Taxi firm 'refused' to drive disabled pensioner because they said he was ‘TOO SMELLY’ A DISABLED pensioner claims a taxi service he was a loyal customer to refused to pick him up as he smelled too badly. GETTY/ CASCADEKeith Cronshaw, 76, has filed an official complaint after claiming he called for a cab only to be told they would not pick him up due to his odour. The widow, who recently had a leg amputated due to gangrene, was in his local pub when he asked the landlady to call Betty’s Coaches and Cars for him. Mr Cronshaw said he has consistently used the firm over the past 10 months with no problems. But his daughter Carol Pope, who was with him in the Walmsley Arms, Lancashire, said: “We asked the landlady to ring for a taxi to bring us home and she asked them to repeat what they said to me."They said none of the drivers would pick him up because he smells."The person on the phone said he could not get anyone."Until this happened, my dad had used the firm for 10 months and nothing was said."

They said none of the drivers would pick him up because he smells Mr Cronshaw had phoned for a car to take him to visit his late wife, Eunice, in hospital. Miss Pope said after her father developed gangrene and the hospital was forced to operate. Now confined to a wheelchair, his daughter continued: "They had to amputate above the knee. Amazing animals either born with a disability or disabled through injury. A comparison as a beautiful Leopard seems to have lost the end of her nose through injury "The pressure sore was from being sat in his chair while visiting my mum and the cream he uses does have a slight smell to it."This has had a massive impact on him, he didn't go out for two weeks."We were in the pub at the time shortly after my mum passed away and he started crying."CASCADEMr Cronshaw branded the company “disgraceful” and formally complained to Hyndburn Council, who issues taxi licenses in the borough.He said: "This is no way to treat their customers.

"It is like they have thrown a big hammer at me."The company, which has been operating for 35 year, is being investigated by the council, leader Cllr Miles Parkinson confirmed.GOOGLEBut bosses deny the accusation, instead saying a lack of staff was the reason no car was sent to pick him up. The managing director of Betty's Coaches and Cars, Gordon Kahn, said: "I was running the depo myself that evening and the service was refused due to a shortage of staff at that time of day."It is a concern to me that this has been said."We do not refuse any customer at any point."Enjoying the ghoulish puppetry of Bus King Theatre. Enjoying the ghoulish puppetry of Bus King Theatre. There’s a tiny gravedigger performing a cheeky tango with a rotten corpse. In a couple of minutes he’ll take a hot iron to the dumb stiffs jutting legs to try and flatten them out. Then he’ll go full psych and have a crack at sawing those legs off so he can stuff the body into a too small coffin. Disconcertingly, my kid is loving every minute of this.

We’re sitting in a slightly chilly Routemaster, red velvet curtains stretched across the windows, a miniature proscenium arch stage lit placed where the driver would have once sat. Tiny spotlights fill the bus with long shadows. This is the home of the Bus King Theatre, a puppet theatre that – on the afternoon we go anyway- is staying true to the spirit of classic British puppet shows by filling it’s performances with slapstick violence, Satanic characters, and a singular lack of moral fibre. jade curtains county road liverpool We’ve bought the wee man along to watch the Bus King Halloween special, and honestly, I was worried about how this was going to pan out. motorized blackout shades timerThe last puppet show we saw was a performance of Punch and Judy in London Fields that left Junior near traumatised (to be fair it was a pretty intense rendition of Punch; at one point the devil appeared to be bumming a vicar while Punch screamed in the background. lill pair of curtains white

It was no Wallace and Gromit), so there was every possibility that a Halloween puppet show was gonna result in all sorts of disaster. As it was, we all ended up having an amazing time. Despite Bus King delivering a show that featured scary devices including – in rough order – a spider, a ghost, a battered corpse, a snake, a cemetery wraith and a raging dinosaur, the boy howled in joy throughout. This was because (unlike the aforementioned Punch & Judy show that I can never un-see) Bus King are genuinely funny. argos eyelet blackout curtainsIn half an hour of show they pull together the kind of freewheeling, anarchic humour that kids crave, something like a Victorian puppet theatre performing a Tom & Jerry re-enactment.jysk curtains edmonton The story (as it was) of their Halloween show ran something like this; argos cream blackout curtains

a hapless, if likeable, French tramp is looking for a job, and a mean spirited French cemetery owner is looking for an employee. They meet, the bum gets the job, and then spends his first day trying to bury a corpse. All sorts of things go wrong. There’s no attempt to explain why most of the stuff happens. A random ghost comes to tuck the tramp into bed on the night before his first day at work, but from what I can tell, no kid’s in the audience are wondering why and how the ghost is there; kohls wisteria curtainsthey’re too busy shrieking at it. The puppets are beautifully made traditional looking things, although the company isn’t too pedantic about keeping everything in style – the dinosaur that appears at the end looks like a plastic toy they copped from Pound Stretcher. The bus itself is superbly atmospheric, an old skool Routemaster, it’s uneven walls papered willy-nilly with play bills from puppet shows of yesteryear.

Charmingly, everyone involved in the production seems just a little bit wonky as well. After the show we pay for a puppet making workshop that takes place on the top deck, and while we’re wrapping bits of pipecleaner around wooden spoons, the theatre usher/ workshop leader regales us with absent minded tales of the lives of her 8 cats. In short, Bus King Theatre are a treasure. Their website is strange and unwieldy, they only do one show a day at 2pmn sharp (ish), and you definitely have to phone to book tickets because online booking is entirely hit and miss. All of this is testimony to their entirely eccentric nature, a nature that manages to contain elements of seaside pier, travelling carnival, and dark evenings drawing in. what more could you want? They perform half hour plays that are raucous, weird and slightly spooky, and in an increasingly brand-message obsessed city, do so with a bimbling, relaxed charm that speaks of another life lived at a different pace. Bus King are currently based in Spitalfields, performing a show a day at 2pm - find out more over here