either because I'm not earning enough. Or because we're spending too much.
Or maybe you should not spend anything and be proud of what you've already got
That's a good idea.
Cos some people don't have anything.
That's a really really good idea.
Oh the making money thing in Episode two I whispered:
“Looking under the... and another way I know this would look weird but I have earned about £50 by doing this altogether, by looking under vending machines or coin machines....
Anything that would involve coins which have a gap underneath they are coins like Coinstars, look under claw machines - especially in arcades you get quite a bit.
Don't you remember?
No!
Ugh, bad memory.
It's cause I'm getting old.
What I thought you were gonna say...
You're not old...
...was looking under sofa cushions.
Oh yeah, in the cracks because when like heavy people sit down if they've got a lot of change in their pocket it would just fall out into the cracks.
I found - remember in that Southsea place I found like £2.50 in different couches or
sofas.
So that's the end of - is this episode 3?
Yes
Thanks for watching.
Can't remember...
You've got a bad memory...
If you've got this far into the video we'd love it if you gave us a thumbs up - if you
got this far.
And make sure you subscribe because I think it would be nice.
It'd really help us.
Because when we hit 1000 subscribers, we start getting money from YouTube.
Hey, that could be our next podcast.
What, how to get money from YouTube?
Yeah.
Okay.
Make thousand gaming channels... I think I've said too much
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My broken toe is getting me down.
I never feel like I'm pulling in enough money for my family, and I'm also injured.
Hobbling round the town, not providing.
I have completely emasculated myself.
So this is where the fight begins.
This is where we push back, against our dependency on money for happiness.
This is the start of FAMILIES AGAINST MONEY.
Who's with me?
First, I've got to start thinking of others.
I'll make an unboxing video for waterproof shoes for people with broken toes.
To help them be happy with spending their money.
That might get me some followers to join me on this long long journey (of one month, sharing what we're spending).
And then... then I'll work out what the next aim is.
I am a Tightwad Dad, and I’m scared I will be judged for sharing this, but this day we spent:
- £6.05 in the local German supermarket chain for a loaf of bread.
(Ended up with ham, calamari and Frankfurters too while bored waiting for...)
- £152.06 proper supermarket delivery.
- £7.49 Kindle book.
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(Can't Hurt Me by David Goggins. Heard him on James Altucher podcast.)
+ £25 Premium Bonds win (me).
+ £25 Premium Bonds win (Long-Suffering Wife).
- £1 Tooth Fairy.
I think we could've done better.
Well we'll do better... this'll be a better podcast, okay...
Hello welcome to the Tightwad Dad podcast, episode 2, I'm Neil.
This is my son.
Hello.
See I don't know if I should even mention your name.
But I might as well because I know that it's gonna come out.
Because everyone's gonna think who's that...
Yeah.
There'll be like loads of comments saying who's him.
So do you want to introduce yourself? yes hi I'm Joe and I'm Neil's son.
Right so this is the Tightwad Dad podcast, in episode 1 I explained what a tightwad is.
And you think I am a tightwad - you'd say I am a tightwad.
So thank you that's good Good.
So my question is do you think I talk too much about our money
yeah you want more because you know you think you're not earning enough, you'll get better job
Can you think of more ways I can earn money?
Or that we can earn money, as a family!
well you know that system - the 50p system
if we did that Do you want to explain that?
We're on holiday and we got these special 50-pieces and we thought like we should collect these from the bank so we go to the bank get some and then would sell the doubles on eBay and if we did that enough a year we'll probably get two hundred pounds a year living it
- that isn't gonna happen sorry No, sorry, I interrupted you.
So the idea is we could take - it's not just any 50ps, it's the ones that look nice.
yeah like Paddington, Peter Rabbit, Johnson's dictionary
And then you can sell them on ebay for more than 50p.
yeah so that's like one pound fifty which is like three times the amount that it cost in the first place yeah it's supposed to cost but it's special that's got different picture on should we try that idea first - selling the 50ps yeah and you know third episode we should talk about - I'm not gonna say now but we should talk about you know - the looking under
- yeah no - yeah that one.
