Notes & Queries response - Which professions offer the best pay for the least amount of effort?
 |
| image generated by Craiyon |
These outlying suburbs have been drawn into the sprawl of the capital. On paper at least, they are now part and parcel of London. Public opinion, particularly on the issue of where one neighbourhood ends and another begins, moves more slowly than urban development, advancing at a generational pace. To some, these far-flung locales will never be a part of London. They are simply too far away, in terms of time and distance, from the hustle and bustle of the West End. Speaking their names will often conjure bucolic rural imagery that belongs in the first half of the 20th century, if not the one before it.
Often these places occupy diversionary loops, or short branches, at the distant ends of one of the more far-reaching London Underground lines, where the trains emerge from their deep burrows and ply surface routes. They may be accessible via rail only intermittently; the services terminating a few stations short during off-peak hours or, more commonly, opting for stations along a busier section of the line. Unless family, friendships or business interests intervene, you will likely never visit the likes of Rontree, Turnpitt and North Hiles. They will remain evocative names on a map for your imagination to toy with during the morning or evening commute, or on the last train home. It is hard to think of them as real suburbs where people live and die, and get married, have children, and go to work.
Braiburn is out in the east. It is mentioned in the Domesday Book as a few meagre dwellings that were occupied by peat cutters. It was only at the end of the 1950s that the area began to be seriously developed. It occupies a tract of swampland that was known as Suckling Marsh, where wild pigs once roamed. The land was drained to accommodate a pair of expansive post-war housing estates that eventually converged. When the atmospheric conditions are unfavourable, the ghost of the marsh will still rise as a stagnant fog, flooding the streets. On particularly bad days, it is carried into the city as faint wisps along the tunnels of the Central Line. There has been the odd occasion where this subterranean fog has reduced visibility to a point where Tube services had to be suspended. My estate agent friend, Geoff Foxley, claims that, even after marshland has been drained it can still take a couple of centuries for the ground to properly dry out. “All things being well, the Braiburn Brume will be gone by the 22nd century,” he reassured me, as if this knowledge would in some way influence my decision to purchase a house in the area.
Back in 2004, I spent a fortnight in Braiburn. I was engaged in researching and writing a report on behalf of the Unified Wells & Aquifers Company, regarding some stream-clearing work that had been carried out in the area. The guild is notoriously stingy with travel expenses, regardless of one's seniority. I was very low in the pecking order. To live within the meagre budget allotted to me, I had taken lodgings in a half-roomette – essentially a large bedroom that had been divided in two by a wood-framed, plasterboard wall.
Halfway through my stay I needed to get back to the city for a social event, and for the sake of my own sanity. A heavy fog had formed a cataract over Braiburn. By the time I was ready to leave, it had permeated into the Underground system closing that part of the line. I read later, that the Tube workers had installed a bank of large fans at Dillbridge in an attempt to prevent the fog from spreading any further west.
On the high-street, I flagged down a taxi that was prowling the stagnant gloom. At first glance I had mistaken it for a hearse. The roof incorporated a low illuminated greenhouse that was filled with small, potted rose bushes, bearing an abundant crop of velvety red flowers.
The driver leaned out of the window as he pulled-up alongside the kerb.
“What'll it be?” he said.
I was too absorbed by the strange fusion of black cab and hothouse to answer.
“Are you after a rose, or do you want me to take you somewhere, mate?”
I provided him with a destination as I climbed into the back.
“I'm sorry. Your roof garden caught me off-guard,” I said, as I briskly rubbed my palms together for warmth.
Gingerly the driver pulled away into the hanging fog.
“Might be slow going until we clear the town,” he said.
“That's fine. You don't, by any chance, live around these parts, do you?”
“Nah, I'm based in Tooting.”
“Then you won't mind me saying that Braiburn looks significantly better in the fog.”
He laughed politely.
“You're a long way from home,” I observed.
“A fare brought me out here.”
At a set of traffic lights, a gaseous red cloud suddenly turned green. We rounded a corner.
“It's a special model,” he said.
“Sorry?”
“The cab – it's a Stratford. There are currently eighteen of them in the capital. Used to be more.”
“It's funny you should say that, because for an awful moment I thought I had flagged down a hearse.”
“That happened to me once. I was driving through Kensel Green. A man dressed in a frock coat and a top hat stepped solemnly out into the middle of the road. Then these pallbearers came out of one of the houses carrying a coffin!”
