After a few minutes he said he would like to paint me in the nude and invited me to his Double Bay flat for a joint and a drink.īeing a bit partial (to painting) I accepted, thinking it was no big deal if he wanted to take off his clothes and make a painting of me. He told me he was bisexual, which meant nothing to me then. Little did I know then what was in store for me, a young Kiwi from a semi-rural background probably still smelling of sheep dags.Īround midnight at the Opera House I picked up a guy who said he was the pianist there. I paid an English chap at a dodgy school in the eastern suburbs $30 for the answers to the area-knowledge questions and within days was the proud holder of a NSW taxi licence. There was lots of work around but I opted to get a taxi licence because, being 20, the job sounded like fun.
It was the autumn of 1979 and I hadn't been in Sydney long. I told the bloke he was my first fare and, surprisingly, like so many others, he was only too happy to help with directions. 'Can you direct me?' was my tentative response. 'Take me to Central thanks, mate.' The words of my first customer, who hailed me at Todman and Anzac in Kensington, just metres from my taxi base. All in a night's work, says reformed cabbie Peter Bartlett.