Oh, that's a tease.
Alright so you want to do that on the next podcast?
Yes.
Okay I'm glad we had this chat.
yeah over a lot of people yeah
Like if they listen to it a lot.
Yeah, what, so how should we end the podcast we should say if you've got this far why not subscribe and leave a like
Oh that's a nice idea.
And please leave a comment if you wanted to know more or what we should do next
Yeah, if you have any questions, or ideas that we could try to make more money.
Or we could just make stuff about what other people would want us to talk about
So thanks for watching, and we'll be back on the next episode of Tightwad Dad.
Bye!
Can you please help my daddy get 1000 subscribers just click on his face thanks bye
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How to self-publish an ebook on Amazon (or even a paperback too)
Waiting to be chosen by a gatekeeper is painful.
And being chosen by a gatekeeper only lasts as long as the gatekeeper chooses.
At the end of last year, as another experiment, I wrote some comedy routines and self-published them as a book.
Turns out it’s about as easy as publishing a podcast or youtube video.
Which means it’s very not easy in parts and comes with annoying fiddly niggles.
But it can be done without killing you.
Amazon have set up a system to publish anything as an e-book, direct from a formatted Word document.
If you go to kdp.amazon.com
and login with your regular Amazon password, there’s a dashboard for publishing books.
The hardest part for me was going through the US tax regulation menus for the payment account - but you don’t need to set this up until you’re ready to hit “publish”... and I seemed to survive it.
KDP (Kindle Direct Publishing) has Word templates for download, and also a Word plug-in, to create documents from scratch.
I use a little of both of these to create a Word document that looked like the book I would want to read.
Then, it was as easy as pasting in my manuscript, one chapter at a time to not screw-up the formatting.
I completed it with text-only pastes from my draft: sometimes one paragraph at a time to get the page breaks and indentations how I wanted them to be laid out.
On the kdp dashboard, you can create your new book:
Think up a title and subtitle, description, categories and key words.
Once you’ve uploaded the Word document, there’s a built in cover-creator where you can upload pictures. The Cover Creator is clunky, stiff and mostly ugly, but easier than uploading a self-designed PDF cover.
You then set the price of the ebook.
There are different percentages and royalties, but basically you get money for every book sold, and royalties for any pages read on their Kindle unlimited schemes.
The minimum price is based on their cut, printing and postage costs, and you can affect this by number of pages, type of paper and colour options.
It seems if you already have a story, or material on video or audio, it would be “easy” to paste that into as many books as you like.
I did this for an oral history I made with my Dad, who had just retired as a London Taxi Driver. The material already existed as a series of videos I’d shot with him.
YouTube had auto-transcribed them for me. So all the “writing” involved was formatting and cleaning up typos and unclear sections.
The book is here: https://amzn.to/2PL4c5R
The next clever thing is that you can then convert that e-book into a printed-on-demand physical paperback book, which can be put on sale all over the World.
After publishing my first book - I found it much easier to format the e-book in the way I wanted the paperback to look, so I have only one Word document to amend and correct. But you can keep separate Word documents if you prefer.
This is how I published my book of comedy routines - as a writing sample. https://amzn.to/2wPJau8
Here’s a PDF so you can see how it looks.
https://tinyurl.com/WATPfreebookPDF
All just created from regular old Word.
There’s one more benefit I love.
The text is completely changeable.
You just upload a new Word document (which I love that they grandly call my “manuscript”).
It doesn’t have to be perfect first time.
I try and make it perfect, but changes always appear and can be easily fixed before the next book is printed or downloaded.
There are some more kicks for me with this:
- My Dad’s story is out there. Forever. It was only for my family, but other Taxi Drivers have bought it and thanked me for it. (Which I'd never set out to do).
- I am now automatically listed on Google as an author.
I never wanted that as a label, but it’s really cool that these pop up with my name now.
- You choose however much money you want, because you set the price of the book.
There are, obviously, loads of other places you can self-publish with different distribution models (I like the look of blurb.com too).
