Police Memories

by Bill Williams

  Claude was to pay another price over years, for the senior officer who had visited Claude when he was first promoted and to whom he had refused to break the law visiting a prisoner without making an official record, arrived in later years once again, but on this occasion he was in direct control of Claude.

  It seemed to Claude the officer never forgot the time when Claude refused to turn a blind eye to the rules of all visits to prisoners being logged. Claude was to pay for his decision on many occasions and it became common knowledge when he was about there was trouble for Claude.

  One officer would telephone him using the voice of the over bearing senior officer. Others would telephone Claude to say the boss had said he was coming over to wind up Sergeant Friendly.

  One of the jobs Claude’s hated was duty at football matches, one of the civilian operators had mentioned this to Claude’s tormentor and from that time on Claude found himself on regular football duties.

  Claude had to live with it and could do nothing about it; leaving the police station didn’t help for with radios one was always available. The senior officer was a very good investigator himself and possibly one of the best detectives the force ever had during his time in that department prior to being put back into uniform again. Claude would recall him as a nightmare once he retired rumour had it he never spoke to his old police colleagues.

  On another occasion the streets were filled with people attending a parade or carnival of some description. Mr Torment visited and called Claude on the radio although he was standing only across the road. In those days radios were divided into two items a receiver, which was clipped to the top of the tunic and the transmitter normally stored in a pocket. When the radio receiver blasted out the message to Claude he put his hand in his pocket to return the call. The call finished but not the ramifications.

  After the function finished Claude was called to his office to see his tormentor once again.

  “Sergeant, never left me see you in the street again with your hands in your pockets,” said the visitor.

  Claude replied that he had not done so only to retrieve the transmitter.

  “Don’t argue with me.”

  Claude vividly recalled how, after all the hassle he was now fed up with it and turned, looked through the window and said“ Look over there at that seat where those old men are sitting, in a few years time we will be old men sitting on that seat when that time comes the people around us wont remember us or care a shit about us or if we had our hands in our pockets or not.”

  Claude was told, “Don’t speak like that to me or I will put you on a charge.”

  Claude didn’t care a shit about that either, just turned and walked out and didn’t hear anymore of it.

  It was however very necessary as a supervising officer to keep alert and ensure right was done.

  Attending a fatal accident the investigating constable was asked by an Inspector if the driver of the vehicle who had since left the scene had been given a breath test.

  The Constable hesitated and was about to reply and Claude guessed there was something amiss so did the Inspector. He also knew this particular Inspector was likely to follow up matters. Claude interceded and made an excuse.

  He left the scene with the Constable and visited the home of the driver.

  It was a lady. Claude asked her if she had been given a breath test to which she replied, “No.”

  Claude administered one, it was negative.

  The Constable was given advice and when the Inspector later asked if the constable had already given a test, Claude lied and said he had. Claude felt that as the test had been done and it was negative why cause a problem for the officer unnecessarily.

  On another occasion, there had been a road traffic accident reported, one vehicle but a report alleged the driver had been drinking. Claude attended in company with a constable. Claude was aware as a result of keeping his eyes and ears open that certain officers were friendly with certain ladies around the town of which the driver in this case was one.

  The lady was asked to give a breath test, which she did as the constable went to take the device to check Claude reached over took it, looked at it and said, “The test is positive, arrest her.”

  There were faces pulled and bad looks, but it was done, the second test was positive and the lady later convicted and disqualified from driving. Right is right as far as Claude was concerned, it was what you had done not who had done.

  Since retirement a special constable related those times and informed Claude of an incident which indicated he was not fully on the ball.

  One night there was a party a rather immoral party it later transpired, a “999” call had been made from the house reporting a prowler, the police were called and they attended including the special constable.

  Not to put too fine a point on it, it seemed the call was false to get certain officers to attend. Whilst at the house the officers were involved in unseemly conduct to which the special cop alleged he had been invited but declined to take part in. When Claude had asked where he was the special had said, “You had been called to an incident at another police station.”

  Not all cock-ups were intentional though questions were asked afterwards. One night Claude came on duty to find a note from the station commander that information had been received that a hotel in the town which had a licence to sell alcoholics drinks to residents only but was in fact selling them to members of the public. Claude was told to visit and submit a file the next morning.

  The procedure then was to visit and on arrival Claude would speak with the licensee and ask for the hotel register. When this was produced, he always signed same to ensure no entries were made afterwards.

  Meanwhile the constable would speak to those present, note the type of drink they had and if necessary seized a little in a specimen bottle for analysis. All the information to be recorded on a pro former, the questions included.

  The full name and address of the person

  Are you are a resident?

