York taxi driver Jim Kerr brushes up his knowledge of the city (From York Press)

York taxi driver Jim Kerr brushes up his knowledge of the city

9:07am Friday 20th August 2010 in

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THERE is a hint of the Scottish miner about Jim Kerr. He has the iron-grey hair, the strong, stocky body, the thick Glaswegian accent.

Banish all thoughts about dour Scotsmen, though. This is a man who loves to tell stories. And above all, he loves to tell stories about York – the ancient city that he made his home more than 20 years ago.

Jim is a cabbie. And his love of history, and his passion for the city in which he lives and works, makes a journey in his cab a real treat. He has a fund of wonderful stories – and the deadpan, deprecating humour to carry them off.

“The current city walls are medieval,” he says. “They were built roughly around the thirteenth century – to keep the Scots out.”

Said in that thick accent – actually, it’s East Kilbride, not strictly Glaswegian – it is truly funny.

Jim is one of a growing number of cabbies in York who have buffed up on their knowledge of the city so they’ll be able to offer passengers more than just a journey from A-B. If they’re interested, they will be able to tell them a bit about York’s amazing past as well.

The city’s tourism board, Visit York, has laid on three special training courses so far, run by York tour guide Keith Mulhearn and Chris Morton, Visit York’s visitor service manager. Two more of the free courses will be held above the new Visitor Information Centre in Museum Street on Monday.

For Jim, the 63-year-old secretary of the York Private Hire Association and married father of two grown-up children, it just makes sense. Make a passenger’s taxi ride one to remember, and they’re more likely to come back to York – and to recommend that friends visit too, he says.

He remembers one passenger he had last year, a businessman from down south who he entertained with a few tales about York.

At the end of the journey, the passenger handed Jim a large tip, and wouldn’t take no for an answer.

“He said ‘I’ve never had an experience like that in any taxi before’,” Jim says, with obvious pride.

Jim has actually taken “doing the knowledge” even further. In addition to the half-day training course for taxi drivers, he has taken a two-day course for would-be York tour guides, accredited by Visit York. Ultimately, he thinks it would be great if York could have its own Taxi Guides. Liverpool can do it, with Beatles tours, so why not York? he says.

You can’t ring up and ask for a taxi guide yet in York. But it is still great to see so many cabbies brushing up on their knowledge of the city. And Jim is more than willing to oblige when he’s asked to take me on a quick guided taxi-tour of York.

He decides to do a complete circuit of the city walls – they’re 2.5 miles long all the way around, he informs me. We start at Walmgate Bar. Do I know why the city’s ancient gates are called bars, he asks? Umm, no. It is because they were control points where taxes were collected, he says.

“They barred people from entering the city until they had paid a toll.”

Walmgate Bar, he adds, was actually quite badly damaged during the civil war siege of York in 1644.

“The Parliamentarians put five guns on a hill near the university.”

We head off up Foss Islands Road. The stories continue to flow – you quickly learn to judge whether a passenger wants to listen, or just wants to keep quiet, Jim says. As we pass the section between the Red Tower and Layerthorpe where there is no wall he tells me about the King’s Pool – the great, swampy pool that protected York from this side so a wall wasn’t needed here. The King’s Pool is named after William the Conqueror, he says. “He liked to go fishing.” You can still see the last remnants of the pool, beyond the Foss and its fringe of trees, Jim tells me – and so you can, if you peer carefully.

Further up, we pass Monk Bar – rebuilt and improved by Richard III, Jim says, and the only one of York’s main gates that was a self-contained fortress. It is also the only one of the bars that still has a portcullis. “It is supposedly still in working order.”

It’s as we drive up Lord Mayor’s Walk that he tells me something which simultaneously shatters an illusion and leaves me with an intriguing new take on the walls, however.

I’ve often imagined, when walking around the walls, what it would have been like when medieval soldiers in chain mail patrolled here.

Actually, apart from 1644, the walls were hardly ever used in time of war, Jim says. And the walkways that we have today weren’t made for medieval soldiers – they are a much later addition.

“It was the late nineteenth century. People were coming to visit York because of the advent of the railways.” But the streets were filthy and muddy – not the thing at all for respectable ladies of the time in their crinoline skirts and dresses.

“And that’s when the walkways were put in, so the ladies could walk around without getting dirty.” The vision of wealthy Victorian ladies promenading around York’s walls with their skirts billowing more than makes up for any disappointment I feel at the fact I wasn’t actually treading in the footsteps of medieval men-at arms when last I walked the city walls. And anyway, Jim says kindly, the Victorian walkways were probably put in in roughly in the position where earlier ramparts would have been.

Jim admits to not being an expert on York Minster. But he has one great line, as we drive down St Leonard’s Place and glimpse it from the corner of our eyes before turning along Museum Street.

“The Minster came about because somebody fancied a lady!” he says.

That somebody was Edwin, King of Northumbria. The woman he fancied was Ethelburga, daughter of the King of Kent.

But Edwin was a pagan, and Ethelburga a Christian.

“So either her or her father said ‘I’m not marrying a Pagan. I will only marry you if you convert to Christianity,” Jim says.

Edwin, like men everywhere, did as he was told by the woman he loved. He converted, and a wooden church was built in York for his christening. It was 627 AD, and York’s first Minster had been completed.

“Nobody is quite sure where it was,” Jim says. “But it was most likely on the site of St Michael-le-Belfry.”

Ethelburga would, no doubt, have been thrilled if she could have lived to see the magnificent cathedral that was one day to rise from almost the same spot.

Especially if she was lucky enough to find a taxi driver who could tell her all about it.

Tourists get their queries answered

Visit York will be running two more training courses for taxi drivers on Monday. One starts at 9am and one – because some taxi drivers work nights, and cannot get up that early – starts at 1pm.

Each course lasts about three hours, and aims to equip taxi drivers with some basic knowledge of the city so that they can answer passengers questions and tell them a little about the history.

The courses, above the Visitor Information Centre at 1 Museum Street, are free, and open to all taxi drivers – and they don’t even need to book, says Sue Frumin, Visit York’s business engagement manager. “Just turn up,” Sue said.

There has been some great feedback from the three courses – plus a separate one for York Pullman drivers – that have already been run, Sue said. And they will make a difference to the way York is viewed by visitors.

“Taxi drivers are often the first person a visitor meets when they arrive in the city. The welcome and information they receive is vital to forming their impressions of the city. It is all about quality.”