by Harry Morris
A couple seeking a divorce were in court and the judge asked the wife, ‘What are the grounds?’
‘A detached cottage set in two acres with a stream running along the entire back garden,’ she answered.
‘No, I mean, what is the foundation?’ he asked her.
‘Concrete, m’lord. It’s built on concrete,’ she replied.
‘No!’ the judge said, sighing and getting agitated. ‘Tell me what your relations are like?’
‘Well, both my parents are alive and he has an uncle and a cousin who live nearby,’ she responded.
‘Let me put it another way. Do you have a grudge, madam?’ he asked.
‘No, m’lord. But we do have a double carport which can take three cars at a push.’
Finally, in total frustration, the judge asked her, ‘Madam, why exactly do you want a divorce?’
To which she innocently replied, ‘I don’t! It’s my husband! He reckons he can’t communicate with me any longer.’
Not in Jess
• • •
Tom Jess is a lovely fellow who, as well as being an active District Court justice of the peace, assumed the role of financial adviser to many serving police officers.
One day Tom strolled through to the front office of the Police Federation building with a dilemma requiring some urgent assistance.
It appears his niece and nephew were arriving from their home in England and Tom was, like all keen relatives, looking for somewhere nice to take them for something to eat.
Immediately, Margaret Dale the cleaner, who was more attuned to juvenile tastes, suggested, ‘Take them to McDonald’s, they’ll love it there!’
‘McDonald’s?’ Tom repeated. ‘Is the food there very good?’
‘Of course it is. Yer niece and nephew will love it, all weans love it,’ Margaret assured him.
‘OK then, Margaret, McDonald’s it is,’ Tom replied enthusiastically, before asking her in all innocence, ‘Now, will I need to phone up in advance and book a table?’
Smokey Was the Bandit!
• • •
Smokey was the nickname of a serving police officer on my shift, and, like a few of the younger officers, he acted aloof and tended to flaunt his position.
One evening, he decided to visit his friend who had recently joined the police and was at present serving his second-stage training at the Tulliallan Police College in Stirling.
Smokey decided to take him and several other police probationary students on a local pub crawl in Stirling in order to show off.
Over the next few hours, numerous rounds of drinks were purchased and consumed before it was time to return to their accommodation at the college, and for Smokey to make his way back to Glasgow.
Having split up and gone their separate ways, Smokey got behind the wheel of his car and headed off down the motorway, which was relatively free of traffic at this time.
However, after a short while, Smokey saw car headlights approach rapidly in his rear-view mirror and the driver flashed his headlights for Smokey to move over into the inside lane and allow him to overtake.
Smokey ignored him for a moment, so the following driver began to make hand signals, jerking his closed hand back and forth in front of his face.
‘So Ah’m a wanker, am I? Well, we’ll soon see aboot that, ya bastard.’
With an act of sheer defiance, Smokey reciprocated and began gesticulating back, sticking two fingers up to the car behind, before proceeding to accelerate even faster away from it.
This action only antagonised the driver in the rear car, who immediately did likewise and sped up after him in order to maintain a close pursuit of Smokey.
This continued for several miles, with the following car driver flashing his lights and Smokey continuing to ignore him to move over, as he gesticulated with his middle finger and veered from side to side, straddling the lanes, to prevent his pursuer from attempting to overtake him, as both vehicles were driven at high speed along the deserted motorway.
Unfortunately for Smokey, as he passed another access road, he failed to notice a marked police car join the motorway, and within a very short distance he was now being pursued with flashing blue lights and loud sirens, culminating in him having to pull over to the hard shoulder and stop, although his first thought was to try and outrun them.
It turned out that the pursuing car was also a police vehicle, and as a result of his drinking and driving, Smokey was apprehended and conveyed to Stirling police station.
At his court case, Smokey was found guilty and following his subsequent police discipline hearing, he was required to resign forthwith.
It’s just a pity Smokey took that one drink too many, or he might have realised the rear car driver was not making a rude gesture, but was in fact signalling him to put on his seat belt!
Knock It Off
• • •
A ned was stopped for a faulty rear light while driving his car in the Balornock area of Glasgow.
The officers, after pointing out the fault to the ned, administered a police warning for him to have the fault repaired and were about to leave the scene when the young ned, not the brightest planet in the universe, volunteered the following statement: ‘Thanks for that, mate. Ah thought yeese had stoaped me for displaying a knocked-off tax disc.’
Amicable Divorce
• • •
I read this article somewhere and just had to tell you about it.
A 93-year-old woman and her 94-year-old husband, who had recently celebrated their seventy-sixth wedding anniversary, contacted a solicitor and applied for a divorce.
The solicitor was slightly puzzled as to why, after living together for all these years and having raised a family together they should wish to separate now, so he asked them, ‘Why after all these years together do you want to get divorced?’
To which they replied, ‘We were going to do it sooner, but decided to wait until the kids were all dead.’
