Reflections from a London Rank
Herbert Hodge
(An electrical recording of the talk broadcast in the Regional programme on September 22)
From the two talks that Mr. Hodge has already given listeners have learnt much about his life. He passed the stiff and compulsory geographical examination set by the police in six months, though it takes some men two years. He has been driving a London taxi for nine years. He prefers driving by night, he says a taxi driver owes much of the freedom of his life to the police, and he is acquainted with the works of W. H. Davies. Mr. Hodge's passengers; the London coffee-stall, which he considers is Utopia come to life ; people going into fashionable night clubs with more money than they know what to do with, and the down-and-out without the price of a bit of bread and cheese-reflections on these and a hundred other things have revealed to listeners much of the speaker himself. In his last talk today he is to conclude his reflections from a London rank.