A conversation with black cab driver and YouTuber, Tom Hutley

On Uber, London's best caffs, and how cabbies' brains could help cure Alzheimers

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We’ve mentioned Tom Hutley in the newsletter a few times. He’s a London cabbie who completed The Knowledge in 2017 and then started a YouTube channel about his experiences. For obvious reasons he’s had more time for making videos over the past eighteen months or so and his channel now has over forty thousand subscribers.

We wanted to talk to Tom about the experiences of being a cab driver during lockdown, his views on Uber, how he manages to do his job despite having a “terrible memory”, his favourite types of customer and to get some tips on London’s best cafes and shortcuts.

(Note: We didn’t ask if he’s been busy or what time he’s finishing tonight.)

What made you want to become a cabbie Tom and how difficult was it for you to pass The Knowledge?

I heard about The Knowledge from my friend’s dad. I was a little lost job-wise after finishing my degree, and the idea of completing ‘Blue Books’ and ‘The Knowledge’ sounded to mysterious to me. I took it on like a scavenger hunt or challenge. I was soon hooked and it’s what got me through it.

I compare The Knowledge to going to the gym, getting a good diet and getting in shape. The actual process isn’t hard. If you keep to your schedule and consistency, that’s what generates the results. The reps aren’t particularly difficult, it’s just that it takes a lot of your time. We often say that managing The Knowledge isn’t that hard, it’s everything else in life that tries getting in the way.

I was working 9-6 in a retail shop and as soon as we locked up the shop I’d cycle home as quick as I could to sit in front of the map for four hours, wolfing down dinner as quickly as possible so I could study the daily sheet (effectively the exam questions that had been asked that day). If I wasn’t at home, I’d be on my motorbike to take the one hour commute into London, zip around collecting points and roads for four hours, before coming home, hitting the hay and waking up and opening the shop the next morning.

How did things change for you during lockdown? How stressful a time was that for you personally and for taxi drivers generally?

Work gradually dropped off and I quickly found that I had to use ranks in different areas of town to earn my money. Once lockdown hit, it was all down the individual circumstances of the drivers. I have a hire purchase on my electric taxi, so to see work disappear and no clear sign of how I was going to pay £1000 a month for my taxi, as well as my £800 rent, was a pretty daunting sight. Fortunately government SEISS support came in as well as finance support from the taxi manufacturer.

Whilst some drivers returned their taxis to the garages (2/3 of drivers rent week by week), I still had my vehicle, so it made sense to go and at least earn something. It was tough, driving empty for up to three hours. Sometimes four. And the only fares were people going shopping or to hospital appointments. Really mentally challenging times.

We watched your recent video on Uber prices versus black cab prices, and it seems pretty prescient given the news in the past week or so about the ‘demise’ of Uber and the ‘return’ of traditional taxis. Is that something you saw coming and do you think it’s going to last?

I’m slightly biased but I believe black taxis have a pretty big USP. What with The Knowledge and specific vehicles. We were first licensed by Oliver Cromwell in the 17th century! So I’m always positive that our trade will continue for many more years.

I actually think the Uber business model is great on paper. It was designed as ridesharing: if you’ve got four empty seats on your commute to work, why not fill them? However, the actual operations of the business are so flawed. It’s akin to modern day slavery, and also operates a predatory pricing model (high prices when the service is at its worst). As there’s less drivers willing to work for the small cut that Uber gives, it has artificially raised the prices on their platform through surging. Higher demand also means that drivers are more likely to cancel on passengers.

In a London Taxi, the fare is set and regulated by Transport for London, so there’s no unexpected surging. The meter runs at the same rate, rain or shine. And the beauty of hailing that glowing taxi light, it’s right there, you don’t have to wait for the driver to then cancel on you. You hail, tell the driver where you want to go and off you go. Reliable pricing, knowledgeable drivers, zero emission capable vehicles. You really are getting more for your money in a black cab.

You became a cabbie after Uber launched in London. Did you ever think of joining the ‘gig economy’ instead?

Never. I wanted to be truly self employed. Working for myself, not on an app or platform that can control my earnings. There’s also the prestige of completing The Knowledge and earning my badge. Whatever endeavour I have tackled in life, I always seek to understand it to the nth degree. There is no free lunch in life. To get the true benefits of anything you have to put the work in. The Knowledge is no different. 

