It all began when I was sacked from my job as a journalist on a newspaper serving the travel industry. The head office was in Melbourne, but I worked out of the Sydney office, and apparently didn’t perform to the bosses requirements.

Worried about work, I hunted all round Sydney for a job, but doors closed every way I turned.

Now, I had originally left school at the age of 15, primarily because my parents could not afford to keep me there. Lately, my inferiority complex over a lack of educational qualifications was becoming more pronounced by the week. In desperation, I decided that perhaps I was meant to enrol for study first at a polytech and then worry about a job. By this time the school year had already started, and the only polytech which had places available was at Meadowbank, in the western suburbs of Sydney. Needless to say, at that time I lived on almost the opposite side of the city, at Randwick.

The next question was: how to keep body and soul together during the two years study needed to earn entrance to a university?

Looking at sits vac adverts in the newspaper, it seemed that the greatest demand for jobs was for drivers, of delivery vehicles and taxis. As my grandfather and my father had both been taxi drivers at some time in their lives, I was sure it was in my blood. The irony was that when I had first encountered Sydney traffic a year previously, I was so terrified I had vowed and declared I would never drive in the city. So far I had kept that vow, and not driven a single vehicle in the past 12 months, although I still held my car and motor cycle licences.

The first step in this new career direction was to acquire a taxi licence. I looked up the Yellow Pages for a driving school, and found one near a swimming pool I visited regularly.

I went over to the driving school on a Friday afternoon, to discover that it was run by a couple of Maori chaps. Perhaps this should have alerted me right at the start. On enquiring about the price of a taxi licence I was told, “You’re better off getting your heavy duty licence first. Then you won’t have to sit a special taxi driving test, just a location test. And the cost is only $5 more for the two.” That seemed like good value, so I agreed.

“Okay,” said one of the men. “Hop into that prime mover there, and familiarise yourself with the controls.”

This took me a bit by surprise, because I had been expecting to make an appointment for some time in the near future. However, I followed instructions, and sat for the first time in my life at the controls of a piece of heavy machinery. A few minutes later, the driving instructor came over, got into the passenger seat, and told me to take the truck around the block. Nervously I eased out, and tried to emulate the double clutching I had seen my truck-driving father do when changing gears. (I had an idea that was what you were supposed to do, although I wasn’t sure.) Somehow I negotiated around the block a couple of times and returned to the driving school. “You’ll have to watch your double clutching,” was the only piece of instruction I received at the conclusion.

The surprises were only just beginning, however. “Right, head up the road,” ordered the instructor. I thought he was just trying me out in heavier traffic, but a couple of miles along we came to a police station, where he told me to stop.