| 1 | 1 | | It is 3.40 p.m. and the peak of the 'school run', the busiest time of the day for |
| 2 | | Ladycabs, the all-woman taxicab service. In the back streets of Tottenham, Catherine is on |
| 3 | | the receiving end of a bit of aggression from her first male passenger of the day. Wayne, |
| 4 | | six, has climbed on to the window ledge and is kicking his heels at the roof. |
| 2 | 5 | | When Cindy George started Ladycabs eight years ago, she had no idea that children |
| 6 | | would account for 40% of the work. 'My idea was a service for the single girl and the |
| 7 | | elderly,' she explains at her controller's desk in the office. |
| 3 | 8 | | Cindy is a very lively woman in her mid fifties, radiating the zeal of one who has |
| 9 | | realised a life's ambition. She is certainly a workaholic. She began Ladycabs without |
| 10 | | assistance from male cab bies and worked twenty hours a day. Already as a child, reading |
| 11 | | reports about old ladies who were robbed collecting their pensions in broad daylight used |
| 12 | | to make her blood boil. Her starting-point was simpie: 'I thought, "What women jump into |
| 13 | | a car with a man just because he says he's a minicab driver?'" |
| 4 | 14 | | According to a survey published by the Suzy Lamplugh Trust in 1990, one in seven |
| 15 | | women has suffered some form of sexual or physical assault by minicab drivers. In her |
| 16 | | early years with Ladycabs, Cindy George conducted her own survey: 'Fifty per cent of the |
| 17 | | women who told me they'd been attacked said they never reported it to the police. They |
| 18 | | feit that that would be too difficult to cope with. Isn't that disgusting?' |
| 5 | 19 | | Ladycabs has now become a highly profitable business. Next week it receives the |
| 20 | | ultimate cultural promotion with the transmission of the first episode of Rides, a BBC |
| 21 | | drama series about an all-woman cab firm. Stories about kidnapping and drugs are |
| 22 | | interwoven with farnily problems in Carol Hayman's exciting script. |
| 6 | 23 | | 'People still think there are certain jobs that aren't suitable for women, and minicab |
| 24 | | driving is one of them,' says Hayman. 'The slightly adventurous, freewheeling element that |
| 25 | | we have shown in the series is only a whisper away from the real thing, because the women |
| 26 | | do get involved with their customers.' |
| 7 | 27 | | On the road with Wayne and his seven-year-old sister Michelle, Catherine speeds |
| 28 | | confidently through the short cuts to the bed-and-breakfast where the children's mother |
| 29 | | has been temporarily housed with her four children. 'I hate my dad,' says Michelle. 'He |
| 30 | | hits us so often the court has forbidden him to see us.' |
| 8 | 31 | | 'Sometimes these kids do my heart in,' sighs Catherine, who trained to be a |
| 32 | | schoolteacher and worked as a decorator before she turned to minicab driving. 'I like the |
| 33 | | freedom,' she says. Tm saving to go to Argentina.' |
| 9 | 34 | | Most of the girls will teil you they drive for the money. But Ladycabs is often |
| 35 | | thought to be a feminist enterprise. 'I don't like the way that word brings up the image of |
| 36 | | the manlike female,' says Cindy George. 'Most of my girls have boyfriends or husbands. |
| 37 | | But I do think this job helps a girl's confidence.' |
| 10 | 38 | | Ellie, working the night shift to pay her debts since her business went broke, says: |
| 39 | | 'We get involved with customers because women are curious. It's a laugh. You could never |
| 40 | | hope to meet such a different lot of people as minicab drivers. All they have in common is |
| 41 | | a car with four doors.' |
