The Last Linslade Bobby, Chapter Five Part Two.

Chapter Five Part Two......

In New Road there was once a Second-Hand shop owned by
another John. The chap who ran it made a living selling house
clearance items. You could do quite a good job furnishing a
newly-weds first home from John's stock, good enough until one could
afford better. I often popped in to chat to him, but we both knew he
had done time (been in prison) and sadly that he did not have much
time left. He had cancer, but bore it well and accepted his fate. I
always got a hot cup of tea and a long tirade of all the latest
regulations he had been bombarded with from the Health & Safety
crowd. The Regulations insisted that he had to cut off three-pin
plugs from leads from lamps, hoovers, radios and the like. He put
them in an old bowl and the lamp's purchaser was free to pick up a
plug if he wanted one. Utter stupidity as the purchaser went home and
refitted the plug. He did get caught out by having quite a stock of
decent three-seater settees that did not have the 'fire retardant
labels' the Regulations insisted upon. As the settees had been made
BEFORE such rules, of course they had none fitted. To get round being
prosecuted he donated them all to the Linslade Youth Club in Church
Road. I visited this club often and these settees were all round the
walls for the youths to relax upon.

The council would rent private property in the centre of
Linslade and put people into these houses who were not too fussy.
These people would often not pay any rent so would be evicted, and
upon leaving wreck the furniture. The landlord (another well know
chap to long term residents) would go and see 'John' and buy another
load of second-hand stuff to refurnish the rooms. I often wondered if
this landlord paid pennies for old stuff but charged new prices to
the council. John would not tell me, he just winked. Today the same
shop is Linslade Plumbing suppliers.

John did help me to catch a cycle thief. This lad had
hit on the idea of wheeling a bike from the cycle racks at the
railway station to John's shop, where he would sell it and get a
fiver. But when the lad appeared yet again with another bike every
few days John became suspicious. To 'steal' is a five year stretch
but to 'Handle Stolen Goods' is an eight year stretch. If you remove
the 'handlers' the thief has no where to get rid of his booty. John
suggested I be in New Road about 10am one day as this was the time
the lad knew the bike racks would be full and at least one would not
be locked. I caught the lad red-handed and as he had not got as far
as the shop, the lad never knew he had been 'grassed up' and ended up
with community service.

A mother was passing John's shop a week later and saw
her sons bike for sale. It had been stolen a week before so she
phoned the police from the shop. I attended and asked John for an
explanation. He described the lad who had sold him the bike in front
of this lady. She recognised her own son from his description, he had
sold it to get some cash but told his mother it had been stolen. She
had then put in a claim from her house insurance for its value. Being
honest she cancelled the claim and I got an admission of 'Deception'
from the lad as a DNP, ( 'detected but no proceedings', the mother,
insurance man and John were happy that he had learned his lesson and
saw no use in prosecuting). She also made her son earn the money to
buy his own bike back from John.

At that time I had no tea spot up around Derwent Road.
So I set about finding one. I had found the office of the chap who
looked after the 'private' housing estate land of Bideford Green. All
the residents pay an additional annual fee for this maintenance chap.
He looked after the street lighting, cleared the many footpaths, got
rid of scrap cars and his office was in the residents hall by the
shop at the end of Grassmere Way. I became popular with him when I
told him how to get rid of scrap cars legally. I told him to put an
advert in the local paper saying the car would be removed if not
claimed in 31 days (just over a month). If it was not the Bideford
Green Management would assume ownership and dispose of the vehicle.
In those days you could get £15 for a scrap car. This meant that
anyone who then claimed the car as theirs would have to go through a
civil court (costing them money) to prove ownership. No one ever did.
I did get him to tell me the registration numbers first just to check
they were not stolen and dumped, or of police interest.

The tea spot I almost got in Loyne Close was not what I
expected. I had a call that a window cleaner was being a bit short
with people who cancelled their contracts with him. This was simply
because he was so rude and bolshy. I caught him speeding in Derwent
Road one day and gave him a 'producer', a ticket to produce all his
driving documents within seven days at a police station of his
choice. Later it turned out he had no insurance and went to court. I
called on the lady who had made the complaint about him, but found
she was more interested in my uniform and 'made advances'. Bored
housewives come to mind. I left hurriedly and never went back. I was
a bit shocked as I am no oil painting and no youngster either. Such
incidents can raise complaints that are very difficult to disprove,
ones word against another. The window cleaner moved his business to
Milton Keynes so was out of my hair.

