DRIVER PROFILE
A DYED-IN-TH’-WOOL YORKSHIREMAN WITH A GREAT ATTITUDE AND WORK RECORD
We’ve been privileged within the past few days to have a chat with Peter Crossley, who lives in Baildon in West Yorkshire and drives for Baildon Taxis.
Why privileged? For a start, Peter has been a proud member of our industry for 50 years. That’s worth celebrating on its own, especially in these dire times. And secondly, he has worked every single day this year from the initial lockdown to the present day… not missed a shift. He’s only 71, nearly 72… not bad going for a youngster.
HOW DID PETER GET INVOLVED IN THE TRADE
“I was an engineer at the time, and we were in a deep recession,” he told PHTM. “I knew our days were numbered as regards a job. A chap I knew said, ‘Come and have a chat with my boss… they’re short of drivers – they’ll welcome you.’ I said I didn’t fancy picking up drunks from the pub… Know what he said? – and I’ll never forget it: ‘It pays the bills.’
“… which it does, for sure. I’ve never stopped since then. Fact is, I love driving, and it’s great to be paid for doing something I love. I don’t do the long-distance jobs these days; just want to continue taking care of the locals.
“People ask me when I’m going to retire. I say, ‘when the DVLA say – no more licence!’ I want you to mention my mate Alan Walker, who’s also in his seventies; he has no intention of retiring either. Around here we’re known as the ‘Dynamic Duo’! The pair of us have worked all the way through the lockdown, and are continuing to do the same now.
“It’s a great pleasure for us to look after our locals.” A LIGHTER MOMENT…
We asked Peter, as we often do, whether he’d transported any unusual passengers or parcels over the years. “Not me really, but one of my colleagues…” he said. “I was asked if I knew anybody with a minibus where one of the seats would come out. They wanted to transport a coffin to the airport, to ultimately go to India.
“I asked around and got in touch with a driver, I’ll call him John, who had a minibus. I asked him if he wanted to do a job to Manchester Airport. He said, ‘Yes, how much?’ I quot- ed him a hundred pounds – for which he snatched my hand off. I did tell him that the passenger wouldn’t talk to him dur- ing the journey… when he was told why, he didn’t bother, and got on with it. Next time I referred him to another
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Dynamic duo: Alan and Peter (r)
Manchester Airport job I did advise him beforehand that there were two passengers, and they would indeed talk to him!”
These days Peter and his mate Alan’s priorities continue to be looking after the locals – mainly the elderly and self- isolating, who need shopping collecting or who need taking to the doctors’ surgery or the supermarket. They have spent a lot of time carrying NHS staff as well, to and from the var- ious hospitals and treatment facilities in West Yorkshire.
According to part-owner of Baildon Taxis (and chair of Better Taxi Action Group) Asif Shah, Peter is a “credit to the firm. We’re very pleased you’re marking his 50 years in the trade… he deserves all the credit you can give him.”
We asked Peter if he had a particular message he wanted to convey in this article. He said: “If you treat people with respect, they return it. OK – so if you pick up drunks from the pub and they give you a load of abuse, you don’t get aggressive in your reaction… you agree with them. Why not? By the end of the journey they’re your best mates, but you’ve avoided a conflict.
“Whether you’re taking the Lord Mayor of Bradford or a tramp, if you treat everybody the same way you’d hope they would treat you, it works. I’m going to continue to do this for as long as I can…!”
That’ll do us… and all Peter’s customers. DECEMBER 2020
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