Life as a patrol Constable, both on foot and in a car, had been a fair eye-opener for me. I was (and still am) amazed by the sheer variety and eccentricity of humanity ‘in the wild’. But in the office I had a further unexpected round of awakening to the many facets of human nature. Outdoors, in uniform, you are a bit of a sitting duck for the public to approach and unload their problems onto. In the station you are truly ‘back to the wall’. A telephone means that all the great unwashed had to do was pick up a phone and call, and 24 hours a day someone would answer. If they felt like a little exercise then a gentle stroll would bring them to the front desk, and a press of the buzzer would produce a ready-made agony aunt from whom they could demand a solution to their problems.
Again this didn’t apply to all phone and personal callers – many were quite normal people, reporting crimes, reporting property lost, or seeking sensible advice over matters we were rightly expected to be able to help with, but in a single day you could see a fair spectrum.
A popular past time of many has always been that of falling out with their neighbours. If they felt they were not getting their local community officer on their side, they would come up to the nick ‘en famille’, usually on a weekend afternoon when the football had finished on television and there was nothing for the children to do. This is the same mentality that staff at Accident and Emergency Units see, when a sore finger from a week ago turns into a family day out. After filling the foyer with two or sometimes three generations of the same clan, the alpha male would address you with his speech. A supporting chorus of his wife, her sister, and perhaps the oldest child would all join in with additional details to bolster the tirade. After several minutes of chapter and verse about how their lives had been made hell by all manner of aggression from whoever was unfortunate enough to share the same street as them, it would move to phase two. This was a list of all the officers who had attended over the months or sometimes years and been tasked with sorting out an endless soap opera of discontent. Names would flow off the tongue, many of whom I knew well. The catalogue of relative success or failure was interesting – sometimes they would praise the efforts of an officer who I knew would have done almost nothing to help. Others who would have made efforts to plug the hole in the Titanic rather than abandon ship were branded ‘lazy’ and not interested. The truth behind the rant was that whoever told them the truth or tried to broker some compromise was doomed to criticism, and whoever gave a few platitudes and showed sympathy to their ‘cause’ was deemed to understand the situation.
Phase three covered the names of several supervisory officers, ranging from Sergeant to Chief Superintendent, the wrong rank usually being attached to the wrong surname, but to the casual observer it sounded good.
The summary ended with the question, ‘So what are you going to do about it?’
It would usually be sorted out with a bit of sympathy and a promise to get the local Bobby to revisit, and when challenged with the words, ‘so you’re not actually going to come out and deal with it now,’ I was able to reply with that as a mere office man I was unable to fly to their rescue like some sort of superhero and resolve their predicament because there was a Police Station to be run. I also made a mental note never to become a ‘Unit Beat’ officer, as to do so was to put your name forward actually to help these aromatic ingrates sort out a mess for which they had only themselves to blame.
Over the years these sort of people try the patience of every Police officer, and the best silencing of a family like this that I ever saw was when on patrol I had gone with a colleague to a long, long-standing dispute. We had been given the three-phase summary of misfortune, followed by the usual question, ‘So what are you going to do about it?’
Expecting to give the usual platitudes I drew breath to speak, when Chris Roberts, the other lad with me, suddenly spoke.
‘I think I’ve got exactly what you need in the car. We can resolve this once and for all today. Just wait there.’
This surprised me probably more than the family because I hadn’t a clue what he was on about. We all waited with mild apprehension as Chris went to our patrol car outside. In full view of everyone he opened the boot, and meticulously went through all the kit we carried. In a short space of time he had cones, wellies (size 8 probably), first aid kit, signs and lights strewn in the road behind the car. By the time the spare wheel was lifted out I was thoroughly baffled. I walked out to speak to him, followed by the now fascinated herd from the house. They were obviously sure that whatever he was looking for was important, and what’s more, it was for their benefit, so deserved a closer look.
Chris had a genuinely despondent air about him by now, and was loading everything back into the boot. He finished this task, turned to the family and said:
‘I thought I could help you, but I’ve had a look and I’m fresh out of Pixie dust. You’ll have to fix it yourselves. Goodbye.’
Another phenomenon which became evident both at the front desk and on the phone was the failure by the public to realise that while the Police are a 24 hour a day service, the actual individuals within it are not. Small children often have the misapprehension that the teachers at their school have no home lives, and live permanently at school, being lost and without direction unless in front of a class. By the age of eight they have usually realised that this is not the case, but this mentality must reappear in later life when they need the Police.
The phone would ring around 11 o’clock in the morning, and a voice would ask,‘Can I speak to Constable Grey please?’
‘I’m sorry,’ I would reply, ‘he’s not available at the moment. Can I help you or take a message?’ ‘Well it is quite important. Are you sure he’s not on duty? He came to my house when we got burgled.’
‘What time was that?’
‘About half past four this morning.’
Resisting the temptation to say,‘Of course madam, we are all chronic insomniacs who live at the Police Station anyway and await your next instruction,’ I would make some mild apology for the inconvenience caused by the officer actually being so selfish as to go home for a while, and broker an alternative arrangement.
