Tom Fellows, London’s Oldest Cabbie

Click to book Here is Tom Fellows at eighty-six years old, squinting into the light with a half-smile that betrays a circumspect nature honed by a lifetime driving a cab around London. Tom has seen all that existence has to show and he presents himself to the camera with a diplomatic restraint that could equally be deference or suspicion. Tom is looking out at us and making his own assessment of the situation. I came upon ‘Old Tom’ in the pages of ‘London People’ by Rev F Howell Everson with photographs by William Whiffin among others, published in 1951 and, although this picture is uncredited, it makes sense that it is by Whiffin, the East End’s pre-eminent photographer of the first half of the twentieth century. “Hidden away in the vast anonymity of the little streets of the East End there are many interesting characters,” wrote the Rev, making a bold foray beyond his usual stomping ground of New Barnet Methodist Church, “including the oldest surviving horse-cab driver in London.”…

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