Police Memories

by Bill Williams

  An only child, probably spoiled, from a backwater-mining village as far away now as the fictitious “The Land of Nod” he thought.

  There was a large notice just inside the front gate; it had a dark blue background, white lettering announcing, Police Training Centre Ridley. Someone had written underneath, presumably a vandal or disgruntled recruit but left then by the staff as a pre warning to new arrivals, it read,

  “Abandon Hope All Ye Who Enter Here.”

  The four new arrivals made their way towards and eventually arrived at the main administration building. The room contained numerous other people mostly men but a few women. In their turn all approached the counter giving their names, collar number and originating force to one of the four young men attired in police uniform and seated on the other side writing down the details supplied to them.

  There were two older men standing in the room but at the side, one, from the Chevrons, “Buttons” on his shoulders was an Inspector the other bearing three stripes on each arm a Sergeant.

  Neither spoke to anyone simply remaining standing, not quite but almost to attention.

  Each arriving officer having signed in was allocated a “Hut letter” and given directions.

  Claude eventually arrived and having supplied the information requested was then told.

  “Hut D room 6, go out of the front door turn left, follow the road, at the top turn left you will see your billet clearly marked, next.”

  He did as directed so did a steady stream of other young men; there were only isolated numbers of females who disappeared across the road in the opposite direction and out of sight.

  Once outside the door of the main entrance building he had walked about 20 paces when he passed the end of a building, the same as the others he had seen from the bus but this one was newly painted, there was a flag pole outside, the door had an ominous sign upon it.

  “Drill Sergeant.”

  Passing this building and its ominous sign Claude was reminded of the various Hollywood films he had seen over many years and then thought of the bus driver, the cutthroat sign and the good luck wishes.

  He was a country boy, had seen nothing nor really been anywhere save on school holiday. He had just missed National Service in one or other of the armed forces and began to have the jitters of what lay ahead.

  He consoled himself he had in fact not joined the armed services but the civilian police, it therefore couldn’t be as bad as the guys being put through it on the films had experienced when reporting for National Service.

  He and one of the group he had journeyed with arrived at hut D, entering the building, the new arrivals found themselves in a long corridor seemingly a mile long with rooms on either side.

  Room 6 was clearly marked. He stopped looked inside it was about nine feet long eight feet wide, basically furnished with single a bed along one wall, a small chest of drawers, wardrobe and finally a metal waste bin.

  Claude looked outside and on seeing his fellow new arrival unpacking he did likewise. Once done it was time for a walk along the corridor. As he travelled the route he stopped at one open door on seeing a man, rather old he thought looking back the man must have been all of 30 years of age. He was sitting on his bed; he had a black boot in his hand. He held a soft cloth in his other hand and was doing a very strange set of movements, at least strange to Claude.

  The man was spitting on the toe cap of his boot, then dipping the finger over which was a cloth into a tin of black shoe polish he was then making circular movements over the boot toe cap. Claude walked on and decided to go for a breath of fresh air.

  There wasn’t much to see just a mass of huts no different he thought than an army camp must be like.

  He returned inside and to his surprise the boot polishing man was still carrying out the same operation, at least another half an hour thought Claude.

  The man finally and gently wiped the soft cloth over the polished area Claude could see that portion really shined, certainly against the remaining and unpolished portion of the boot.

  Claude stopped and said “Hello.”

  The man replied, “Hello, my name is Ron and yours?”

  “Claude,” came the reply,” then added “nice boots.”

  “Been in the forces,” said Ron.

  “No” replied Claude, and asked “have you?”

  “I have done ten years in the army, you will need to clean your boots as you saw me doing they call it, “Bulling your boots as it is Bullshit.”

  “Whilst you are here you will find bullshit everywhere all day every day, better get used to it. Ask me if you want me to show you how, by the way do you press your trousers,” said Ron and smiled.

  “I have never done either,” replied Claude, mother always did the shoe cleaning and ironing but I have never seen boots done like that.”

  “You will have to here if you want a quiet life, if you get stuck I will show you.”

  “Thank you,” replied Claude; he turned, went to his room and closed the door.”

  He looked around taking a closer look at the interior of his room. He noticed yet another strange thing, the bed was not made ready for sleeping but at the top there was a neatly stacked set of linen. The bed cover had been wrapped around the remaining items a closer look revealed they were in a specific order, one blanket, one sheet, one blanket one sheet, bed cover wrapped around then the bundle neatly laid on a pillow.

  He dismantled the items and made the bed as mother always did. A closer look revealed no toilet or washbasin. He recalled the room he had seen at the top of the corridor, time for a further look he thought. He left his room and eventually arrived at the far end on the said corridor.