I get the most confidence and can offer the best service when I understand something fully. It’s like when I used to work in retail, I’d be much more confident in selling products that I understood. In the taxi, to call yourself a professional you have to cover all bases and know all the options available to you.

What prompted you to start the YouTube channel? How difficult is it to balance creating that content and doing the ’day job’?

It was something I wanted to do for sometime, but I always had plenty of excuses not to do it, like all the hard things in life. Once the pandemic hit, I told myself that there were no excuses. I just sat in the back of my cab, and riffed on topics and questions that people ask, and it grew and expanded from there. I’d read comments and use that to frame new videos. I’d be inspired by other YouTube creators and try and inject some of their ideas into my channel.

Once I was back in the cab full time it was a struggle to try and manage both. I did get some systems in place (i.e. always being miked up/recording so I would never miss anything). All I had to do was find the appropriate part and cut that out in the edit.

You’re a qualified tour guide as well, right? Can you tell us a bit more about that?

The Knowledge of London is so extensive, you pick up roads and points of interest and start to draw parallels between them.

One examiner, the late Mr Swires, was an absolute wealth of knowledge and he would often link historical points together. I saw on one exam sheet he asked for a point called 2 Willow Road, it’s close to Hampstead Heath Station and is sometimes called Goldfinger house (the house built and occupied by famous London architect Erno Goldfinger). So when I went to visit the point on my bike (we do this to ascertain the restrictions of setting a point), I actually visited the house and went on a guided tour. I then learnt that Goldfinger was key architect for the famous Trellick Tower, Balfron Tower, and it’s where Ian Fleming got the name from for the James Bond villain. 

From that day I saw London completely differently. I now see it as connections. There are so many links in London and everyday I try and connect more dots. Once I completed The Knowledge I enrolled on a taxi driver’s guiding course by The Worshipful Company of Hackney Carriage Drivers (where I am now a Liveryman as well as a freeman of the City of London). It just blew my mind, all of this history and excitement on the streets I get to drive on a daily basis.

I now see it as my duty to learn something everyday. In the same way a prisoner knows the inside of a prison complex from years of exposure, that’s how I approach London: every corner has a story.

I also hold qualification for guiding with the London borough of Camden.

Did you read the recent news about UCL studying taxi drivers’ brains to aid their work on Alzheimers? Do you feel like you have an ‘extraordinary’ brain? Does memorising 26,000 streets spanning a six-mile radius helped you in other areas of your life?

I have indeed! I was really interested to take part but as I have a lot of tattoos, there was a potential concern with metals in the ink and the MRI machine. I’m very excited to see what the study concludes, we know that cabbies’ hippo campuses actually get physically bigger from doing The Knowledge, but it will be interesting to see if this is a safeguard against Alzheimer’s and other neurodegenerative diseases.

From a selfish point of view, I took a 23 and Me gene test and I actually have two copies of the APOE4 gene, which means I have an 8-12 times higher likelihood of developing Alzheimers than the average person.

I personally don’t believe I have a better brain than anyone else, and my memory is actually terrible, I think it comes down to how you associate the information you are trying to remember, i.e. whenever I meet someone new, if they say “Oh, I’m from London” I will always ask “Whereabouts?”. Even if it’s someone I’ve only met once, I might forget their name but I can mentally place them on a map, from their childhood home to where they live now.

The only other thing is that I rarely lose anything. I will have a mild moment of panic if I can’t find my wallet, take a breath and then my brain mentally traces backwards and immediately flags where it is, as though a beacon lights up to tell me where it is.

Can you let us on some secret cabbie tips? Best shortcuts? Best cafes? Hidden gems?

Unfortunately every cut through or shortcut is entirely circumstantial. It’s like if you’ve ever used Waze, it may take you on a crazy diversion route one day but you may never drive that route ever again. The same goes for driving in the cab. The route I take depends on where I’m hailed, the conditions of traffic or even time of day or day of the week. What might be the best route now will have been the worst route thirty minutes ago.

