Friends
I have deliberated at length before before committing myself
in print but this Christmas story (with a difference) has to
be told. Don't delete, this has strong Triumph connections
of a racing nature (even though it occurred in a Standard
10) and young Richardson was a key player. In fact almost
the only player because I had absolutely nothing to do with
any of it.
In those days, this debonair youth who had most of London's
'snicket' swooning at his feet, was the proud owner of a
Standard Ten saloon with a tuned (sort of) Spitfire engine,
overdrive, four well-worn Dunlop cross plies and four furry
dice in the back window.
Now, those of you who may have made a study of London taxis
may have noticed that all of them are diesels. Part of the
specification laid down by the London Carriage Office is to
the effect that being public service vehicles, an emergency
fuel shut off tap had to be located in an 'accessible place'
so that a policeman could instantly turn it off in the event
of an accident. Naturally, to be accessible to said Plod,
the tap was mounted on the trailing edge of the left hand
front wing just forward of the door and about halfway up (or
down) the wing.
One freezing Saturday, Richardson and I had been on a
'snicket' tour of inspection, ably assisted by fellow FOTer
Chris Holbrook who was having a lot of trouble with his pipe
as I remember. PR and I were returning in the Standard 10
down a street near to Sherlock Holmes' residence in Baker
Street and Holbrook was hard on our heels in his Vitesse,
trying desperately hard to keep an old trilby hat in place
and his swing axle from folding under him. Richardson was
fully employing all the available 45 odd horses (and the
overdrive) and IMHO making both excessive and totally
unreasonable demands on the drum braking system - but that's
another story. As misfortune would have things, he tried to
carve up a London taxi - and lost. We came parallel with the
taxi at Oxford Street and stopped at the lights. As we
waited, Richardson was casually resting his jaw in a cupped
hand, his elbow propped on the driver's door window and I
noticed he casually let his hand fall out of the window just
as the light went yellow before going green. I thought this
gesture was to drop his cigarette butt and I turned in my
seat expecting to see Holbrook leap out of the Vitesse and
retrieve the smouldering remains to conceal in the tin he
always carried in his pocket to make his own roll-ups from
discarded dog-ends. Believe me, in those days, times were
hard for Holbrook. He couldn't afford cigarettes AND gas for
the Vitesse. In fact, he was the only man I ever saw who
resoled his shoes by peeling off the backing paper of
stick-on soles in Woolworths and slap them in place while
leaning on the counter. I digress. Anyway, as I turned in my
seat to view the spectacle of Holbrook 'filling his baccy
tin,' there was an audible 'click' from somewhere outside
and the Standard 10 moved off with even more alacrity than I
thought it was capable of.
Looking in his rear view mirror, as we flew towards the US
Embassy in Grosvenor Square, Richardson cheered. The taxi
had come to a halt in the middle of the box junction with no
fuel going to the engine. The only way out of such a
predicament was to raise the bonnet and bleed the system.
Not the easiest task anywhere - especially in Oxford Street
at the height of the rush hour and at Christmas too. The
downside on this occasion was that the infuriated taxi
driver thought Holbrook was the culprit. It wasn't a pretty
sight and in view of the fact that Chris is such a recent
recruit to the list, I'll spare the gory details of what
happened to him - but he was in traction in hospital for
quite a long time and his hair went white overnight. His
charming wife once told me this is what later attracted her
to him - but I never had the guts to tell her the real
reason.
So the moral of the story is that if you've got a London
taxi awaiting restoration, don't let Richardson near it even
if he isn't driving a Standard 10. Keep him on the right
hand side at all times and make sure Chris Holbrook isn't
far away so that he can carry all the blame when things go
wrong. I do hope this little anecdote hasn't caused my two
contemporaries any undue embarrasment - but it was 35 years
ago - and I expect they've forgotten about the incident.
I haven't!
John Macartney
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