Chairperson

THE CHAIRPERSON ?

Panic seized Jane Cook on that cold and damp late October night when
she stared in disbelief at the large offensive looking yellow clamp
fastened firmly to the offside front wheel of her car. She propelled
her wheelchair through the muddy puddles around to the near side of her
vehicle, where she removed a wet plastic wallet that had been tucked
under the windscreen wiper. As she unsealed it she looked around and
noticed for the first time a small sign about twelve feet up on a wall.
Obviously it was sited much too high to make out what was written on
it.
Jane who described herself as a mature, disabled spinster, had left her
car on what she'd took to be a public space for much longer than she
had intended. The meeting that she had attended at the charity
headquarters in Newcastle had dragged on until 11.I5 p.m., rather
longer than usual. However she hadn't minded. After all the Aged
Workers Hospice Movement was one of the more worthwhile charity
committees on which she served. Miss Cook was not the stereotypical
committee person who's to be found haunting most meetings and committee
rooms. She was a good hard working person with a cheery, sympathetic
nature, and social conscience, that spurred her on to serve the
community in which she lived, in so many different ways.
She wheeled her chair over the uneven ground to a streetlight so that
she could read the note that she had removed from her windscreen. The
document contained legal looking gobbledegook, that when boiled down
said the clamp would only be released if and when the sum of eighty
pounds was paid. It also gave a number to ring and an address to
contact. Jane impelled her chair to a phone box only to find that it
had been vandalized, as had the next two, which she found.
During her search for a working phone in the city centre she was
embarrassed on several occasions by drunken foul-mouthed yobs. Some
seemed amused to see a female alone in a wheelchair at that time of
night, while others patronised her with mock pity. After several
frightening ordeals she decided to flag down a taxi.
The only cabs that pulled up at first were ordinary family saloon type
vehicles. These were of no use, as they could not take her chair.
Eventually she managed to catch a black cab that had just off-loaded a
fare. It was equipped with ramps. Even then the cab driver noisily
complained about having to take out his ramps to help cripples into his
vehicle, cripples was what he labelled the disabled as. Using all the
money in her purse for the fare and tip for the unpleasant, churlish
driver who she had got to take her to the address on the clamp notice.
Jane felt that the ill-mannered cabby did not deserve the gratuity, but
she felt so intimidated by his behaviour that she told the driver to
keep the one-pound change. On receiving the fare and the extra pound he
roughly and unceremoniously off-loaded his disabled passenger like a
piece of luggage, without so much as a word of thanks?

Tommy Wilson, Tug to his pals, or rather his associates, since he had
no friends, was an arrogant surly bully of a man. When the lady in the
wheelchair entered the semi-derelict shop at midnight, the shop that
Tug called his office, he greeted her with a sneering, "what's ya
problem, apart from ya legs' Misses?"
"You've clamped my car and I was displaying an orange badge."
"Aa divint give a two-penny damn if yi was wearin' a sky blue broach
bonny lass, yi was parked illegal. Yi should've read the sign"
"The only notice I could see was so high up that I couldn't read
it."
"It's out of the way of vandals love. Give is yer eighty quid an' aal
tek it off."
"I don't have eighty pounds do I? Haven't you noticed I really am
disabled?"
"Nee money, nee clamp off. Disabled? ye cripples think yi can park
where yi like. Me aa treat every law breaker all the same."
"Oh very well! Will you take a cheque then?"
"Di yi think aa come in on a banana boat bonny lass. You'd cancel the
bloody cheque as soon as aa took me clamp off."
"I don't have cash."
"Cash point? Yi knaa bonny lass? The hole in the waal? Yaa twenty four
hoor banker."
"Will you give me a lift to a cash point then?"
"Sorry bonny lass I'm on duty. Yi'd better hurry. Another two hoors
then wi tows it away. That'll cost yi another hundred quid if we've to
move it. So yi'd better get ya skates on missus, or in your case burn
rubber." He laughed at his own inane banter, which he considered to be
humour.
When the disabled woman left with fear and tears in her eyes Tug went
back to reading a summons that he'd received earlier in the day, it was
for causing an affray. He was used to these. It was normal in his line
of business. Wilson put it all down to stroppy motorists. There was no
doubt in his muddled Machiavellian mind, that when he appeared at the
magistrates' court in two weeks time on November 3rd he would get off
scot-free again.
More often than not, when he appeared in front of the magistrates he
would adopt his 'butter wont melt in my mouth' posture. Throw in a few
yes sirs and no sirs, and then claim that once again a bad tempered
motorist had vented his anger on him. He had just doing his lawful job
to earn a crust for his wife and bairns. It never failed the JPs were
suckers for a sob story?

Tug Wilson duly stepped up into the dock on November 3rd, wearing his
off the back of a lorry Sunday suit augmented by his 'your very humble
servant' persona. That episode with the woman In the wheelchair, who'd
ultimately paid up, was long gone and over and done with, to the
ruffian's warped way of thinking. These hearings held no fear for him;
he was an old hand at this game. After all the law was an ass, but an
ass that was on his side, wasn't it? However this time his staged
subservient act changed in the twinkling of an eye to a one of abject
shock. The setting before him, hit him as if a jet-propelled
road-roller had whacked him, his jaw dropped as he caught sight of the
bench. Because there seated assuredly Chairperson of the Magistrates
Miss Jane Cook was as always exercising her penchant for civic duty
from the Justices Chairperson's Chair.

by Don Passmore ?