  What are you drinking?

  The cost?

  Who bought it?

  All was going well as Claude looked around having dealt with the landlord. His attention was drawn to an officer at the bar who was had asked the man with a pint glass seemingly containing beer if it was beer. The man denied it and invited the officer to taste it. The officer picked up the glass and before Claude could do anything, he consumed about half of the drink.

  With that Claude simply called to the drinkers, “Right that’s it all you lot out now.

  He then said to the Landlord, “You are being cautioned on this occasion for serving without a licence.”

  Having arrived back at the police station to bemused faces the pint-drinking officer said, “You want to make your mind up, you go to all this trouble and then let them off, you don’t know what you are doing.”

  Claude looked at him and said, “I don’t know what I am doing, you cocked it all up when you drank that chaps beer. You were drinking on duty and you were drinking in an unlicensed place.”

  Claude submitted his report at 6am and later that day the offending officer was called to see the see The Chief Superintendent.”

  One officer was a bit of a buffoon, for one night he was one of several officers keeping observations inside a clothes shop. Information had been received the premises was likely to be raided. Sure enough in the early hours, the raid did take place and the criminals arrested one of the arresting officers was the buffoon who had decided to take off his police uniform and put on a brand new suit from within the shop. Those present later reported his conduct as a comedy typical of the so-called officer.

  Writing of special constables, reminded Claude of the very unusual case in which one of his special constables was struck with illness.

  The officer a very quiet and nice man became ill and eventually after medical tests was diagnosed with cancer, as far as Claude could recall, of the spine.

  The officer was unable to perform dut
y and eventually follow his day work. One evening he was passing a church and saw the building was illuminated with floodlights. For some reason the reasons for which were never resolved he asked his wife and driver of the vehicle to turn around and go back.

  The couple found themselves seated at the back of the church, which was well attended. There was in progress some sort of hands on healing ceremony of which the couple had previously had no involvement with.

  At the end of the ceremony those present saw the couple seated at the rear and invited them down to the front. They eventually went and the various hands on and prayers were said. The ceremony finished and the couple left, nothing was different.

  The next morning the sick man had a hospital appointment and an ambulance was due to transport him to the hospital. His wife arrived in the bathroom and said, “What are you doing.”

  He realised that he had risen from bed and walked into the bathroom and was shaving. His wife and he were aghast so were the ambulance drivers who arrived with the wheel chair to see he was able to walk unaided and climb into the ambulance.

  Arriving at the hospital he sat in the waiting area and eventually went in for his usual X-rays. On completion he returned to the waiting room and was recalled for the same X-rays to be repeated.

  When he went to the see the doctor, his X-rays were placed into the screens. The doctor said, “I can’t understand this, you have had two sets of X-rays for I thought the first were not yours. These x-rays show your cancer has completely gone, not only that but you have no scars that you ever had a tumour.”

  The patient was invited and later agreed to attend several places of excellence to be viewed by teams of specialists trying to see a logical reason why the cancer had not only gone but showed no traced it had ever existed.

  The doctor’s best reason was that the last treatment must have been so explicit as to pin point the heart of the cancer and dispose of it. The patient always believed it was the hands on the previous evening at the church and the medics were not prepared to accept this. The man lived for over a further twenty years and died of a heart attack.

  Claude ceased typing for the day and spent the next few hours reading through, printing and binding the next part of his story.

  Angelina put down the papers and left.

  The event went down well amongst the residents, but Matron on hearing the laughing and clapping came to investigate.

  On leaving Charles mentioned to Claude that he had been asked to empty his meter in the room and Matron was surprised in view of the writing he appeared to be doing there was such little money. She had mentioned she hoped she had not been featured in anything.

  Chapter 23

  Angelina was to later recall that it was a week later, having left their rooms, Angelina and Joe together with Claude and moaning Mildred were making their way to the dining room.

  Scouser Joe was in front of Claude and suddenly without warning Joe collapsed. Claude rushed to see if he could help. Matron arrived and knowing she was a trained nurse there were mumbles for her to give Joe mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. Matron looked; hesitated then decided mouth to mouth resuscitation was not an appropriate treatment for Joe.

  She began to pound him on his chest, which at first was ok, but after one or two efforts she broke wind giving a loud fart.

  The gathered onlookers burst into laughter causing Matron to look up between the chest pushes and shout, “What are you lot laughing at, don’t you think Matrons fart you toothless morons.”

  This only made the situation worse, for moaning Mildred laughed so much her false teeth flew out and landed at the back of Matrons neck.

  Matron picked them off and threw them across the room they landed on the floor just in time for her dog to pick them up and run off with them moaning Mildred in hot pursuit.

