Arriving in the foyer the breakfast diners were in for a shock, there was a large banner outside and across the double front doors. Claude was gifted as a result of looking down upon his master’s desks over many years that he was able to read both upside down and back to front.
The notice had very large words which read, “Lock down, no entry, infected area, keep out.”
The immediate thoughts of those present, somewhat encouraged by Scouser Joe was that over night the dreaded plague had struck. Probably the first occasion since the Great Plague of London, hundreds of years previous.
The situation was made worse when looking through the windows into Matrons office she could be seen dressed in blue disposable overalls, gloves to the elbow and a face mask. After some moments she removed the mask giving some hope the crisis was over when all hopes of the onlookers were dashed when the mask was replaced by a full oxygen mask, with a bottle strapped to her back.
Charles appeared and placed an obviously home made notice on the outside of her door, which read. “This office is locked and strictly out of bounds, all contact by telephone only.”
Suddenly there was a crackle on the loud speaker this was followed by Miss Hailsham who had arrived in matron’s office via the same outside door, similarly attired but not yet with face mask.
“Attention, attention, you will no doubt have heard on the news that there is a nationwide outbreak of vomiting and diarrhoea. A resident is believed to have been struck down with this. As a result until the epidemic is over the home is closed to visitors and to those hoping to visit the town.”
Miss Hailsham having completed the broadcast put on her facemask and the two remained enclosed inside the office.
The residents turned and made their way into the dining room, enroute and within the room noticing none of the staff seemed to be similarly attired as Matron and her spying assistant but all others restricted their efforts to hand washing and disinfecting.
The staff reported that a man in the resident’s block had during the night suffered an attack of vomiting but had not had diarrhoea. Matron however as usual was over playing the incident, well that was according to Sally and Miss Ling who could be over heard discussing the situation.
Later in the day a local doctor, Chester Rogers was called. When he arrived at the main door, he stopped, looked at the notice and smiled. On entry he was noted looking into Matrons office and on seeing her fully attired the desk clerk reported that he said nothing but shook his head and walked away laughing. He apparently took samples from the offending sick resident and was gone.
The restrictions remained in force for some days then suddenly disappeared. Sally was over heard telling her relief that the tests were clear and enquiries proved there was no bug at all but the attack of vomiting was caused by a resident known only as Randy Andy who had consumed too much whisky brought in secretly by his old and dear friend Bungy.
Life back to normal it was time once again for Claude to cast his ageing mind back through time, ah yes he thought as he prepared to type.
Having been told his application for the rural station was successful, things soon moved. It was only two days later when the furniture van arrived, his furniture packed and he was gone.
The rural station was located within the area Ashton and so he knew the area well.
He was allocated a motorcycle with blue flashing light but no siren or two-tone horns. Not holding a full driving licence for motorcycles and the police not wishing an officer to be on patrol displaying “L” plates, an officer was sent to give him some instructions. This consisted of him being taken to an old airfield and shown the rudiments of motorcycle riding for an hour or so. The officer left and is reported to have commented on his return to Headquarters, “He will bloody kill himself."
Some days later he took the motor cycle test, which consisted of driving around Copton and being observed by an examiner on foot. During the test on a given route no such person was ever viewed but on Claude’s return he was told he had passed.
Whilst in Copton his motorcycle played up so Claude took it to the police garage. The head motorcycle mechanic, George stated the machine-required work to be done. He handed to Claude a brand-new machine intended for another area. He begged Claude to take care of it and Claude was soon on his way.
On the outskirts of the city of Chester a youth from Ashton had stolen a car, been observed and reported the Cheshire Police were soon in hot pursuit. Claude was informed of the chase and so made his way to the Cheshire border.
On arrival he parked his motorcycle in the road and soon heard the two-tone horns. The stolen car soon came into view followed by the patrol car. Claude parked his motorcycle in the road and stood with arm raised in the stop sign.
The driver of the stolen car, no lover of the police but a great lover of a thrill, drove the vehicle at and over the brand new police motorcycle, writing it off. It will take the reader no imagination to guess what reception Claude received when he reported the matter. The youth was later arrested and sent to detention, which was no consolation.
Life was much different working what was officially known as a detached beat. There were no supervising officers to check at the commencement of each shift. The practice was that the rural officers normally worked from 9am to 5pm but were then on call the rest of the time. When incidents were reported the station duty officer at Copton would telephone the rural officer at any time of the day or night to attend, there was no additional pay for any extra hours.
When booking on at 9am Claude telephoned Ashton police station to ascertain if there were any calls or messages. If there were none he would normally do some clerical work mostly typing in his office. His next course would be to ride his police motorcycle into Ashton visiting the police station, handing in his reports and simultaneously collecting reports and enquiries. He would also as a matter of course patrol his beat area on a regular basis.