Bible John Theory
• • •
Several years ago, whilst a police motorcyclist, every morning I would appear at the rear of the Federation office, where my good friend Margaret Dale would make breakfast and we would sit and have a blether and a wee laugh between us.
Margaret got talking about how she believed she might have inadvertently saved some unsuspecting girls’ lives during the reign of terror sweeping Glasgow dance halls, in the wake of ‘Bible John’.
As a keen dancer, Margaret would frequent the Glasgow Barrowland dance hall, the scene of several of his victims’ last sightings and subsequent disappearances.
Margaret’s theory is that one night she actually danced with the suspect serial killer Bible John, so nicknamed because he would spout verses from the Bible, and while he was doing this she was repeatedly talking over him and not allowing him to get a word in.
As she said, ‘He would’ve had to strangle me to shut me up, so much so, Ah think I bored the arse aff him and he got that fed up listening that he upped and left. Alone! Coincidentally, the Bible John murders amazingly stopped after that night. Here, Harry! Maybe he went home that pissed aff, he strangled himself instead?’
Who knows Margaret? It just might be true!
It’s How You Say It!
• • •
A young Strathclyde police officer was attending his training course at the Scottish Police College in Tulliallan and decided to phone home to check on his wife and children.
Each in turn spoke with their policeman dad, but his six-year-old daughter seemed the most eager to get on to the phone and inform her dad of a recent incident she’d seen near to their house involving the police.
‘There were lots and lots of policemen, and police dogs and police cars and a helicopter, and they were all chasing after a car,’ she told him in her excitement. ‘Then the car crashed into a field and stopped, and the police car stopped, then the man got out of the car and ran away!’
‘Oh! That sounds really exciting. So what h
appened next?’ her dad asked.
‘Well, the big policeman that was chasing after him just stopped running and shouted, “Where the fuck do you think you’re going?”’ She paused for a moment after blurting this out, then said, ‘Is that what they’re teaching you, Daddy?’
I Beg Your Pardon
• • •
Sadly, I learned of the recent death of a former colleague of mine, Eddie Weldon.
I was fortunate to have worked alongside Eddie on several occasions and we enjoyed some good times, relating old police stories encountered during our respective services.
One such story he told me was this:
Earlier in his career, he was working a beat that housed a local hardman who terrorised everybody in the area.
Threatened by his reputation, nobody was prepared to complain about him to the police.
After taking up night-shift duty, Eddie and his partner Ronnie received a call regarding a disturbance in a public house in their area.
On their arrival, lo and behold, the disturbance was being caused by the aforesaid hardman.
Without the need for witnesses, Eddie and Ronnie apprehended him on what they had witnessed themselves.
A few months later, they both received citations to attend Govan Police Court to give evidence for the Crown against their accused hardman.
It was common knowledge that in the interim period the accused had made personal visits to the houses of some of the locals who had been present that night during the disturbance, to remind them that they had better not be attending the court to give evidence against him.
Ronnie was first in to give his evidence and after he was finished, he was about to sit down in the court when Eddie was called next.
As Eddie entered the courtroom, the accused looked around at him and stared as he was walking past.
Eddie immediately stopped and paused for a moment, before blurting out loudly, for all those present in the court to hear, ‘I beg your pardon! I am not and I resent you making such a remark.’
The accused looked on in amazement.
‘What is going on there? What’s happening?’ the magistrate enquired.
Eddie looked up at him and said with a straight face, ‘The accused just referred to me as a “fuckin’ wanker” as I was passing by him in the dock, m’lord.’
On hearing Eddie’s outburst, Ronnie immediately jumped to his feet and added, ‘That’s the truth, m’lord, I distinctly overheard him.’
The accused in the dock looked over at Eddie and Ronnie, then turned towards the magistrate, before looking back at them.
‘Did you call the officer that?’ the magistrate asked.
Without the slightest hesitation, the accused, who was looking on in bewilderment, responded with an outburst: ‘Did Ah fuck, ya bam! Ur ye aff yer heid or whit!’
‘Indeed I am not and you are in contempt of this court,’ the magistrate replied rather indignantly.
‘Aw, fuck right aff, ya auld diddy! This is jist a total set-up with the lot o’ ye,’ the accused shouted towards the bench.
Moments later, he had to be restrained as he proceeded to vent his anger at Eddie and Ronnie, who, for their part, stood impassively throughout the entire episode, with a look of innocence and total shock etched across their faces.
Oh, and he didn’t miss the magistrate either with his abusive outburst, before being conveyed from the court, struggling violently, to be detained in custody on a new charge of contempt of court!
He’s Definitely Dead!
• • •
While training at Tulliallan Police College, I had occasion to attend the funeral of an elderly relative.
On my return to the college I was approached by one of the kitchen staff, who had noticed my absence in the dining room.
‘Where were ye yesterday, Harry? I didnae see ye.’
I informed her I had been attending a funeral.
‘Did somebody die, like?’ she asked in all innocence.
To which I couldn’t resist saying, ‘Well, originally we thought he had, but at the crematorium he started banging on the coffin and shouting he was still alive, but by that time it was too late. The minister had signed all the necessary forms.’
