Скачать или смотреть A night in London's West End through the eyes of a Rickshaw rider: Friedel Schroder, Londoner

Friedel couldn't be happier in his job. He’s been a rickshaw rider, trainer, manager, mechanic, office boy and all-round dogsbody, and has loved it so much that he now owns his own rickshawing company. Friedel is dedicated to providing fun, friendly, emission-free transport for London, and is equally passionate about the employment opportunities that his company offers his riders. He shares with us his stories and experiences from riding through the streets of the city.

1000 LONDONERS

This film is part of 1000 Londoners, a five-year digital project which aims to create a digital portrait of a city through 1000 of the people who identify themselves with it. The profile contains a 3 minute film that gives an insight into the life of the Londoner, as well as their personal photos of London and some answers to crucial questions about their views on London life. Over the course of the project we aim to reveal as many facets of the capital as possible, seeing city life from 1000 points of view.

www.1000londoners.com
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www.facebook.com/1000londoners
Twitter: @1000_londoners

1000 Londoners is produced by South London based film production company and social enterprise, Chocolate Films. The filmmakers from Chocolate Films will be both producing the films and providing opportunities to young people and community groups to make their own short documentaries, which will contribute to the 1000 films. Visit www.chocolatefilms.com

Transcript:

The harder you work the more money you make. You've got three types of rickshaw riders: the fisherman, the explorer and the hunter. The fisherman will try to sit in places like Leicester Square, Covent Garden tube station, Soho. The explorer will just pretty much go anywhere that they happen to take a ride to, then you have the hunter, who's very specific, he'll stay pretty much around Old Compton Street, Shaftesbury Avenue and he's looking for a specific type of customer who is looking for unusual forms of entertainment and they're willing to pay anything for it. I'm basically a explorer. I've been in the rickshaw industry for 16 years, I would never have guessed that I would be here this long. I got here from the bottom up, first I was rickshaw rider, then I learned how to do the mechanics on the bikes and the designing and then I took over The Base. Our Base is controlled chaos for unusual characters. Rickshaws get brought here, dropped off and parked for the night and they get repaired. We also have company owners wait here to collect rent and storage of all sorts of things including people's push bikes. The rickshaw industry is a mixture between beggars and ghosts for some people, you sometimes certainly have that feeling when you're riding. It's very unusual for anyone to talk to a rickshaw rider unless they want a lift. The kind of people that normally are drawn to it are those who are quite open minded and sometimes those who have very little choice, so that's most of the time somebody like myself who's from another country who would come here and may not have the same opportunities because of either language or the kind of educational history that they can show. If you need a 9-5 job this isn't it. There are some dark sides you can come across people who will start abusing you. They have issues so they'll start shouting at you or hitting you whilst you're riding or take a very long lift with a guy in a suit and the guy is like 'oh I haven't got my wallet on me' and he goes into the hotel and he disappears. It can eat you up and destroy your night so normally you wash off those moments and just get on with life. You need to have a sense of humour and that's the best skill of a rickshaw rider. My first thought of rickshawing was this is fucking brilliant. I just couldn't believe how crazy it was. You realise that you're actually connected to the city in more than just you're here to earn a living.