Occasionally if there were duties to perform in the evening he would book off duty in the day until then but before doing so contact the officer on the next beat to cover for him, then informing Ashton so they were aware.
Arriving in a small village soon after taking over the beat he met a retired bobby who had worked the area. They were speaking upon the matter when the old lag said. “Be careful of any dealings you might have with the farmer from there, pointing to a quite a large farm.
“Why is that?” asked Claude?”
“You see, came the reply, the story from an old copper I met when I first arrived here is that during the last war, farmers had to register their animals and they could only kill a certain number. Once killed a certain amount of the meat went to the public for food rationing.
One day he killed a pig and offered some to his local bobby who accepted it. Some time later the farmer got into some trouble and the bobby reported him. He reported the copper had taken the meat. The officer got disciplined and was moved.
Claude thought memories are long the incident was about twenty-five years previous.
On occasions a senior officer would visit his station and check the books stored there. Claude recalled one day whilst on a training day he had come across an old discipline book. There was an entry that a senior officer had visited his beat whilst the officer was on a weekly rest day. The senior officer had noted the constable was unshaven. A report was made and the beat officer was fined for being found on his weekly rest day unshaven.
There were advantages and disadvantages of country life, residing in Claude’s beat area were several magistrates and the Chairman of the Police Authority, whose father had held the position before him. In fact that gentleman was the instigator of encouraging the Chief Constable at the time to employ the County’s first women officers a sergeant and a constable, that thought Claude was something for another story.
When there was the sound of shooting in the area Claude often found a brace of pheasants had been left hanging on his rear garden fence.
Being on call
often entailed delivering messages mostly from hospitals informing relating their loved ones were at the point of death and would they visit immediately. They were not all like that for on one occasion Claude was called to visit a house during the night to inform a lady her son was in custody at another police station. Having banged the door at 2am eventually the bedroom window opened and a lady appeared.
“Hello who is that?” a female voice called.
“It is the police I have come to tell you, your son is in custody,” said Claude.
“Very well, I can’t invite you in at the moment,” replied the lady and closed the window.
Claude knew the lady well; her son was a regular client and so some time later she related the story to Claude that on the night he had called with the message she was in the midst of having sex. When she arose and stood at the window speaking to Claude her partner couldn’t wait and was continuing the act whilst the message was being related, so thought Claude she was getting more than words at that time.
Also living nearby was a retired Inspector and he proved to be of great assistance to Claude. He once made a point, “If you go out into a pub locally you will probably find there are some anxious to buy you beer. Never accept it, instead you buy them a drink instead. In that way they will be under an obligation to you and not you to them.”
Claude always adhered by this and recalled it even to this time as he was recalling incidents for his book. The man was Scottish and when Claude visited him for a drink, the biscuit tin was always produced but the tin was offered for one biscuit to be taken and then put away.
He had only been in residence some days when having retired to bed at midnight believing there was less chance of a call out, he had only been in bed an hour when he heard singing coming from the front of the house.
He arose and went to investigate; it was a man standing on the lawn, singing and in a foreign language. He went outside and spoke with the man who it transpired was Polish and residing at a nearby housing estate.
Claude spoke with man invited him inside and eventually he went on his way saying he had only called to welcome the new policeman.
The housing estate was originally a polish displaced persons camp but the huts had been replaced by houses. It was still mainly polish people and heaven forbid, one family who was referred to by the rest as “White Russians.”
At the end of the war Poland had been taken over by the Communists and were known as “Reds” due to the colour of their flag. The white Russians presumably were not Communists and with some problems the family had lived on the same estate as neighbours to the polish families. Claude was to find during his time working the area he would have many calls to the estate.
One was particularly tragic. The estate had its own Polish church, one of the original huts; amongst the residents was an elderly man who lived alone. Local polish women carried out domestic work for him. One day he went missing and eventually the matter was reported to the police, Claude attended. Making local enquiries proved fruitless there was rumour he had gone to London to attend a medical by the German Government to assess his pension rights, as he was a survivor of a German Concentration Camp. Claude made a search of the house and on closing the toilet door the man was found hanging on the rear of the door.
At the post mortem the pathologist reported that nearly every bone in the mans` body had been broken years before healing in various shapes.
Enquiries revealed he had flash backs and on seeing men in uniform even the postman this caused him distress, the letter from the German Embassy that he was to have a medical to assess his pension was sufficient to cause him to believe he would lose the pension, this was given as the reason for him taking his own life.
One often hears people demanding more severe punishments for offenders, that all resources are put into assisting and defending the wrong doer. Legal firms making themselves wealthy on fees paid to them by the Legal Aid Board, financed by the state through the taxpayer.
One day Claude had occasion to arrest a man for failure to pay his wife her alimony or maintenance. When he arrived at the police station he was searched. In the process of doing so Claude noticed he appeared to have marks on his back. The man was asked about it and so removed his shirt. His back was a mass of scars and he gave an explanation that years before he had transgressed as young man in the welsh town of Wrexham. Having appeared before the court he was sentenced to be “Birched.”