I then left her with her eyes and mouth wide open.
The Place to Be!
• • •
This wee story was sent to me by an ex-colleague.
The boys on his shift were hosting a night for an older colleague who was retiring and at the end of the night the retiring cop, John Reilly, raised his whisky glass and jokingly proposed a toast: ‘Here’s to spending the next thirty years between the thighs of my lovely wife Rita!’
The following morning, he was sitting at the breakfast table with his wife and was saying how much he had missed her appearance at his retirement do.
‘You know fine well with my strong religious beliefs I don’t like to be in places where they sell strong alcoholic drinks and men swear and talk dirty,’ she replied.
‘Well,’ he said, ‘I proposed a toast to you at the end of the evening, where I said I looked forward to spending the next thirty years sitting beside you in the church.’
‘Oh, that was very nice of you, John,’ she replied.
Later the same day, Rita met one of John’s drinking buddies from the previous night, who couldn’t resist smiling and saying, ‘John gave a wonderful toast to you last night, Rita.’
‘So I believe,’ she replied. ‘I was a little surprised when he told me, because he’s only done it three times in the last five years. Once he fell asleep, once he took cramp getting down on his knees, and the last time I had to pull him by the ears just to make him come.’
Odd One Out
• • •
At the beginning of my involvement with a Scottish folk band, we had managed to secure a last minute Hogmanay gig up near Aviemore.
I didn’t have enough time with the band to secure any changes in appearance and stage plan, so I just went along with their present stage set-up.
Finding the location of the venue and getting there also proved a big problem, due to heavy snowfall covering the roads.
Once we were in the area, we came across a telephone box out in the middle of nowhere and used it to call our booking agent, who directed us along a snowbound, treacherous road for about another mile, where we were to look out for a village hall-type building, where he would be waiting, flashing the lights on and off to direct us in.
Eventually we saw the flashing lights and like moths we were attracted to this wooden barn-type building, adorned inside with colourful ceiling decorations, neatly laid-out tables and chairs and a large decorated Christmas tree up on one side of the stage.
The organiser assured us that the people would come.
We quickly set up our equipment and sorted out our sound check, prior to changing into our stage gear of colourful tartan kilts and tartan feileadh-mhors.
Ian, the lead vocalist, cheered us up by informing us that he had two bottles of single malt whisky in his bag, and was saving them for us all to drink and bring in the New Year.
Apparently his wife had bought them from an unknown man at the local market, who had sold them both to her for only £20, a price that an ecstatic Ian described as a ‘steal’.
This news boosted everyone for about five minutes, then we suffered another setback, when Rob announced that the black plastic bag he was carrying, and which he believed held his tartan stage gear, turned out to be a bag containing his family’s dirty washing.
As a result, by the time the audience had filtered in and we were about to take the stage, neatly attired in our colourful tartan stage gear, Rob took centre stage in a dreadfully crushed, bright-pink shell suit belonging to his wife.
‘Don’t worry, boss, nobody will notice!’ Rob said.
‘Nobody will notice? The entire blind population of Scotland couldnae fail to notice you!’
However, desperate times call for desperate measures, so we
took to the stage wearing dark glasses, to hide our embarrassment at Rob’s appearance, out front looking like Zippy from the childrens TV programme Rainbow, and began our performance, which, by all accounts, went reasonably well up until the next obstacle appeared, when we all stopped to celebrate and toast the bells of the New Year with our audience.
Ian grabbed one of his whisky bottles and opened it up to take the first slug from it as we all stood around in anticipation of our turn.
Glug, glug, glug! Suddenly his face changed and became distorted, as he swirled the amber liquid around his gums, before spraying the contents of his mouth all over us.
‘Bastard!’ he remarked before putting the bottle to his lips and having another slug to confirm it to his taste buds. ‘Bastard! It’s bloody cauld tea!’
He quickly grabbed hold of the other one and, just like the first, it contained cold Typhoo.
With disappointment looming amongst us, and an audience who were not prepared to share their drink with us, I decided to play on and get finished in time to get over to our B&B in order to maybe get an alcoholic drink from our host.
As the finale heated up and the excitement grew among us and our audience, we raised the tempo on stage for our big finish, which arrived unexpectedly prematurely.
Unfortunately, with all the jumping about and vibration going on in the hall, the very large Christmas tree to one side of us fell over – timber! – and went crashing off the stage and blootered several in the audience who had been dancing at the front.
As if that wasn’t bad enough, it also ripped out the decorative coloured lights and fused the entire hall … along with our sound system.
Not exactly the grand finish we had rehearsed, but I bet they won’t forget the last song – ‘I’ll Tell My Ma When I Get Home’!
So, out of a gig fee of £250, we had to pay our fuel expenses up there, £40; the hire of the PA sound system, £60; a bottle of Glen Orchy whisky, £24; and £48 towards the cost of our B&B accommodation, making a grand total of £172.