  His next view was a sign which read, “Ablutions” he had never seen such a sign or visited any ablutions, he slowly entered and saw a long line of wash basins, on one wall, a row of showers on the other, both of which were open and offered no privacy. Finally he saw six doors, two of which were open and he could clearly see they were toilets and adjacent to them was a long white wall and a gutter obviously clearly a urinal about 6 feet wide. This realised Claude was what the sign “Ablutions” meant and all were communal.

  He used the urinal washed his hands there being no towel he used some toilet paper from one of the rolls in the compartment and made his way back to his room. The hut eventually filled and there was a buzz of gossiping young men. The gist of conversation was the process of getting to know each other.

  Exchanging names and from what Police Force they had originated and there were several, everyone eventually came to know each other.

  Suddenly the entrance door opened and a uniformed police sergeant entered and bellowed at the top of his voice.

  “This hut, attention. I am Sergeant Jason Guest, I am the duty officer. You will by now have seen your billets, in particular your boxed blankets. You will sleep at 11pm, it being lights out; you rise at 7am, immediately box your blankets as you found them. Then wash, shave and dress in full uniform. Make your way to the main building where you arrived today. Then parade for breakfast, prompt, at 8am. This will be followed by muster parade. As you are new here watch the remaining officers, do what they do. I suggest you now go lights out and get some sleep.”

  He was gone as suddenly as he had appeared.

  Claude did just that, he undressed and was soon in bed, with lights out he wondered, heavens, had he done the correct thing entering this unknown world so far away from all he had known so far away, not only in distance but way of life? Those such as Ron he thought “Ex army would be well used to the system, but him, oh dear.”

  His worries did not interfere with his sleep for, before he knew it he was awakened by the sounds of voices, banging doors and people generally moving around.

  He rose and whilst half asleep made strenuous efforts to fold and box the blankets, he did his best but they didn’t seem quite the same, as when he had found them, still they were tidy he thought that was the main thing.

  He walked
up to and entered the new world of the mass ablution of bodies. On opening the door there were men at every facility, first the urinal and or toilet followed by the washbasin or shower.

  The room was soon full of steam and voices some explicit language as the soap was dropped or worse a cut face as the shaving victims arm was pushed by a passing shoulder heading for the toilet compartment.

  “One thing” thought Claude “It will be a long thirteen weeks of this, if, I can stay the course.”

  All things pass and it seemed not so long at the end of the stressful start to the day that he was making his way with his neighbours towards the main administration building. He had another surprise in store, the sign at the top of the road, which repeated about every 20 yards.

  “RESTRICTED ENTRY POLICEWOMEN, ONLY.”

  Arriving at the entrance to the main building there was an arrow signed “Dining Room.” There was a long line of eagerly waiting diners but again thought Claude I will get there and in the end he did.

  The room was massive and accommodating long tables with as many as twelve persons seated at each one. Claude was finally seated at one and awaited developments. The room was filled with conversations from all angles and directions. Claude thought it was strange, no one was attempting to obtain food or in fact eating anything.

  His question was about to be answered with the loud ringing a bell, which caused the room to become completely silent.

  A loud voice called, “Stand please,” the occupants reacted immediately and there was a mass of standing hungry souls, most of whom had not consumed anything since breakfast or lunchtime the previous day well over twelve to 18 hours, depending on the distance from where the attendees had travelled.

  The room in silence Claude looked to the far end where there was a very long and well-laid table at right angles to those on the main floor. It was soon fully occupied with uniformed police officers and without any knowledge of the “Higher Ranks” of the Police Service, he could see they were all of senior rank to those standing before them.

  There was another loud call; a voice said, “Grace.”

  A moments silence was broken when the same voice spoken again.

  “For Good food and Good fellowship.”

  Another brief silence was broken with the word

  “Amen.”

  Finally the same voice spoke the magic words

  “You may now eat.”

  Claude saw several ladies arrive from the area of the kitchen, taking food to the top table. There was no mass rush from the minions in spite of the obvious hunger of “The wooden tops” as uniformed police officers were later to be called by their detective counterparts.

  On the contrary a senior officer obviously on “Kitchen Police duty” indicated to each table in turn to stand and collect their food.

  When eventually the duty officer indicated to Claude’s table their time had come they rose and on arriving at the serving area, there was a wide selection of cereals and all the makings of a cooked breakfast.

  Walking along the line Claude and his counter parts were finally seated.

  As always there was one dissenter, who set about moaning about the food. After some moments, Ron the ex military man spoke to him

  “I say, where is your cream cake?”

  “They didn’t give me one,” said the moaner.

  “We all had one, when we arrived in just before you came in, if I were you I should go and demand one, look she is about to close.”

  The moaning mini stood left his seat and went to the serving hatch and was clearly remonstrating with lady still unfortunate enough to be there.

  Eventually Mr Cribber returned to the table and sat down. He looked at the sniggering faces, some with heads down. Eventually he “cottoned on.” Looking down at his plate he saw it was empty. Ron had shared out his meal his plate was barren.

