The Last Linslade Bobby. Chapter Three.

You need to read chapters one and two first, this biography is in ten chapters published individually due to ABCTales' limit of 2500 words each.

Chapter
Three.

Three
years later.

I've
deliberately left out the two years I was driving a panda around this
area, the book would be far too long and I have called it 'The
Last Linslade Bobby'!

Every new constable use to have to go through a two-year
probation period. This is to sort out the wheat from the chaff. No
interview is good enough to spot any character flaws that might
appear later and the odd one or two would be asked to resign, or if
there was a bad incident, dishonorably thrown out. I had gone through
my training with five others, but only two of us came to the Leighton
Buzzard 'nick (cockney word for a police station). PC Martin Pennell
was the other officer and again he was no youngster, having a wife
and children as well. I was tutored by PC Steve Wilkinson and Martin
followed PC Nev Johnson about learning his new trade. Once deemed
capable of doing the correct paperwork after ten weeks (and there was
tons and tons of that to complete for everything), we both began by
doing foot patrol (on separate shifts) in the High Street under the
watchful eye of the Town Centre Bobby, PC Dave Knoakes. Following
that we were given police car driving courses quite early, and this
was very intense as one has to 'talk' the job to the instructor as
one drives. This is a very good way of making anyone concentrate on
their driving. The course was three weeks long and equivalent to any
Advance Driving Licence stuff, including fast response. By then we
were let loose out in a Panda car on our own, quite a strange feeling
at first but you very soon found out it was really hard work. You did
an eight hour shift and went from job to job to job, getting very
little time between completing one crime report before you were off
to the next. This forced you to put the crimes in order of being
solved. Many were filed NFA straight away as there were no witnesses
or other evidence. Others needed some follow up, but serious crimes
went to CID such as robberies, burglaries of peoples homes and very
serious assaults. Road accidents were rife and HQ often had to tell
drivers that if it was a 'damage only' accident, then the Police were
not really interested. The two parties were told to swap insurance
details , names and addresses. Luckily, for the poor busy patrol
officer, most areas had a Local Beat Officer (LBO) who could follow
up quite a few enquiries for them. One of these was the door to door
enquiries for CID for any 'Burglary Dwellings'.

Busy we were and trying to get files to the Prosecution
Department (this is years before the CPS- Criminal Protection Society
as we dubbed it, existed) at Luton meant that many were written up on
night shifts, in Panda cars, parked up in some layby or industrial
estate. My handwriting was never very good and writing up files at
3am by a panda interior light did not improve it. Once or twice I had
comments made in court about the difficulty of reading a statement,
so I always made the point that unlike the defence or prosecuting
council, I had no warm office or desk and I had to do my writing
sitting in a car at 3am. All I got in reply was mutterings. Being a
more mature copper such people did not frighten me. Back in the late
1980s and early 90s we worked a shift pattern of earlies, 6am to 2pm;
lates, 2pm to 10pm; and nights, 10pm to 6am. Once I was a LBO I
followed this pattern as best I could within the system, but the
nights were often reverted to lates. I hated nights.

One item I remember when I arrived at LBPS, (Leighton
Buzzard Police Station) concerened PC Jim Hoskins. He was as bald as
a coot, or so I thought. He was being treated for cancer and was
undergoing hospital treatment that made his hair fall out. Jim and I
hit it off straight away both being motorcycle fanatics. Jim did not
go out on patrol but carried out various station duties as he was
judged 'unfit' for the streets. He was basically working until he
could work no more. He did the station rosters, the annual leave plan
and similar admin jobs. One task he did was to take the oldest panda
car down to the High Street and park it there as a 'Police Presence'.
It had no radio in it and was awaiting return to Kempston Traffic
Dept to be sold off as a 'one-owner car'. Yes, one owner
'Bedfordshire Police', no mention of the fifty different drivers
caning it about the roads chasing criminals. It was an old Peugeot
306 diesel and worn out. The idea of its being used to 'fool' the
public was an attempt to make it appear there were more coppers about
then there really were. The late-shift would collect and drive it
back at 10pm at the end of their shift.

One day the late shift turned up to find the car parked
where it normally was, but with no wheels. It sat on piles of bricks
carefully placed under each axle and the wheel nuts all put back on
the studs. It was a prank by the town's teenage criminals telling us
they were well aware it was a dummy. Hidden behind the big gates into
the All Saints Church grave yard were four Peugeot wheels....No CCTV
back then to catch the little horrors, but you just had to laugh.
Being of an older generation than the sergeants at LBPS (other than
PS Ted Bowman who was just a couple of years my senior) it made me
wonder just how many honest, law abiding little old ladies had
patiently waited at that police car, assuming its driver would return
soon, who had had their purse 'lifted' in one of the local shops?