Other callers would ring in panic at a given situation, and one that sticks in my mind was a woman who was rightly irate at a group of youths causing the usual nuisance close to her house, and who announced down the phone that, ‘they’re hitting golf balls round the place – one of them nearly missed me.’
How disappointing, madam. I’ll tell them to aim better next time.
One of the secrets of successful Policing was to be able to give good advice, and if not solve people’s problems, at least make sure they didn’t come back for more, or if they did, try to make sure it was when there was a different shift on duty.
The range of questions demanding reply was amazing, and very often nothing to do with the Police. Even things like, ‘how high can my neighbour let his conifers grow?’, ‘what do I do about the drains in the road smelling?’, but that was all stuff to refer to another agency – someone else’s problem. We were only consulted because of our ease of availability and contact. The majority of enquiries were actually more or less in our remit, and if I stepped back those few short years to the time before I crossed the invisible line and joined the force, I could understand the motive for approaching the Police for many of the answers sought. What I hadn’t appreciated at that time was the overriding urge to tell people to grow up and clear off, and how much effort has to be put into saying it in a much longer and more pleasant way that leaves the punter with nothing, but happy all the same. After all, the other side of the coin is that the man you short change at the desk could be the passer-by you ask for help the next day at the scene of some mayhem or other. A variation on the theme of making as many friends on the way up as you can, in case you need them on the way down, I suppose.
One sunny Saturday afternoon two youths came to the front desk, clutching a magazine. The older of the two was about twenty one years old, and in
troduced himself as the younger one’s father, which left me quietly puzzled. He repeatedly referred to the younger one saying ‘my lad this’, and ‘my son that’, but given that his ‘son’ turned out to be just short of 14 years old, a quick mental estimate would have needed him to be fathering children at the age of about seven. I knew they were a promiscuous lot in Newport, but surely this was taking it to extremes. Further conversation revealed that ‘dad’ was actually the stepfather, and the domestic setup was the frequent but slightly bizarre one where a woman in her late thirties falls for someone young enough to be her son, as one of Cupid’s more amateurish shots hits home. Many such relationships blossomed at a local night club which would have events aimed at the more ‘mature’ customer, known locally as ‘Grab a Granny’ nights. Given the appalling divorce rate in the town, these events were well attended and had a lot in common with a cattle market, but with more alcohol and a different (if no less pungent) smell.
The unlikely ‘father-son’ pair seemed on good terms anyway, and put their question to me.
‘My lad wants one of these for his birthday’ said ‘Dad’, and put the magazine on the desk. His lightly tattooed hand indicated an advertisement. Most fourteen year olds would perhaps have wanted a bicycle, or maybe an exotic pet. Not this boy. The advertisement was for a .762 calibre self-loading sniper’s rifle, complete with telescopic sights and silencer. ‘As used by US Navy Seals’ it declared proudly, ‘this beauty can kill at two miles’. The seller was a gun dealer in Arizona, who probably did most of his trade in person with beer-bellied inbreds in check shirts driving pickup trucks rather than fat ginger children with mildly perverted step fathers in suburban England. Uncertain quite how to advise them I paused and the ‘father’ went on.
‘He’s really set his heart on it you know, and I’m sure he’d be sensible with it. I just thought I ’d check with you though – do we buy it and then get the licence, or do we actually have to get the licence first?’
These people were going to need letting down gently.
‘You would need the certificate first,’ I said.
‘Can we fill the forms in for that now then please? Then I can phone up and order it this afternoon. That’d be good wouldn’t it son?’
‘I don’t have the forms here,’ I said. ‘You’ll have to phone Headquarters Firearms Department for those and they’ll post them out to you. Unfortunately they aren’t open until Monday morning.’
The boy looked crestfallen, and the ‘father’ a little disappointed too. I tried to sound reassuring while holding back phrases involving snowballs and some of the better heated regions of hell.
’It’s a big responsibility, a gun like that. They can’t just let anyone have one you know. Out of interest, what are you going to use it for?’
After all, 14 was a bit young to start on a career as an assassin.
‘We get the odd squirrel in the back garden, and I’m going to put some targets up for him as well,’ said ‘Dad’ cheerfully.
They gave me their address, and I knew the road quite well. With a two mile range on the gun, the child would need to go to the next town to take aim at a target in the back garden, not just hang out of his bedroom window as he probably envisaged, and a direct hit on a squirrel wouldn’t just kill it, it would skin, gut and cook it in one fell swoop.
I gave them the phone number to ring at HQ where they would get the definitive answer and they left. Happy customers, if a little saddened at my inability to give permission to allow the desired purchase.
Fortunately not every caller at the desk was a fledgling homicidal maniac.
Another day an elderly gentleman came to the nick to hand in a wallet he had found somewhere in the town. I booked the property in and gave him a receipt for it, but when I started to explain what would happen if it wasn’t claimed, he finished the sentence for me – ‘I can keep it if it isn’t claimed after 28 days, I know.’
‘You handed stuff in before have you?’
‘No,’ he said. ‘I used to be a copper myself. Lost property procedure doesn’t change. In fact you’ll find very little has, I’ll bet.’
