"Her chauffeur told me that in his opinion she had been a most excellent Mayor"Jim, a mayor's chauffeur should be the soul of discretion. They observe the frailties of human nature very closely and few came away from their role without a positive cornucopia of juicy tales they could tell, but shouldn't.My chauffeur when I was Mayor in Hammersmith and Fulham had two amusing tales about one of my predecessors, one of which I cannot repeat here. Some background : The mayor in question was fonder than was wise of whisky, and the chauffeur would close the day by dropping the mayor off at his home and then garaging the mayoral car at the chauffeur's home. At the end of one long day, the chauffeur got home and was about to lock the garage when he heard a snoring from the back of the car, and found to his horror that he had forgotten to drop the mayor off. The mayor had himself dropped off, as it were. So the chauffeur had to un-garage the car and very late in the evening indeed - well past midnight - get the mayor home and pour him through his front door!Another thing, I was puzzled by the choice of mayoral car, a Ford Granada, which seemed to have little leg room in the back where the Mayor sat. I asked the chauffeur who made the purchasing decision (it was a leased car actually, but seamlessly always the same marque). He said he chose the car, and the key issue for him was the comfort of the chauffeur - it was after all his workplace and what mattered was that it didn't worsen his bad back! On reflection, I thought this seemed fair enough.I am sure the outgoing Mayor will find that many of the children she has spoken to in her terms of office have asked similar questions to those four I received regularly from Shepherd's Bush children about the mayoral badge which was worth - even in 1992 - substantially over £100,000:Are you the Mayor? Is that real gold? What's it worth?What would happen if I stole it?!The adults seemed to only have two questions varying according to when in the terms of office you were:And how are you enjoying being Mayor?And how long have you been in office / how much longer do you have left in office?I always thought the adult questions betrayed a certain lack of originality, but the children's questions were, shall we say, businesslike. The Mayor's badge in Hammersmith and Fulham was a large slab of victorian gold, with enamelled stuff on the front. One of my female successors complained that this badge rested on her embonpoint and was exceedingly cold, so she inserted an extra chain so her flesh was not so chilled!
Dan Filson ● 6220d