Imay not have mentioned this to Infinity readers but back in around 2012 I was going through a bit of a financial crisis. My wife had left me and gone off with one of my neighbours and I felt a great emptiness in my life. Specifically, in my bank account. To be fair I had enjoyed 20 very happy years with my first wife, although we were married for 27.
They say that money talks, and at this period in my life all it was saying was “Goodbye,” so with a divorce in laborious process, and the property developer vultures circling Dark Side Towers I had no option but to take on extra work. Not easy, actually, since I was apparently too old for a paper round and way too young (and too British) to be President of the United States I went cabbing. It was the obvious choice really, because my next door neighbour Dave ran a mini-cab company in Wimbledon and was happy to offer me a job. I chose to work evenings only, usually finishing at three in the morning, leaving me the days free for writing. I guess I was the only cab driver in the company who had kids at private school, and his eyes propped open with matchsticks.
The reason I’m reminiscing about my mini-cab days is that our cab company, A&H Cars, had a contract with Parkside Hospital, an exclusive private clinic in Tennis Central, just off Wimbledon Common, and I frequently found myself ferrying passengers back and forth from there.