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Copyrights reserved by the author. If in doubt, please click on 'Copyrights' for details. The Insulated Conductor By Ed Bruce © 2001
Back on my own manor, I sometimes have a word with myself about it, and cringe. I mean, it wasn't exactly emigrating, just a temporary change of scene: a short shufti at how the other half earns a crust, that's all. I have to tell you, there's some really weird people out there! I used to do a scam down Pettycoat Lane, nothing leery. You know! The bloke who shouts things like: "Not thirty quid, not twenty-five, not even twenty----" that old Jackson Pollocks. I sold 'iffy' gear from the back of a van, with the engine running, before I found an up-market patch off Oxford Street. Don't get me wrong, I'm not holding my hands up and saying it's a mug's game, that I've joined the Jehovah's, or any such pony and trap, I'm just saying. You know how the media rabbit on, about the Old Bill being bent? Do me a favour! Take corruption out of 'the filth' and you might as well make London a no-go area. It's about knowing the enemy, being one move ahead; trust me! That's how I cottoned-on to gorgeous Gina's nifty little earner. The law was having a laugh, giving me a hard time. They were doing a purge, on enterprising street-sellers like me. All those clueless but unbribable, smart-arse Hendon Police College graduates, cleaning up the West End, in time for their vegetarian lunch. It was doing my head in. Feeling the heat, I went to ground by joining London Transport; just by way of keeping my nose clean for a while, you understand. Now, if you think churning out phony designer tat, in a Whitechapel sweatshop, might be boring, then try driving a London bus. You start on the old Routemasters, where someone else collects the fares, then graduate to the newer Titans and such, that are one-person-operated. I didn't quite make it as a driver. I have this thing about roads you see; I get hypnotised by the boring yellow lines along the kerb and don't notice obvious landmarks like bus stops and queues of punters. The low-bridge incident all but finished me but you have to hand it to LT; they know how to suss a worker's hidden talents. They let me be a conductor for a while, issuing tickets, handling money even. It was the old Gibson ticket machine then, where you cranked a handle and a paper voucher came out. Pretty basic stuff, but tealeaf proof - well just about. I had one or two little fiddles going too, selling dodgy gear in the rest room, that kinda thing, but they ran a pretty tight ship. Fair play to them, management marked my card and made me up to Revenue Inspector. It goes without saying, I was good at it, I just had to use lateral thinking, my speciality you might say. I just amazes me how thick those fare-dodgers are. I even caught a thirteen-year-old school kid with a staff pass, can you Adam and Eve it? You can't blame the conductors or the drivers. I mean checking an ID photo, even just to make sure the person is the same sex, or colour, as the one on the card, isn't Open University and might make a dull day interesting. Then again, you have to think that such devotion to duty can lead to a punch-up, and being a hero is little consolation, as you count your remaining teeth! As with the coppers' blitz on West End petty crime, I became a marked man, but the irony escaped me then. I wasn't going soft, just getting carried away with the challenge. In a matter of months, I produced so many reports that the paperwork jammed the system. Sure I worked in plain clothes, but on the city's bus routes I was as notorious as the Cray brothers. When they saw me boarding, crowds of passengers would disembark at the next stop. Now, don't get me wrong, I'm no boss's man and I have nothing against unions. I realise they're the only resort a worker has against management taking the piss but in those days they were so strong, that if the union said "jump," management would ask "high, long or bungee?" I was rocking the boat, simple as that, but who was getting their knickers in a twist? Probably the Garage admin staff, who filed all my reports or maybe my Revenue mates, who didn't have my flare for ferreting out fraud. Who knows? Anyway, when the shop steward, who had the build of a bus breakdown-wagon, leaned on me, I knew it was time to have it away, on my toes, from that billet. While the guvnors argued about my next placement, they gave me a cushy number in personnel, as Invigilator, supervising entrance exams for conductors. Believe me, if you can't answer the questions in those tests, even in half the allotted time, well, you shouldn't be allowed out, even in daylight. You'd have to be a right tosser. That's where I met the lovely Laura. |