Wodehouse spares no one, not even the iconic cab-walas of London. The black cabs and their drivers have inspired the flavor of a million jokes but P G Wodehouse in ‘Right Ho, Jeeves’ considers even hailing a cab feel like someone entering the arena of Mortal Combat… and I quote: ‘I weighed the matter for a moment. Then, seeing no way out of it, I made the plunge. ‘Right ho,’ I said, and went out and called a cab, feeling rather like a chappie stepping into the ring to face some world’s champion.’ Even today, one feels like shouting: Jeeves, hail me warhorse!
Wrap Battles and Taxi Tales
It is these black cabs (mostly wrapped in ads now) and their drivers that are as much a part of London’s cultural history as are the Palaces, Parks, Canals, the Thames. The cabs in old photographs clicked between the 1950s and the 1980s look dignified, almost poetic, sleek and uniform, and the text from those decades hails these cabs as ‘a quiet symbol of reliability and tradition’. This ‘no fuss, no flair’ image glides into being somewhat glitzy beyond 1980. Small adverts began their invasion. Slowly. Discreet little panels on the doors, a logo here, and a brand mentioned elsewhere. Subtle. London was evolving in the eyes of the marketeers… and even taxis had been tempted. The initial first flashes became bolder from the 1990s to the 2000s. This was like a sudden splash of paint across a grey wall. An entire side of a cab could now be promoting a West End show, a holiday destination, or whatever else was being promoted in those years. Not all cabs had these adverts though and some were simply coloured – or, as they say here, wrapped in some electric blue or bright pink or even covered in a glittering Union jack. This was the phase of an unapologetic London… loud, proud, and unafraid to tell the world how it felt.
Ad-ventures on four wheels – London cabs
There are options to choose from these days. Nothing mandatory. Choose to remain a sedate classic black cab or be wrapped in coloured adverts for everything beginning from tech startups to musicals. I think of these colorful cabs as stories dashing from one chapter to another… or a piece of theatre on the move with London as the stage.
London cabs were smart decades back and have still retained their old charm even though a lot of them are now colour-wrapped. Not everyone is upbeat about this change though and some Londoners seriously mourn the loss of the understated elegance of the old all-black fleet. Tourists like me love the way these cabs have adopted their new expression, and we invest time and energy in pausing to click them. Some Londoners welcomed the colour, the splash of life. Others mourned the loss of the understated elegance of the old all-black fleet. But over time, it became part of the city’s rhythm — the old meeting the new, tradition giving way to expression. Imagine coming across a cab with a Smirnoff ad with a caption: ‘Cabs make great getaway cars’. Imagine the sort of catalytic effect it might have on a writer who has been dreaming of writing a new thriller but is unable to get hold of a reasonable plot! Imagine a toddler excitedly pointing to some rushing cab displaying an advert with Harry Potter brandishing a magical wand! Imagine the increased heartbeat of the boyfriend when he notices his girlfriend throwing wistful glances at a cab advertising Chanel. London cabs have the potential to win the hearts and minds of not just the tourists but also the older generation who may find this change a bit overwhelming.
Honking Mad: A Cabbie’s Guide to Protest and Panache
The cabs in London are a sort of tourist attraction for some tourists. Despite the fare charges being rather steep. Thes black cabs turned colourful are not as affordable as the Ubers here. But the cabbies have their own reasons for being disgruntled. In one of our earlier trips to London we happened to be near Trafalgar Square when Pushkin, my son, called me and said: ‘There is a cabbie protest going on near where you are right now. A lot of them have literally clogged the road and will begin their ‘honking protest’ that may last for a few minutes.’ We rushed to the place and sure enough we could watch this unique form of protest.
It was June 11th, 2014. This powerful roar of frustration, solidarity, and pride from cabbies, who thought they knew London better than anyone else, was more than just any traffic jam. Central London came to a standstill because the London cabbies were telling the world about how their playing field had turned unfair. According to them, the ‘rapid, largely unregulated rise of Uber and similar ride-hailing apps, were slipping through loopholes and eroding the traditions and standards that black cab drivers had fought hard to uphold.’ To some this was simply chaos and cacophony but to many here this protest was a symphony of resistance. The honking wasn’t random – it was rhythmic, emotional, charged with years of study, pride in The Knowledge, and the quiet dignity of a trade handed down through generations.
Tourists, like me, stopped and stared. Londoners leaned out of windows. And beneath the sound and fury, there was a message that hung heavily in the air – ‘This is our city too. And we will not be silenced.’
London cabs exude a charm of their own. Like them, the cabbies too have a lot to be talked about. We will do just that in the next post.
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Arvind Passey
Uploaded on 11 April 2025
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