Issue 293 - TAXI Newspaper

More readers than the rest put together! 14 MAY 2013 | TAXI 31
BOOK REVIEW
The Charabanc by Alf Townsend
Until the advent of steam
locomotion travelling
around Britain in Victorian
times was difficult, and rarely
undertaken by the poor.
And although the industrial
revolution was in full swing, many
of the improvements it would
bring about wouldn’t be felt by the
working classes for many years.
It was the arrival of the wooden
horse-drawn Charabanc, which
first brought a sense
of liberation for
many workers,
especially those
slaving in the cotton
mills in the north.
Originally
popular with
French aristocrats,
the transporters
started to make
an impact in 1844
when one was
given to Queen
Victoria as a gift
by Louis
Philippe.
In his lavishly illustrated new
book, Taxi columnist and author Alf
Townsend charts its history, with
personal anecdotes and his
trademark wit.
The Brits dropped the S from the
French word Charabancs, and made
a number of other modifications
before beginning to use them for
works outings and school trips.
Noisy, bumpy and uncomfortable
“they became an instant hit among the
many thousands of workers in the mill
towns of Lancashire and
Yorkshire.
“These deprived
and hard-working
employees in the
mill towns never
had any holidays
at all.”
It wasn’t until
the late 60s, when
the UK economy
began to pick up,
that the workers got
paid for “wake’s
week,” which in itself
spelt the inevitable
death knell for the later,
motorised charabancs.
There was very little
protection from the
elements for the
passengers and it was
not until the start of
the First World War
that fixed roofs and
comfortable seats
were offered.
Charabanc manufacture ground to
a halt during the war and they would
eventually lose out to the internal
combustion engine.
Alf, who has published six books
on the taxi trade, makes no secret of
his fondness for the long forgotten
mode of travel.
His love of Charabanc and what it
meant shines through the book and is
evident in the opening, in which he
says “just hearing the word Charabanc
gives me a buzz at the thought of the long
history and the joy it brought to many
of the downtrodden working classes in
the past.”
The text is littered with fascinating
facts, stories about his own time as
a ‘Chara’ driver working the
“ghost train” shift, while studying
the Knowledge.
Charabanc manages to wind the
story around the development of
the taxi trade and motorised coach
travel, but it’s the pictures which
make it a trip down memory lane
to remember.
Further info
Charabanc: The Early
Days of Motorised
Coach Travel is
available from Amazon
at the RRP of £14.99
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