I watched his mouth angled in the rear view mirror as he relayed his anecdote. Occasionally, his blue-grey eyes slipped into view.
“Out of interest, what do you charge for a rose?”
“Seven-fifty.”
“I bet you don't sell too many of those south of the river.”
“You'd be surprised where I sell and to who. I'll tell you something for free: You won't find a better long-stem rose anywhere in the Capital. I arrow-cut the stems. Change the water everyday and it will last you three-weeks to a month.”
He nudged the brakes to avoid a cyclist who had veered out of nowhere and cut in front of us.
“It's a good earner. Once you have the initial set-up it takes very little effort. I've got a supply line of Royal compost from Windsor. The glasshouse is like a bottle garden. It has it's own weather system, completely separate from what's happening outside; its own distinct seasons too. You don't need to do anything to it. I've got three glass houses at home with more rosebushes all ready to go, plus a nursery in the conservatory and part of the kitchen.”
“You must be popular with your wife.”
“She's the owner of the business – for tax reasons. I charge her rent for the glasshouse. I use it to pay our overheads, so it all evens out, more or less.”
With one hand on the wheel he fumbled around in the darkness of the glove compartment. He reached through opening in the sliding glass partition and handed me a business card.
“That's not my wife's real name. I'm Ron.”
“So Rhonda is your female alter-ego?”
“Nah, it's nothing like that. It's just that I can't have my actual name associated directly with the business.”
“Who are your customers? Out of interest?”
“Discounting spontaneous trade, my regulars are... there is a certain type of city gent who likes to wear a rose in his lapel. They'll often call on me in person and pay my travel expenses. There was a time a few years ago where people like that seemed to be on the way out. They were retiring or you know, the other thing. Then out of the blue I started getting a new surge of demand – in the city and around Canary Wharf. Groups of young business men, and young business women too, which is new.”
“Things go in cycles, don't they.”
“I'm amazed more drivers don't do it.”
“How did you get started?” I asked.
Another cabbie got me interested. I always liked gardening. I used to help my dad in his allotment. How it originally started was a lot of the Hansom cab drivers ended up marrying the flower girls who used to sell their wares on the London streets. A lot of them were fallen women. They were out at night. Their lives overlapped with the lives of the cabbies They would sell flowers grown in window boxes that were mounted on the back of the cabs. I suppose some carried on working as prostitutes, with the drivers acting as their pimps. It all grew from there, but, you know, more respectable.”
“Fascinating,” I said.
We had more or less cleared the Braiburn fog and were entering clear night air, with the final ragged wisps clinging to the cab's exhaust fumes.
“The greenhouse is useful for other things too,” he said. “I take the meat run-off from the warehouses in Woolwich to the posh restaurants up west. They use it for stock. I transport squares of turf from Windsor Castle to Buckingham Palace, for the Royal footmen to stand on when they're on guard duty. That's where I get my Royal compost.”
“How long have you been at it?”
“Twenty-five years, give or take. I've run three black cabs; two of them greenhouse cabs. I'm thinking of hanging it up next year. I know a bloke who will take this one off my hands.”
“Retiring?”
“I'm going into market gardening. There's some land around the back of where I live that I picked up at auction a few years ago. I'm going to turn that into greenhouses. I'm going to call the business Blooming Ron's.”
A light rain was gathering in droplets on the windows. I could hear it pattering softly against the sloping roof of the greenhouse overhead. Underneath the gently-angled panes, the roses nodded stiffly in their pots at curious Londoners, who pointed and aimed their phones at the passing taxi, Beneath the limp vaulting of the pallid roots, and the pots of Royal compost I sat in the semi-darkness, ensconced in the archaeology of a London cab, patiently awaiting the moment of my unearthing.
“I'm sorry. Your roof garden caught me off-guard,” I said, as I briskly rubbed my palms together for warmth.
Gingerly the driver pulled away into the hanging fog.
“Might be slow going until we clear the town,” he said.
“That's fine. You don't, by any chance, live around these parts, do you?”
“Nah, I'm based in Tooting.”
“Then you won't mind me saying that Braiburn looks significantly better in the fog.”
He laughed politely.
“You're a long way from home,” I observed.
“A fare brought me out here.”
At a set of traffic lights, a gaseous red cloud suddenly turned green. We rounded a corner.
“It's a special model,” he said.
“Sorry?”
“The cab – it's a Stratford. There are currently eighteen of them in the capital. Used to be more.”