  The Mr Moaning Mini looked down aghast; Ron broke the silence and said, “Looks like you’re moaning didn’t do you much good.”

  “This is like the army get on with it, if you don’t want it; there is always some bugger who does.”

  The moaner and to be frank the remainder of the diners never did moan again and got on with it.

  The proceedings were eventually interrupted once again with the loud ringing of the bell. All eating stopped the whole room stood to attention; the senior ranks at the top table left the room.

  When they had gone, proceedings finished and all participants followed suite and left the room hungry or not your time had come and gone.

  This procedure would be the norm for all sessions in the dining room for the whole forth coming 13 weeks.

  Having left the dining room, his meal finished it was it appeared irrelevant what state of hunger a minion was in as the top table was done that was it.

  Claude and his comrades walked outside and saw a large column of uniformed police officers mostly men with a scattering of women officers here and there. They were lined up in columns of three and appeared to be in groups of 20 or 30.

  Claude noticed on this his second day he had not seen a single person of colour, black, brown or yellow. The reason was simple there were none? This situation would remain unchanged for him for the next 30 years as unimaginable as it may now appear to the reader.

  It would transpire that there were four courses each course given a number and then divided into classes A, B, C.

  Standing and not knowing what to do the new arrivals waited eventually a Sergeant arrived and called them together telling them they were 385 Course. He then called out names for each class. Claude’s was allocated membership of class A.

  The course and class being positioned at the rear of the parade were organised by the sergeant when three other obviously experienced officers arrived, an Inspector and two Sergeants. Claude’s instructor was an Inspector. They stood at the side of their respective classes said nothing but were obviously prepared for action.

  Suddenly there was loud music, Colonel Bogey no less. A loud voice from the front called, “Parade, parade attention.”

  There was little reaction from those in Claude’s group save from Ron, the ex soldier, all looked at him and made a vain attempt to follow suit, standing rigidly upright.

  The music continued and eventually following the lead of the advanced classes Claude and his comrades marched forward, not necessarily in step.

  Claude was taken back to his child hood, his father the drummer in Hafod Miners silver band, the “Big drummer,” had often taken Claude with him to events especially Armistice day parades, he had marched by his father then and so tried his best today.

  The music choice was fine but the quality of the screeching loudspeaker was abysmal worse thought Claude than an old wind up gramophone from the 1920s.

  Arriving on the parade ground situated in front of the main administration building Claude and his fellows saw the other and well advance officers turning and after coming to a halt stood still lined up in ranks of three, just the same, thought Claude, as they did on trooping the colour.

  He and his course were, not to put a finer point on it rubbish but did their, best. Mercifully no one said or did anything about it, they were there in full view but ignored. Strange thought Claude but there again things may change, he was to be proved correct.

  When all was settled a loud voice called “Attention” and everyone present stood up and still.

  It was now possible to identify the author of the mystery but loud voice.

  A uniformed sergeant at least six feet tall, if not taller, armed with a stick, a cap with its peak slashed so that it just about covered his eyes came marching across the parade ground. He stopped turned to face the administration building standing to attention he looked to his front, the following took place.

  “Parade, parade turn to the left in threes, left turn.”

  The whole parade did just that most in exact timing with each other except for 385 course.

  “Parade open order, open order, March” W
as the next command.

  With that the front rank (line) of each class took one pace forward. The rear rank took one step backwards, the centre rank remained still.

  The next call was “Take your dressing from the right.”

  All classes turned their heads to the right held out their right arm rigidly straight at should height to get the correct distance and then shuffled until the lines were straight.

  “Eyes front,” was the next command.

  They then all turned their heads to the front replacing their right arms by their sides.

  The shambles of course 385 course did what they could to comply.

  At that point a senior officer arrived on the parade ground from the main building. The sergeant and his stick marched forward; both stopped a matter on inches from each other.

  The sergeant saluted, the senior officer returned this, and they turned.

  The sergeant made another command.

  “Course 383 class “B” and the entire 385 course stand fast, the remainder be prepared to dismiss.

  The next order, “Dismiss.”

  With that the dreadful music commenced, it was now Liberty bell and the remainder of the parade marched away.

  Claude and his comrades wondered however they would get on now, all was to be revealed.

  The sergeant and the senior officer walked over to the other class that had been ordered to remain, “Stand fast.”

  The officer walked along the front and rear of the three lines making his inspection. The sergeant making occasional notes as they stopped at individual officers. When done the senior officer and sergeant saluted each other. The senior officer then, marched away and into the building.

  The remaining recruits including those of 385 course were then marched away to the same dreadful playing of the wonderful tune liberty Bell.

  The parade over, Claude’s and his colleagues were directed to another room in which they were seated alone for some moments.

  Three police officers arrived an Inspector and two Sergeants, the same as had stood by the class at the start of the parade.