We spoke for a while, and he told me he had joined in 1935 and retired in 1965. I would have thought that any period of thirty years would see changes, and I put it to him that his period of service must have seen at least its fair share.
‘Not really,’ he said,‘and it won’t alter much in your service either’.
I disagreed, starting to tell him about the newer cars we had, the radios, the computers in the office. Huge changes, technological advances in leaps and bounds.
He shook his head.
‘Those aren’t changes,’ he said. ‘You still do the same job, the tools may alter, but the job is the same as it ever was. I remember my first day on duty – I walked into the Station and went to the parade room. There were two old sweats in there, moaning like hell.’
It struck me that an ‘old sweat’ in 1935 would almost certainly have joined before the First World War. This was a glimpse into ancient history.
The old man continued. ‘I listened to them for a while and wondered what on earth I’d let myself in for. They said the Sergeants didn’t care for anyone except themselves, the bosses had lost touch, the public didn’t appreciate what the Police did for them, the job was knackered and if anything better came along they’d be off like a shot.’
‘Sounds pretty familiar,’ I said.
‘Exactly,’ said the old man. ‘And I’ll tell you something else. I remember my last day on duty too. At this Police Station it was. I walked past the parade room on my way out, and I could hear two Bobbies in there saying almost word for word what the other pair had been saying 30 years earlier – job’s knackered, bosses don’t care – I’ve heard it all before. Stick at it mate, it’ll soon go. But remember – the public really do appreciate what you do. You just don’t think so when you’re actually doing the job.’
He bade me good day, turned and walked out. I picked up the wallet he had handed in and walked down the corridor to the cupboard where found property was stored. On the way back I stuck my head round the parade room door to see who was in there. Colin was sitting at a table in the middle of a pile of paperwork, his hands covered in ink and holding several feet of black and red ribbon as he failed to reassemble the antique typewriter on which he was trying to complete a report. He looked up in despair.
‘I give up,’ he said. ‘This job stinks you know, the Sergeant doesn’t care, he just wants this file finished, he’s on my back all the time, and…’
‘I know,’ I said. ‘I know.’
Nineteen
Life as the block ‘office man’ went on steadily and interestingly. The suspiciously anticipated computers were now installed and had a number of advantages and disadvantages. The biggest change was that all incidents requiring attention were electronically logged, and all patrols available were brought up on the screen to be attached as required. Rather than simplifying matters, it meant extra work because instead of a mental note that everyone was tied up, you had to alter their ‘patrol state’ on the machine, otherwise it was difficult to convince the Superintendent that there had been no-one to go to a job when the system showed four pandas ‘doing nothing’. The system also didn’t show how far anyone was from a job – a patrol anywhere in the whole sub-division was a patrol, end of story. When a major road accident came in, the fact that the one available man was off duty in a quarter of an hour and on a bicycle six miles from the scene didn’t bother the powers-that-be. They wanted to know why that patrol hadn’t been allocated – if he’s on the system he can go, was the approach. Nor did it take into account that the cycle patrol was difficult enough to send to a job on his own patch, never mind one that would see him arrive very late and severely out of breath, no use to man nor beast.
Also we were now ‘on show’ to the rest of the County. That was a bad move. Equally bad was the lack of a big ‘Delete’ button on the computer that would do a
n electronic version of rewinding the stamp and throwing the message pad in the bin. Once a job was on, then it was fixed and had to be dealt with or explained away accordingly.
The good news was that electronic messages could be sent more easily. Things like the ‘night return’, a 24 hourly summary of any matters of note for the big bosses at HQ to read, had previously been compiled and sent by telex. Now it was simply a matter of putting an electronic tick in a box on the screen, and the job would be automatically highlighted. Messages going to other forces were also easier – just type and send to the Force Control Room who would resend it to wherever it was wanted. With the old telex machines the whole message was spewed out at HQ as a length of ticker tape, a confusion of little holes in a fragile paper ribbon. This had to be taken from the internal machines and fed into another machine to send it out of the County, but to make life difficult we had bought machines which used narrower tapes for within-Force messages than the external sender machine, so the original had to be fed through a ‘translator’ which reproduced the message in a wider format. This gave the operator several chances to feed the tape in upside down, back to front or better still break the tape and have to join it together with sticky tape. This produced a blank section in the message which must at some point have resulted in a crucial word or phrase being missed out, but no-one ever seemed to mind, and presumably any resultant loss of life was never significant enough to warrant buying a more compatible setup.
From an aesthetic point of view the computerisation of the office was a major bonus – sitting in the office apparently doing nothing could cause friction between us inside and those outside as they hurried past the control room. Sitting in the office staring at a computer screen gave an air of being busy. Busy with what, no-one ever asked, but simply having the prop of a computer monitor in front of you made your job seem more absorbing and complicated. This has kept many a useless clerk in employment long after redundancy should have been considered – compare it with the man sitting on a park bench doing nothing who looks idle, whereas the man sitting on the same bench doing nothing but smoking a cigarette looks thoughtful and absorbed. For ‘bench’ read ‘office’, and for ‘cigarette’ read ‘monitor’.
Prisoners, Property and Prostitutes Page 17