Anyway, putting this out there in case it helps.
Is this something you think you could do? What would you publish?
Leave me a comment if I can help with any answers.
"I’ve heard the old stories about the Eccentric Heir from some of the old timers...he used to insist that the Taxi wait at the Station; he’d be gone for days and would mark the tyres with chalk to make sure it didn’t move til he came back.
Drivers would change over the Cab and go home on the bus or train and leave the meter running!"
Plus - this is the first I'd heard of Johnny Onions in Camden Town.
(feel free to turn the speed up and whack the subtitles on...)
Ian talks about working on a London taxi radio circuit in the 1960s, account work,
1:00 Eccentric customers (including the heir to the Huntley & Palmers biscuit fortune,
3:30 the doctor who'd go to the Phene Arms pub every day of the year)
5:55 In Camden: The Good Mixer, Johnny Onions, Arlington House,
8:10 Ian's first ever fare, which you never charge for
9:00 The benefits of taxi ranks
And then account work came in, so that someone could book through the circuit. And then what, you'd get a statement at the end of the month? Back then?
Yeah. When you do a job, say Agar Grove to Euston, it was on a bit of paper. At the end of the evening, you blew in what was on the meter. We had so much work, I mean you could fill this room with the bits of paper. Of course they'd get lost and misplaced.
What and you'd take these bits of paper into the office?
No you had a book, where you'd put every job you did, and then say, once a fortnight, they'd pay up - you went to Maida Vale where the office was and they'd give you a cheque, for the work you'd done.
What were your favourite ones?
There was supposed to be - it was true, though I never did him - a Mister, I don't know if it was Mr Huntley or Mr Palmer - he was, you know going to this... he was connected to Huntley and Palmer Biscuits (yeah?) and they've just given him a few bob just to get him out of the way, because he was bit [loopy]. And there was this story that he goes into this hotel in Swiss Cottage, and they wouldn't give him a room. So he went back next day and he bought the hotel and gave all of the staff the sack! But I think that's a bit of a story.
But he used to book - take a taxi on a Friday night to go to Southend or... it was either from Charing Cross or Fenchurch Street, and you had to wait for him. And they used to change over - he used to come back, like Sunday night. But the driver would do 12 hours (waiting), and change over and another cab would do 12 hours, and another cab 12... And he used to pay it. You know you'd get paid because he had an A1 account with Coutts (Bank)!
Or he would go out jogging at 3 o'clock, no, 2 o'clock in the morning... then he would go down to Fleet Street there was an open - a cafe that was open all the time - Johnnies. And he'd used to fill a vacuum flask with mashed potato or something and eat it in the back of the cab. And then you'd take him back to the hotel.
And that was one of Huntley or Palmer?
Yes, I heard about it and it was true.
Where was Johnnies?
In Fleet Street. I used to eat there with me and my pals after the pub on a Friday night.
Because they worked at the print works? Was it those mates?
No, it was before that!
Were these other cab driver mates?
No, no, they were just fellas I knew from the pub.
I wonder what's at Johnnies now? It's probably a Tesco Express or something.
No, I think it's a McDonalds.
Oh I know it, yeah yeah.
It's just somewhere there. And we used to get a doctor - a retired doctor - who lived just over Battersea Bridge, and he used to go to the Phene Arms. Where (George) Best used to go. And he used to use it 364 days, yeah 364 days a year. And there was one day missing, it was Christmas Day and he didn't go then because the pub was shut.
And we used to call it "You-know-who-going-to-you-know-where".
What on the radio?
Yeah, because everybody knew it!
And who was it?
A retired doctor.
And what he'd just always get a cab...
Of a morning... what time would it be about... half one, and then you'd take him back at three o'clock. Then he used to go down at half seven, till closing time. And they used to do that every day of the week.
Oh my - Where did they pick him up from?
Oh I can't think of it. It was a road off of Prince Of Wales Drive.
Yeah, and he used to go to what the same pub - did you say as George Best?