After the hearing he was taken back to the police station, a doctor was called. He was then stripped to the waist, bent over a table and held by two police officers. The sergeant arrived with the birch rod, and it was alleged he had said, “I am pleased to say, this will hurt you, much more than it will me."
He then lay on with a will. The scars had remained with him for over twenty years.
Claude was on patrol one day when he saw a boy in the top of a very large and tall tree. He called the boy down in trepidation, eventually he arrived safely. He sent the boy home and later visited his house. The parents were not appreciative and bitterly complained.
“It is a pity the bloody police don’t have anything else better to do than stop small boys playing.”
Riding his motorcycle one Sunday patrolling the small villages he passed a house and saw a man working under a car. The car had been raised and was resting on some bricks.
Claude stopped his motorcycle and called the man who arrived from under the vehicle. Claude pointed out the dangers of doing this.
The man with oily rag in hand replied, “Pity you haven’t got anything better to do with all the crime going on than to pick on me.”
Claude recalled he made no reply but mounted the motorcycle and rode away. Some time later Claude was posted but one day reading the county newspaper he read of the case that the man had been working under his car, again on bricks, they had given way the car fell on him and he was trapped under the car, dead.
On another occasion he saw a vehicle parked on a Heath, he checked out the vehicle it was registered to someone in Liverpool. He waited and eventually a man arrived. Claude questioned him and was suspicious the man was a poacher. Unable to prove it the man stated he was looking for bird’s eggs and produced some from his pockets. The likelihood a man would drive from Liverpool to Ashton for blackbird’s eggs seemed remote. It didn’t really matter, for Claude reported him for that offence.
The land was part of an estate in those days, the owner being very well placed in the county and was a magistrate; the tenant farmer was also the local chairman of the bench. Come the day of trial the man pleaded guilty and the chairman of the bench fined him the maximum £100 a great sum in those days. The chairman added, “Don’t you come here from the city destroying the wild life.”
The area was often plagued by men arriving from the north of England arriving with dogs they were known diggers of badgers. Their method was to set several dogs into a badger set or hole and meanwhile they would dig out the animal. The badger was a fierce fighter and would attack the dog(s) ferociously. The dogs owned or kept by badger’s diggers could be recognised immediately for their faces and mouths were often badly scarred from healed serious injuries over many occasions. The men did occasionally set the dogs on the badger and eventually kill it. Often they did not kill the badger immediately but retained it for later sport. The badger was a ferocious fighter and when it bit, its jaw locked and could not be released. To even the odds badger diggers would often remove the badger’s teeth or break its jaw with a spade. During the sporting event in the north of England men arrived, and stood round a pit and then bet money on the outcome.
The men who carried out this type of offence were often involved in other serious crime, many had previous convictions. They were not welcome in the area of Ashton.
On one occasion a group were sited by a local farmer and the police and officers of the Royal Society For The Protection Of Animals officers or R.S.P.C.A, were called. In addition a police helicopter was brought in. The men were
eventually arrested and charged. They later appeared at the Crown Court, they pleaded “Not guilty.”
They were acquitted not for lack of evidence but due to a technical mistake by the newly formed Crown Prosecution Service, famed as staffed by solicitors who were deemed unfit or not good enough to work in private practice. In this case they had put two charges onto the indictment instead of one on each paper. The case was defended by an experienced solicitor from the north of England who specialised in defending such men. The case was dismissed on the technicality of the multiple charges on the same form.
There was some despondency from the investigating police officers that the many hours worked had been wasted.
Some year or so later the one man thought to be a ringleader met his justice; he was murdered by an associate from where he had come.
Cruelty to animals was often a feature in the rural areas. One day a man telephoned Claude to report he had found his dog dead, he suspected his neighbour had poisoned the dog. Claude went to the scene and on arrival saw the dead dog.
The owner had stated the dog had been running in a field at the rear of the owner’s house, he had returned convulsing and frothing at the mouth. Claude suspected the dog had been poisoned with strychnine. A search of the area revealed several dead foxes and birds; the area was littered with corpses.
Claude left the area and visited the Chemists in the area eventually discovering the suspect neighbouring farmer had in fact purchased and signed the poisons register for some strychnine.
Returning to the scene the farmer admitted what he had done and stated he was troubled with foxes. He had killed a chicken, cut it open put a massive amount of the poison inside it then left in the field. The foxes had eaten the carcase and died the dog had arrived ate some and also died. The poison was repetitive, for the birds had pecked the dead foxes and also succumbed,
The farmer appeared in court and was heavily fined but strangely enough from that time on, he and Claude always got on well and Claude often called at the house for a chat whilst on patrol.
Police Memories Page 32