Ken Smith at Large

Every summer Glasgow taxi drivers perform the most heartwarming feat of charity.

LOOK at that clown driving a taxi: a pejorative statement uttered in Glasgow when the driver of a black hack performs an unexpected manoeuvre. But last week it was spoken by people with happier dispositions who were watching 150 taxis involved in a Glasgow institution that dates back to the war.

Every summer Glasgow taxi drivers, not the most charitable when you want to pull out in front of them, perform the most heartwarming feat of charity when they take up to 400 children with special needs on an outing to Troon.

It is always Troon. The first year, in 1945 when some drivers took children from Eastpark Home for a day out, they went to Saltcoats. But the next year they chose Troon, and got such a hearty welcome they’ve never been anywhere else since.

So if your holiday plans involve the Maldives, Bondi or Pattaya, Troon might sound dated and threadbare. But that just shows how threadbare your imagination is. The children on the Glasgow Taxi Outing exude excitement that the jaded among us can only envy.

The taxis are decorated and the smiling, yes smiling, taxi drivers are often in costume, laughing and joking with the kids. A massive 1000 balloons are released and the drivers snake their way through the city centre and out to the south side en route to Troon with bystanders waving and clapping.

A south sider tells us that when she was growing up in Newton Mearns she would stand at her gate waiting excitedly for the taxis, although that might say more about what passes for excitement in Newton Mearns.

For many of the children it is the highlight of the year. Adults often tell organisers they were on the trip when younger, and still remember it vividly.

It starts at Kelvin Way, where the taxis are judged on the best decorated. Now it’s great that all the taxi drivers involved are giving up a day’s earnings to take part, although those that have just six balloons tied to the back of their cab are perhaps not putting in the effort of others. This year there was a taxi made up as a dog, completely covered in fake fur with large ears, a nose and a tongue on the front.

There was a taxi with papier-mache figures on the roof of Mike and Sulley from the film Monsters, Inc. Thanks to my niece for explaining who they were. If they flew off on the M77 then some drivers behind would have a heartstopping moment.

And the drivers ... one was dressed as a burly policewoman in fishnets, thus maintaining the Glasgow pantomime tradition that the most unfeminine of men reach for women’s clothing when the occasion calls for it. There was a Mickey Mouse, but I suspect it would be a sacking offence if Mickey in Disneyland took his head off to have a fag. Another was a Tazmanian Devil and his taxi was festooned with matching brown balloons. Where do you even get brown balloons?

There was a scary white-faced Joker from the darker Batman films, who looked even more menacing when he started bursting the balloons on the front of his cab. However he wasn’t being sadistic, merely making sure he could see out the window. And yes, that drive to Troon can test some of the decorations.

Says organising committee member Stephen Lalley: “When you get to Troon you can wonder why a taxi is decorated with string, until you realise there were balloons attached to them when they set off.”

At Troon, local schoolchildren donned fancy dress to meet the convoy. There were bouncy castles, face painting, a ski slope with doughnut rings for the children to whizz down, Radio Clyde to get the kids dancing and singing, and vans of food and sweets which shops and supermarkets have donated.

The children wear wristbands to show they qualify for the sweets as it is not unknown for children not connected with the trip to line-up with innocent faces to claim the goodies. We have been unable to confirm the story that a wee Glasgow wummin seeing the taxis about to depart, threw her own kids in the back of a taxi and told them to make their way back to Maryhill after their day out.

So why do the taxi drivers do it? Mr Lalley is hesitant. Glasgow men never want to come across as do-gooders. But he says: “It is just one day for a taxi driver, but for the children it’s a lifetime of memories. It could be their one holiday of the year. Many are in wheelchairs and their parents might not have the transport to take them very far.”

But a taxi driver giving up a day’s earnings? Wasn’t there a story about the driver who would start his meter before a passenger got in and was nicknamed President Mitterand?

“I’d take a day off to play a round of golf,” says Mr Lalley, “so why not take a day off to see so many smiling faces and laughter.”

Anyway, the drivers have a good laugh too. Days afterwards, if a driver appears on a rank wearing a garish shirt, inevitably a driver will shout: “You’ve missed the outing to Troon. There’s no need for fancy dress today.”

Meanwhile helping in the background are the police who man the road junctions en route to ensure the taxis get through together. Taxi drivers not falling out with the police. It really is a special day in the Glasgow calendar.