Yes it was the Phene Arms, that's gone now I think... P-h-e-n-e I know where it is, I can't think of the name of the street just now. It was just over Chelsea Bridge, Battersea Bridge.
And as I say, they did it for so long that they said "You-know-who-going-to-you-know-where" and everybody knew him.
Oh and then we used to have a night dispatcher called Johnny, I can't think of his full name, erm... he used to live in another posh area, off of Cross Street, and we used to take him to Maida Vale. And he used to have a right gruff voice. And he was a little fella with a dodgy leg - and they used to say "go pick him up", "Yeah, what's he got? He's got a bowler hat... he's got an umbrella stuck on his right arm, and underneath the other arm he's got the Jewish Chronicle."
I remember you telling me that The Good Mixer (in Camden) was called The Good Mixer because... for a reason...
Yeah, there was a cement (mixer) - one of those things that made cement where you turned the wheel. And they'd come out, they did some renovations in the pub and they couldn't get this thing out! So they just left it in there!
In the basement?
Yes!
And then they called the pub, The Good Mixer?
Yeah!
When was that, can you remember?
About, this was 1966.
Oh right, because it's quite a famous pub now.
Yeah, if it's still there.
Oh, Johnny Onions.
Johnny Onions?
Yeah, that wasn't his second name, it was 'cuz it was where the cinema was, not - there used to be a Cinema in Chalk Farm Road - as you come over from Camden High Street - it might be Camden High Street - there used to be a cinema on the left, and the local fellas just used to - the stallholders - gave him a couple of sacks of onions to sell.
So Johnny Onions would just sell...
Onions! He lived in Arlington House, and he was quite happy there. I often used to drink with him and a few fellas from there and they were petrified of all these do-gooders from Camden Council wanting to give them flats. And they said, "you know, we're happy as we are... we don't have to worry about gas bills, electric bills, or anything like that. I wish they'd leave us alone!"
Because Arlington House was the house for down-and-outs wasn't it?
Yes.
They probably didn't call it that.
But they had sort of the posh bits where they had their own locker. And their own bed.
Right, and they were quite happy with that.
Yeah quite happy with it.
And can you remember when you passed your test, your taxi licence test, can you remember what your first job was?
Yes, 'cause the first job you don't charge them. Because it's supposed to be unlucky.
Oh okay, that's just like a tradition?
Yes. It was- I was on the Camden Town (cab) rank and I went to Elthorne Road.
Elthorne Road?
Yeah where Mum worked!
That was a coincidence?
Yes it is!
She worked actually in that street?
Yes.
That's weird.
Oh, just trying to think - we used to call ranks by the pubs.
Because often, another good way of calling work (over the radio), you used to call them to the nearest cab rank. So if you were on the cab rank, you automatically got the job.
Because it saved a lot of messing about and a lot of time.
What, if someone hails you at the rank, or phones?
No, they used to call the rank (over the radio). Like the George rank up in Hampstead, by the Royal Free.
What they'd have like a telephone there?
No, the fellas- you used to rank up there, and they'd say call (over the radio) the George rank to Kings Cross. And then you'd just blow in and say yeah I'm first, second or third.
And if you were a radio taxi on there you got the job.
Were there many ranks round London back then.
Yes. It just made the job easier as we got more busier and busier. Oh this is driving me nuts, the Camden Town (rank). You didn't call the Camden rank. There used to be a pub on the left hand side and its a phone shop now, well it changes every couple of months - oh I can't think of the name of it!
And what's this, this is a rank in Camden Town?
In the High Street. Where the toilets are. In the middle of the road there.
Yeah, I remember, what actually in Camden High Street?
That's it.
They're still there? It's still got a rank there?
Yes, it's got busier again. Not many people ranked up there, but now we're not so busy there's always about 3 or 4 taxis on there.
So if someone phoned in wanting to be picked up from Camden High Street, they'd just radio the rank?
No, what happens, say you wanted a cab, well to St. Paul's Crescent, they used to call like if there's a taxi on Camden Town rank and give it (the job) to them. And away you went. It was just a lot easier.
