Provincial cab conundrum

Three weeks ago today my wife and I had our first ride for yonks in a black London taximeter cab. Actually it wasn’t black because it was advertising something that required another colour for a background. But it was the correct shape and we sat in the back; as you do. On our way to my godson’s wedding, since you ask, and rather overdressed, we felt, for a ride on the RV1 bus.

I saw such a cab coming down our road today as I wandered back from the butcher’s and baker’s (there is, no longer, a candlestick maker to visit at the Bath Road shops). It is one of only a handful of such vehicles in our little town and it made me think of the dilemma facing users of the more usual type of provincial taxi. These are ordinary saloon cars, often old and quite big. The traditional Zodiac may have been replaced by a Galaxy or some such but the problem for the lone traveller still remains.

We’ve lived in Gloucestershire for eighteen years and it’s nearly a quarter-of-a-century since we moved out of central London (if St John’s Wood can be so designated). But still the problem remains, do you sit in the front next to the driver or in the back in solitary splendour?