“It's funny you should say that, because for an awful moment I thought I had flagged down a hearse.”
“That happened to me once. I was driving through Kensel Green. A man dressed in a frock coat and a top hat stepped solemnly out into the middle of the road. Then these pallbearers came out of one of the houses carrying a coffin!”
I watched his mouth angled in the rear view mirror as he relayed his anecdote. Occasionally, his blue-grey eyes slipped into view.
“Out of interest, what do you charge for a rose?”
“Seven-fifty.”
“I bet you don't sell too many of those south of the river.”
“You'd be surprised where I sell and to who. I'll tell you something for free: You won't find a better long-stem rose anywhere in the Capital. I arrow-cut the stems. Change the water everyday and it will last you three-weeks to a month.”
He nudged the brakes to avoid a cyclist who had veered out of nowhere and cut in front of us.
“It's a good earner. Once you have the initial set-up it takes very little effort. I've got a supply line of Royal compost from Windsor. The glasshouse is like a bottle garden. It has it's own weather system, completely separate from what's happening outside; its own distinct seasons too. You don't need to do anything to it. I've got three glass houses at home with more rosebushes all ready to go, plus a nursery in the conservatory and part of the kitchen.”
“You must be popular with your wife.”
“She's the owner of the business – for tax reasons. I charge her rent for the glasshouse. I use it to pay our overheads, so it all evens out, more or less.”
With one hand on the wheel he fumbled around in the darkness of the glove compartment. He reached through opening in the sliding glass partition and handed me a business card.
Rhonda's Roses
“That's not my wife's real name. I'm Ron.”
“So Rhonda is your female alter-ego?”
“Nah, it's nothing like that. It's just that I can't have my actual name associated directly with the business.”
“Who are your customers? Out of interest?”
“Discounting spontaneous trade, my regulars are... there is a certain type of city gent who likes to wear a rose in his lapel. They'll often call on me in person and pay my travel expenses. There was a time a few years ago where people like that seemed to be on the way out. They were retiring or you know, the other thing. Then out of the blue I started getting a new surge of demand – in the city and around Canary Wharf. Groups of young business men, and young business women too, which is new.”
“Things go in cycles, don't they.”
“I'm amazed more drivers don't do it.”
“How did you get started?” I asked.
Another cabbie got me interested. I always liked gardening. I used to help my dad in his allotment. How it originally started was a lot of the Hansom cab drivers ended up marrying the flower girls who used to sell their wares on the London streets. A lot of them were fallen women. They were out at night. Their lives overlapped with the lives of the cabbies They would sell flowers grown in window boxes that were mounted on the back of the cabs. I suppose some carried on working as prostitutes, with the drivers acting as their pimps. It all grew from there, but, you know, more respectable.”
“Fascinating,” I said.
We had more or less cleared the Braiburn fog and were entering clear night air, with the final ragged wisps clinging to the cab's exhaust fumes.
“The greenhouse is useful for other things too,” he said. “I take the meat run-off from the warehouses in Woolwich to the posh restaurants up west. They use it for stock. I transport squares of turf from Windsor Castle to Buckingham Palace, for the Royal footmen to stand on when they're on guard duty. That's where I get my Royal compost.”
“How long have you been at it?”
“Twenty-five years, give or take. I've run three black cabs; two of them greenhouse cabs. I'm thinking of hanging it up next year. I know a bloke who will take this one off my hands.”
“Retiring?”
“I'm going into market gardening. There's some land around the back of where I live that I picked up at auction a few years ago. I'm going to turn that into greenhouses. I'm going to call the business Blooming Ron's.”
A light rain was gathering in droplets on the windows. I could hear it pattering softly against the sloping roof of the greenhouse overhead. Underneath the gently-angled panes, the roses nodded stiffly in their pots at curious Londoners, who pointed and aimed their phones at the passing taxi, Beneath the limp vaulting of the pallid roots, and the pots of Royal compost I sat in the semi-darkness, ensconced in the archaeology of a London cab, patiently awaiting the moment of my unearthing.
 |
| image generated by Craiyon |
~
This is my response to
a question that appeared on the Notes & Queries page of The
Guardian website on the 24th April, 2023.
The
Guardian is apparently no longer happy to host my comments on their
site, so it is appearing here instead.
This blog is obviously
not affiliated with The Guardian. Its reference to a question that
appeared in Notes & Queries is presented here under the terms of
fair use.
Comments
Post a Comment