Anyone who’s followed the late Michael Apted’s Up documentaries knows that becoming a London cab driver is no mean feat. Tony Walker, one of the series’ most memorable participants, was selected at the age of seven from an East End primary school, already distinguished as a character by his energetic manner, classic cockney accent, and enthusiastically expressed ambition to become a jockey. By 21 Up, however, he’d got off the horse and into a taxicab — or was aiming to do so, having immersed himself in the studies required for the necessary licensing exams. For many non-British viewers, this constituted an introduction to what’s known as “the Knowledge,” the formidable testing process licensed London taxicab drivers have undergone since 1865.

The Great Big Story video at the top of the post provides an introduction to this “insanely hard test,” which demands the memorization of 320 routes around London, involving 25,000 streets and roads, within a six-mile radius of Trafalgar Square. “Its rigors have been likened to those required to earn a degree in law or medicine,” writes Jody Rosen in a 2014 New York Time Style Magazine piece on the Knowledge.

Based in Seoul, Colin Marshall writes and broadcasts on cities, language, and culture. His projects include the Substack newsletter Books on Cities and the book The Stateless City: a Walk through 21st-Century Los Angeles. Follow him on Twitter at @colinmarshall or on Facebook.

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