In terms of best cafes, I quite like Astral on Regency Place (above) or Sapori not too far away on Horseferry Road. Lots of cabbies frequent Astral’s so it’s nice in a solitary job to feel like you are part of a much larger group. You can get just about anything from Astral’s and there’s always a vibe/energy to it of customers coming in and out. You really feel like part of the fabric.

One hidden gem of a road is Lower Robert Street, there are times when I have used it as a genuine route, it makes you feel like you are in a James Bond film escaping from a villain. Check out the Rob’s London video on it. 

What’s your favourite type of customer?

I love anyone who is visiting London for tourism. I will always find out their exposure to London (i.e. first time visitor, seasoned traveller etc) and I love being able to share a fact or snippet about London they’ve never seen or heard before. Like the Strand is a German word for “beach” alluding to a time when the road once beached on to the Thames, and also a time when we had Anglo Saxon settlers; Germanic tribes that influence the English we speak today!

Also anyone who has been to the theatre, they have had the best time and I like to carry their energy. They’ve got in a cab to make their evening even smoother and special and I like to keep that energy going. It’s usually a positive note to end my shift on.

Obvious question alert: Most famous person you’ve had in the cab?

I took Brian Johnson of AC/DC to The Cross Keys pub in Cheyne Walk. Now imagine hearing that instruction in a Geordie accent. I had to get him to repeat it three times! Top bloke and he loved the service.

Paul Gascoigne was a very friendly guy, he opened the conversation with me, wanted to know all about me and asked me if I wanted a picture. I’m not going to say no to that am I? Other times I’m starstruck and have difficulty counting change or knowing the correct route. Hugh Laurie is an example of that, or when I first got my badge and I had Jeremy Paxman. I believe I short changed him! Sorry Jeremy.

Be honest, have you ever just blanked and had to get your phone out?

On the longer routes out of London, I have less of an idea of local traffic restrictions and also roads, so I gladly take a postcode and pop it in the sat nav. I’ll use my brain to get me out of the central chaos, but once out, I’ll auto pilot and switch to the sat nav (ensuring it’s taking a direct route and not around the M25!).

Generally in central, I don’t blank out. London streets and road names are type 1 thinking to me (see Daniel Kahnemann’s book Thinking Fast and Slow for more on that), my brain lights up as quickly as if I were to ask you “What colour is the sky?”. For that reason it would actually take me longer to pull the phone out and physically type it in.

Subscribe to Tom’s YouTube channel here and follow him on Twitter here.

And the rest…

• The mother of a 14-year-old black schoolboy from south London has accused the Met of racist targeting after claiming her son been “stopped by police about 30 times in the last two years” and never been charged with or convicted of any offence.

• According to the New West End Company, on Saturday (the day the Christmas lights were turned on) the West End was busier than it was before the pandemic for the first time.

• Ryan Bishti, the man behind the Cirque Le Soir brand and one of the people behind the return of the once ‘infamous’ Windmill Theatre has been charged with bribery offences “after a seven-year corruption investigation”. Bishti, along with a former Met Police officer and six others have been charged with conspiracy to commit bribery between February 2013 and June 2015.

• The Telegraph reports that”accountants, law firms and insurers” in the Square Mile have scrapped plans for “lavish” Christmas parties this year, choosing “smaller dinners and receptions for individual teams” due to Covid fears.

• Retail Gazette has thrown caution to the wind and ranked all the big stores’ Christmas window displays (Retail Gazette just doesn’t care who it pisses off!). Hamleys’ effort comes in for short shrift for focusing on something as dated as Harry Potter, and Selfridge’s display is judged to be not “as memorable” as last year (ouch!). Fortum and Mason’s “hedgehogs skiing down hills made of meringue” fares much better though.

• People of Kentish Town and Hornsey…. rejoice? It looks like you might the lucky recipients of the London outposts of DJ Khaled’s Another Wing chicken chain. The catch is, these aren’t actually restaurants, they are kitchens “offering food available for takeaway only”. If that wasn’t cynical enough, the menu contains things like a ‘Never Stop Winging’ bucket with ‘They Don’t Want You To Win Truffalo’ sauce.

• Someone took a photo of some crisps priced at £6.99 in a shop in Leicester Square station, and now it’s national ‘news’.

• Via Reddit’s r/London comes this topography of London (with roads mapped on to it). Click through, zoom in and see if you can pinpoint where your house is.