The Last Linslade Bobby. Chapter Two.

This biography is in ten chapters, published individually due to the ABCTales limit of 2500 words. You need to rear chapter one first!

 

Chapter
Two.

An
Olde Copper.

 

(If you are only interested in the Linslade stories,
skip forward to Chapter Four.)

 

I handed in my resignation to the Civil Service and was
awarded one months pension! I was not sad to leave RAF Halton, it was
running down anyway due to RAF Cosford being built up to take all
Technical Training as the RAF shrank; Halton would remain just as an
Apprentice Training College. Even the massive hospital and the dental
labs there eventually closed. The RAF was shrinking. In those days I
ran a little Morris Minor, it was a 1956 soft top 'convertible'. The
'Morris 1000' did not arrive until mid-1956 when the engine from the
Austin A35, of 948cc, was used, though many call the previous similar
cars all 'Morris 1000'. Mine was tuned with a 1275cc Morris Marina
engine and it would top over 80mph easily. Its original 803cc engine
I had scrapped and a visit to the Frenches Avenue Council scrap-yard
in Dunstable unearthed a good Marian engine for £35. I had was not
an RAF Technician for nothing. I travelled to and from Ashford in
Kent (not the other Ashford) in this car, along with another trainee
constable who lived in Linslade. Alas he was eventually dismissed
from the Force for trying to pass a forged £50 note in the Luton
Police Station canteen. I ask you, what a stupid place to try that
on; so I will not mention his name. He never offered me a penny
towards the cost of the petrol.

 

So
on Tuesday 31st May 1988 at 9am I reported to Kempston HQ to be issued with my
uniform and appointments, a posh word for things like handcuffs,
truncheons, etc. The first week was being lowered into the mire by
stages, preparing us for the Police Training College. One immediate
problem I had upon arriving at Ashford was that Bedfordshire officers
all wear white shirts. In all other forces constables and sergeants
wear blue shirts, only inspectors and above wear white shirts. For
the first few weeks youngsters kept saluting me simply because I
looked old and was in a white shirt. I would stick my tongue out at
them much to their horror. Most met me in the bar later and we had a
good laugh over it and eventually everyone knew the 'Old Boy with the
Grey Beard' was only a trainee like them. The average age of all
these boys and girls hoping to be future Chief Constables was just 25
and I inevitably became 'Dad'. I was twenty-two years older than the
youngest.

 

These young men and women had only just left the
comforts of home. Few had ever been away from their parents before
and suddenly they had to look after themselves. In my entry was an
ex-Army Sergeant in his early thirties from Hampshire Constabulary,
PC Phil Vaughan. The third chap in our room was 25 year old PC Alan
Andrews, ex-Royal Navy. So there was a Matlow, a Pongo and some Crab
Food in the room. Matlow is a Navy rating; a Pongo is an Army
serviceman; Crab Food is the name the Navy give the RAF as when they
are fished out of the sea dead, the crabs usually got there first.
Between us three the mickey-taking was voracious, the 'Extraction of
Urine' out of each service by the other is an ancient tradition. The
room was a 'four-man-room' and the poor 19 year old ex-forestry
worker, PC Peter Hart, was for the first few days full of fear we
were going to kill each other. Slowly he realised it was all in fun
but admitted he was quite frightened the first night. All four of us
were married with children.

 

Between us we taught no end of the trainees how to iron
a shirt, how to put a straight crease in a pair of trousers, how to
'bull' up their shoes to a high gloss and even how to make their bed
neatly. It was patently obvious quite a few had been a 'Mummy's Boy'
, their parent doing them no favours by seeing to their offspring's
every need. When it came to cleaning up the residential block some
could not even polish a floor properly. The first week on the parade
ground was hilarious to any ex-service people, there were
'tick-tock-men' everywhere; these are the people who when marching
swing their arms in the same direction with the leg on the same side
( try it, it is quite hard to do). Changing step on the march often
brought whole lines of officers to a halt and a pile-up. The one in
the front got it wrong and the rest just crashed into them! I was put
into 'C' Class with two Sergeant Trainers to look after us, Sgt.
Jeffery of Hampshire and Sgt. Hider of Hertfordshire. All the classes
were composed of mixed up forces so there was quite a selection of
different uniforms. My Bedfordshire one was not blue at all, it was
(and is) black with a white shirt. Others varied from dark blue to
navy blue to black blue. All other forces constables wore blue
shirts. As an ex-instructor I knew the system of teaching and that
there would be a remedial class for the slow learners where old exam
papers would be used. I took advantage of this most weekday evenings,
doing two papers a night until I knew the questions both ways. (I
wrote multi-choice-order-questions, mcoq, at Halton myself. One
answer is wrong, another almost correct, then a correct one and then
a correct one to another question. You chose one and put an 'X' on a
bit of paper against either a,b,c or d. The question can be used both
ways with the question leading, or the answer as the question.) On
the weekly one-and-a-half mile runs I consistently came third out of
the class. I was beaten by two county champions each time, PCs
Johnston and Moore, all under 21. I was not fast, I could just run on
and on forever. It is called stamina, from my record sheet you can
see I did the distance in just 9mins 49 seconds the first week, and
9min 27sec the last. I would tease Phil Vaughan as I would run ten
feet ahead of him all the way, then as he tried to race past me in
the last 200 yards I would sprint away well ahead of him. There would
be an explosion of obscene language behind me as he could not catch
me.

