 So you started the knowledge, and then you had some appearances at 28 days and then you got the points that you needed to bring it down to like every 14 days. Yes, and you usually had two appearances of that and what they did, once you passed that they could have you wrecked, but then you do the suburbs. Afterwards? Yes. A couple of appearances, I can't think of it, I hated it because it was a candid town going to Barnets or something like that. Yeah, and you'd have to know what the street name was in. Well, roughly, there was a lot of big names, like Marble Arch of Edgeway, Edgeway Road and about two other words, and that was it, you were there. I used to call them rhubarb, did I imagine that? No, they called Hampstead Garden suburb, Hampstead Garden suburb, I used to call them rhubarb. And then what happened, was there one appearance where you knew it was the last one, or did they just suddenly turn around and say you've done it? Yes. So you knew there'd be like one more? No, you knew you'd done it all. And if you blew that one, you knew there'd be another one. You'd come back in a fortnight's time. God, and then what happens? Do they just give you like a piece of paper then? I think they, you've had to pay half a crown for your badge or something, pay for the postage for them to send it to you. And that's when you get the green badge? Yes. Now, I lost her then. My first one was one, two, eight, five, seven, that's the one they gave me. You still remember it? It was just such an ordeal we could go through. You see fellas, when you first went up there, they got nice suits on nice polished shoes. But after 18 months, your suit was all polished at the elbow as you could see your shoes worn down and the fridge was got no money. So you had to dress up for the appearance? Oh yeah, I still do. Oh really? Yeah. If you lost her, you had to go to the police station to fill out a form. Yeah. And they gave you another sort of dodgy form just in case you got stuck by the police. Yeah. So once you got your green badge, how does the taxi work? Back then, did you have to buy it or rent it? No. It was called on the flat and you had it for a week. I can't remember how much, maybe about £13 for the week. And you put your own diesel in. Or you could have it on what they call on the clock, on those metres that you do a percentage. You know, you give the owner 70%, no 60%, you kept 40% and all your tips. But usually the cab went on the end of the day or end of the night when you finished. Either you call half on the flat, you could share it with somebody. But more or less everybody went on the full flat while they called it that, I don't know. But you could keep it, use it for your own use as well, which was quite handy. Yeah. And where was that? Was it in town somewhere? Yeah, it was off of Westland Lane. Oh really? It carries there. Yeah. It's two houses now. Yeah. It's a luxury plug, isn't it? Yeah. But back then it was mechanical metres. Yeah. And when they put fares up, they'd have to, you'd have to drive in, wouldn't you? They'd have to physically... They'd have a new metre. And sometimes I'd have to wait for the cab to go overhaul because they just couldn't alter all these mechanical metres at once. I remember there used to be a thing in the back that explained the fares. But there was another thing for when the fares went up that would convert what's on the metre with the new... Oh, you should call them bingo cards. And it caused more ructions and everything. Because you've got to explain that the fare on the metre isn't... There's a big place here. And the more intelligent the people, the less ones they could work with, the ones who couldn't work it out. Yeah. Oh, funny. And yeah, that was the other thing that I remembered. The overalls, they sounded just as stressful as the knowledge, because every year it's not like an MOT, it's like a proper... They go through everything. Yeah, they go to have it stained first. And then just everything needed doing. Because they could failure on silly stuff? Yeah. The cigarette thing was full up. Another thing I used to get in the... I'm used to having to get the stain I used to get in. Because it meant, you know, if your cab had failed, it'd mean another couple of days off for work. Sometimes it's a good thing, sometimes it's a bad thing. Yeah. I thought it was a good thing because it's a bit like your body. Sometimes it's not slightly right. You let it go, it gets worse and worse. I remember you had the hubcaps. You had a hubcap syndicate. We'd all had. You and three mates, each owned a brand new hubcap. Yes. So when one of you went for overhaul... Yeah. We had, yeah, we put all the new hubcaps on, so it looked nice. One guy at the end of the street, taxically, he had bumpers. Overhaul bumpers. Bumpers off the taxi and put these new ones. I'm taking out when it came back, put the old bumpers back on again. Yeah, yeah. So you were on the flat for a bit, which is like renting a taxi. And then what stage could you buy one? Well, it was when it got the money. Mine was about nine months. The things they had on the flat in those days were just clapped out. It was horrible to drive. And, you know, if you take it in the garage and get it back for a service, the wheel, the steering wheel would be greasy. The driver's seat used to be greasy, but with your own one, you know, you take a bit of pride in it. What did that feel when you got your first cabling? Petrified, again, because you just laid out £1,250. And you're driving around. After a week, it was whizzing around like anything. Where did you get them from? That was the, like, one place? Yes, off the Wandsworth Bridge Road. There's a garage there. The only place you could get them. Yeah. I had a manual to start with, and the gearbox was so hard. You needed to sort of have a diver's boot on to change gear. I'm getting in gear. Of course, they had the monopoly. They couldn't gear less. Was that Lou 52P? No. It was AGP 343G. What model was it? Yeah, FX4. And then when you passed, how did the radio circuits work? Could you drive a cab without being on a circuit? Oh, yeah, when I first started. Yeah, that was self-indulgence. I didn't know if you wanted to be, but I wanted to be on the radio because people, you know, the mini-cams were coming in and they wanted to pick you up your door. They didn't want to stand in the street in the rain and all women complained about their hair. And you had, so you had four radio circuits in London. So it was lords. No, it was two. Oh, it was a two? To start with. Yeah. When I was there, it was just two people that had a rail with each other at one circuit. No, it was just one radio circuit. Yeah. Which has started at Leavis, you know, that big garage at the end of York Way. It was started there. Which end of York Way? As you're just coming from, you know, Houston Road on the right, there's a big place there. I mean, I used to call it, it's called dieseling up every two nights, you know, fill up with diesel. I remember, it's like a courtyard. So it's now all shops and coffee shops now. But it used to be like this mues, cobbled mues, that you go in to get your dove, your diesel. And you give the fella and filled it up a couple of bottles and he checked your water and your battery. But they had a radio circuit there, you know, radio. Yeah, because he had some premises there where he went downstairs. And I think this fella, Leavis, went to America and seen it and tried to start it up. It's there. But then someone else, I can't remember the names of the fellas, took it over and moved it up Bentonville Road and started it there. So then, and was that going before you became a driver? You know, there was already a radio circuit. Yeah. And then, so then they split. Yes. But before your time. Yeah. And one was called Mount View. It was called Lords. Yes. That's because that was the phone number. Right. That's the name of the exchange in London. Right. So where was Mount View based? Right at the top of Highgate Hill in one of those flats there. Okay. And Lords was in... Bentonville Road. Bentonville Road. So when you phone up for a cab, you either phone that number or your number, Lords. And then... So then, when did you join Lords?