  She managed to stop the dog, then took hold of the teeth and having wiped them on her sleeve, put them back into her mouth and said, “It was that chocolate bar, I have just eaten. Matrons dog Marmaduke likes chocolate he must have smelled it on the teeth.

  It certainly does thought Claude as he recalled how the day following the installation of his meter by Matron he had once dropped, accidentally of course a full bar of laxative chocolate which the dog devoured in two seconds flat. Later that day in the heavy traffic it had crapped all over the rear seats of Matrons new car.

  Joe recovered and an appointment was made for him to visit his doctor the next day. Joe was nearly eighty years of age and after this fall Claude thought looking at him on his return from the visit to the doctors Surgery how ill he looked, pale, drawn features. He was somewhat surprised therefore when he asked Joe how he had got on at the surgery at Joes response.

  Joe looked up and said; “Try falling down, the doctor was a woman about six feet tall, slim with long legs and large booms.”

  He added the best thing was she needed something from the room at the top of the metal spiral staircase. He had sat at the bottom whilst she had run up the steps revealing everything she had under her skirt or rather the little or nothing as it turned out.

  She had certainly made an impression on Joe for he was saying, “Wack she is a great doctor, a great doctor Wack.”

  Claude asked what she had thought had caused Joe to flake out and she had said it was a virus.” Joe was so taken with the sight he had seen when she ran up the stairs that he hadn’t thought that customary medics not knowing what or if anything was wrong with a patient normally pronounced it was a virus, an excuse for all things, as it was untreatable.

  Claude arrived upstairs it was time to think back upon other incidents during his police service.

  He was travelling to duty one afternoon when he saw several young men standing at the roadside thumbing a lift. As he passed they saw him and gave him the two fingers sign, it was not meant as Sir Winston Churchill had intended, a sign of victory.

  Claude stopped his car reversed back and said.

  “I knew a fella once, driving his car along a road minding his own business he saw some lads thumbing a lift because he didn’t stop, they gave him the two fingers, do you know what the fella did” he remembered it.”

  He then drove off.

  Arriving at the Police Station and having paraded the officers he sent them out to check out the men standing at the roadside, they were from Liverpool. A check revealed they were wanted and so were arrested and brought to the Police Station.

  They were placed in the cells and sometime later Claude had visited them, opened the cells door and said.

  “I knew a fella once, he was driving his car along the road minding his own business when these lads gave him the two fingers, do you know what the fella did he remembered it and your locked up.”

  Some events are stranger than fiction as in the case one evening an emergency was received, no person had spoken but there were voices in the background and a dog barking. The telephone operator had kept the line open as per usual in those days, meanwhile an engineer had traced the origin of the call and this address had been passed to the Police.

  Claude and a fellow officer arrived having knocked on the door there was a family party going on, the officers were invited inside and there appeared to be no sign of disturbance.

  Claude picked up the receiver and spoke to the operator confirming the call could be ended as the police were in attendance. Details were taken but just as Claude was about to leave the mystery of how who made the call was unsolved. At that moment the dog began to bark again jumping up and down, as it did so the handset from the phone placed on the floor was knocked off by the dog as it jumped up and down. Within moments there came radio call. Another emergency call had been made from the house, the mystery was solved the dog had knocked off the handset and it had been jumping up and down and hitting the 9 key repeatedly.

  The phone was moved and no further calls were received.

  Family events do not always end as the organisers had planned or hoped. Weddings of Itinerant Romany Traveller fami
lies who were often closely related being one example. On the occasions of weddings the family atmosphere of the day often changed when night fell and the barrels of beer brought in for the occasion became lighter as the hours passed. The events often ended with passing motorists reporting seeing the silhouettes of people fighting around the camp fire as the Bride and Grooms families, themselves, often related disputed who had sold the most home made clothes pegs during the day.

  One of the onerous tasks Claude was lumbered with was the responsibility of the found and seized property. It was a menace of a task. The procedure was that when items were found and reported to the police an entry was made in the found property book. If possible the finder was asked to keep the item for one month and if not claimed the finder could keep the property, with the proviso the owner never actually lost ownership of it at any stage. If the loser was traced he still owned the property and the finder obliged to return it.

  If the finder refused to retain or the police were other wise obliged to retain such as identifiable items for example driving documents, bank documents and similar items bearing such information that would trace the loser. The police would then retain and contact the loser.

  The property retained by the police was kept for 28 days and if not claimed the items such as found cash or other objects these were returned to the finder. Large sums of money were banked and the finder later given a cheque from police funds.

  In the case of seized property, items were seized until police enquiries had finished and then returned to their lawful owner.