 

How ever, I did not get it all my way as I am a useless
swimmer. To pass out one had to get the 'Police Life Saving
Certificate' and I really struggled to 'save' a rather large chap
from drowning. As we crossed the pool with me thrashing away, we
sank! I was later told it was because 'my man' had a high muscle
content to his body, so was extra heavy. I scraped through,
literally. Because we were a big entry from Bedfordshire, then the
third-smallest Force in the country, we were split up. I went to
Ashford with PC Martin Pennell, PC Pete Fergusson, PC Alan Poultney
and PC Pete Thomas.

 

(The picture of the training school tests has been
removed.)

 

The test sheet shows that I did 37 press ups on the
first day, but only 40 on the last. Similarly I did 40 sit ups then
39. I was already at the peak of my fitness upon arrival. In the
first column I have written in pencil the ages of my course
companions. Steve Vaughan is the ex Army Sgt. Flexibility is not
often good on anyone over forty, so I only improved a little. WPCs
Ramsden and Taylor were young girls.

 

Once we had been educated on things like PACE ( Police
and Criminal Evidence Act 1984), General Duties, Search Warrants,
Prisoners Rights, ID Parades, Body and Premises Searches,
Arrestable and Serious Offences, Rules of Evidence, Trade Disputes,
Discipline Code, Fingerprints, Powers of Arrest, Traffic Law,
Prohibited Articles, Public Order Act, Vagrancy Act and a mass of
other police duties we took the exam. I got the second highest mark
of our entry of 112 students; I gained 92% only beaten by a WPC who
already had a Degree in Law with 96%. This led my two Sergeants to
embarrass me by putting my name forward for the Baton of Honour.
Luckily it went to that WPC as I hate any form of being picked out
like that. The whole training set up was based on a military system
but with much more lax control and more trust and freedom given to
the students.

 

On
the 6th of October 1988 I reported to the Leighton Buzzard Police Station in
Hockliffe Road. Unlike today it had a full compliment of offices and
officers with a Magistrate Court at the front. There were four
'sections' of patrol officers who drove panda cars, four to a shift
with a Sgt. Each. There were five Local Beat Officers with their Sgt
and a CID office with four Detective Constables and a Det. Sgt. There
was a Front Office staff of four, two of whom were Constables, needed
to cover three 24 hour shifts, seven days a week; a CID Admin staff
of two typists and the one and only Joan Lambert OBE, once met never
forgotten. Joan almost ran the place I was soon to discover. As well
as all the above, there was a Schools Liaison Officer, PC Taff
Godsell; a Crime Prevention Officer, PC Dave Rawlings; a Local
Intelligence Officer, PC Ray Wootton; PC Billy Drew as a Local
Homewatch & PR man, and added to that two Traffic Wardens, Fay
Barrett and Diedre Elliot. Hidden in the bowels of the old
Inspectors House was the Scenes of Crime department with a SOCO, Pete
Sowery and an assistant Mike Leech. In charge of all these employees
was Inspector Dave Biles. Just count up that list and compare it to
the crew not there now in 2012. In addition to the Patrol officers on
the four shifts required to cover a 24hour, 7 day a week rota, there
was a 'Probationer' on each. Arriving from training I was put with PC
Steve Wilkinson on 'C' Section and Martin Pennell went with PC Nev
Johnson on 'D' Section.