I would occasionally call in at Dillamores the funeral
Directors and get a hot mug of tea. I had to be careful as visiting,
grieving relatives did not want to bump into a uniformed copper when
there to see their lost loved one in the Chapel of Rest. Sadly I
would see my own son in there in a few years time, but that is
another story.

Dillamores did have a warehouse in New Road that I
visited a few times. There were two 1950s motorcycles in there, both
old Matchless models of the 1950s, a G9 500cc twin and a G80, a 500cc
single. Some time later I was just about to try to find out who owned
them and if they might be for sale when the building burnt down. It
is a block of flats now.

In Springfield Road the MENCAP charity purchased a house
where they were to put a number of locally born people who needed a
certain amount of care. Sadly, initially a few residents of the road
tried to get the purchased stopped, saying they did not want a
mad-house in their street. You cannot find a more law-abiding, quiet,
meek bunch of people that those from MENCAP. The NIMBY's were ignored
and the home set up, to later expand to include another house in
Leopold Road. I visited often to get a cup of tea and got to know all
of them. Age has dimmed my memory but I will never forget Allison,
Wendy or Christine. Christine was a clone of Mr. Mainwearing in Dads
Army and just as jolly; Wendy at that time was working in the new
Tesco staff canteen where my oppo PC Dave Knoakes, the town centre
beat officer, had developed his tea spot and he got a full, free,
breakfast each day. Dave was not a thin chap. Tesco is actually in
Linslade so in my beat area, but Dave being Dave, he had got in there
first and convinced them he was their local copper, mainly for the
access to their canteen. So I let him trespass as long as he took all
the shop-lifter arrests, which he did. Oddly, I still had Texas (now
a Homebase) as my area even though it was almost joined to Tesco. As
an aside, I had a lot of trouble with Texas, as they would detain
shoplifters BEFORE they had left the premisses. This negated any
'intent' to leave without paying so there were no offences. I
explained that up until they actually go outside the shop, all they
are guilty of is rearranging the stock, albeit into their pockets.
They complained that the offenders ran away and they had to chase
them to detain them. I agreed and said what more evidence does one
require for an 'intent not to pay'? Back to MENCAP; Allison is
someone you could never forget. She is a very well-built girl and
friendly. Once she offered to make me a cup of tea, but forgot that I
had asked for tea so made me a coffee...using gravy granules. She
never lived that down. Once, out in the High Street of Leighton I was
showing a new young WPC the area (she was younger than me anyway).
Walking up the footpath towards us was Allison who saw me and
gleefully ran up to me, hugged me because she was pleased to see me
and kissed me full on the lips. Now, this WPC had seen a very big
lady in her thirties lumber up to me unannounced, grab me and almost
lift me off the ground, then kiss me. When I explained the WPC fell
about laughing and wanted to know if I had this effect on all the
local women.

One of the head carers for Mencap lived in Orchard
Drive. She had not been there very long when she noticed one house
opposite her was often visited by young men. She became suspicious
and told me about this house. We both though that perhaps a lady of
the night had set up a business (there has to be two to make it a
brothel). Then the thefts from cars at the railway station car park
began to rocket. Cars were found stolen from the Aylesbury area
dumped in this car park as well, and another stolen from the same car
park would later be found abandoned in Aylesbury. I visited the
address in Orchard Drive and discovered the elderly lady occupant,
who had an even older and less able husband, had seen an advert for
bail hostels. For quite a good income she had let out two of her
bedrooms to the Aylesbury Courts (remember, Linslade is now in
Bedfordshire, not Buckinghamshire) for people who were denied their
home address as a bail address. This was for lads who had stolen from
their own family or families who had simply had enough and refused to
let their home be used as a bail hostel any more. So the Courts would
put them into an approved bail hostel where they would have a curfew.
This house in Orchard Drive was looking after some of the nastiest
young thieves that Aylesbury could muster. To get to the house they
stole a car from Aylesbury, to get back they stole another knowing
the first one would by now be on the Police National Computer as
stolen. I informed our own CID and the head office of the courts in
Luton. No way could this elderly couple control these type of
criminals, even though their age group was only eleven to sixteen.
The 'bail hostel' was closed down and Aylesbury told to keep their
criminals in their own area. There was CCTV of a sort in the railway
car park but these lads did not care, they had huge lists of car
thefts waiting to go to court, what did another one matter? I did get
a few 'detected crimes' from the new CCTV though, knowing full well
they would only be read out in court as 'TICs' (taken into
consideration offences) with no punishment. (The car park was not
BTPs area oddly enough.)

Continued....