 

How do I remember all these names you ask? I cheated and
used old photos of the course and a list I made up years ago of LBPS
staff when I could remember them. The total man/woman power of LBPS
(Leighton Buzzard Police Station) was, in 1988, one Inspector, six
Sgts, four Det Constables, thirty constables, two traffic wardens,
and nine civilians. The civvy I forgot was Diesel Dick who looked
after the Police Transport and who got his name from filling up the
CID car with diesel when it was a petrol one! Back then the station
had its very own diesel fuel tank under the rear car-park. Dick
retired in my first year to be replaced by Barry Gazeley. If I
mention all these people they might buy a copy of the book! Other
names some of you will certainly know will be PC Dave Knoakes who was
the Town Centre Bobby for years when the town centre had its own beat
area. PC Ian Dedman was the Heath and Reach LBO and PC Allan Mills
the Linslade Bobby. There was quite a set of characters who were the
Section Sergeants, the RBOs had PS Ted Bowman, (LBO and RBO are the
same thing) those who I remember were PS Graham Caves who was for a
very short time my 'C' Section supervisor. He was replaced within the
year by PS Bob Jack from Luton who was very close to retirement. 'A'
Section had the well known even today, PS Jim Fergusson. The one whom
all probationers feared was Ted Bowman, a big Geordy, ex-coal miner.
I was a 'probationer', the name given to a constable in their first
two years until 'confirmed' in the rank.

 

Sadly I heard through the force grape-vine that the lady
school teacher who joined with me had resigned due to the way she was
treated by young officers at Luton. This I'm sure was down to poor
supervision and possibly her not understanding the humour of coppers;
not unlike the services. The only hassle I had was from those who did
not know me, as mentioned later in the story.

 

(Picture of me as a trainee copper removed.)

 

 

A tale I must add, as it underlines the ageism of then
and now. During the training at Ashford, we did PT, physical
instruction. On many things we did I was obviously going to be the
slowest or weakest due to my age, or so the instructors thought. They
were in their early thirties and all sergeants. One or two looked at
me a bit sideways, not sure what to make of an 'OAP' being there at
all. The first thing that startled them was my ability and stamina to
run for ages. I was up in the top 10% of the whole entry with my 1.5
mile running times. One day we were to don boxing gloves and spend
just 90 seconds in the ring. This included the girls but obviously
they were to spar with each other. Then there was me. The group of
instructors had a little conference then the Bedfordshire Sgt
instructor approached me and quietly told me that I need not take
part if I did not want to. I never found out if this was designed to
rile me or not. The idea that I would step aside from any fight
really got my blood pressure up and I told him I would certainly be
taking part. Into that ring went pairs of young coppers, each pair
about the same build and strength. Then it came to my turn, I was
paired with a lad from the City of London Police. He was a nice lad,
a bit timid and the same size and weight as me. I had noticed that
those who went straight in with their fists (limited to the upper
body only, not below the waist or above the neck) and got stuck in
first, usually won. This was because the other was put on the defence
straight away. So when the bell went, I went for this poor
unsuspecting lad like a rocket. I belted him from this week into next
for the whole 90 seconds. All he did was run backwards trying to
block my punches. Alas the rest had all begun to cheer me on as I
gave this chap a really rough time. Had I not been told I need not do
it and had just gone into the ring 'cold' so to speak, we would
probably have just tapped each other a few times, but I had a point
to prove.

 

The lad was very upset, he could not understand why I
had attacked him so hard. The instructors were grinning (which is why
I still wonder if I was set up) and my arm was raised as the winner.
The lad whom I had 'beaten' was 23 years old. 90 seconds is just one
and a half minutes, but it was totally exhausting for everyone. One
Sgt reminded us that was why it was best to let a fight in a pub tire
out the combatants first, unless life was at risk, before going in to
stop it.

 

That evening in the bar the lad who I had sparred with
looked very down in the mouth. So I sat next to him and convinced him
that I had no hard feelings for him at all, it would not have
mattered who was in that ring with me, they were going to get my all.
I told him of the offer to let me off the fight due to my age,
something no man's ego would ever permit. I was angry and I was sure
I had been set up as a test. Other course members came and sat with
us, we all brought him his beer for the evening and by the time the
duty sergeant closed the bar at 10.30pm, we were all (rather drunk)
friends again. WPC Ambridge, a superb swimmer, told me later she had
thought I was going to kill the poor lad.