The Last Night on the Beat

by Harry Morris

  At this, Tommy zipped up his trousers, after which, he composed himself before asking, ‘Well. What’s your guess then? How old am I?’

  After a moment’s pause the elderly woman blurted out with complete confidence.

  ‘Ye’re exactly sixty-seven years old, ya silly auld bugger!’

  Tommy is totally stunned and shocked by this reply.

  ‘How the hell did you know that?’ he asked her.

  ‘Dead easy!’ replied the elderly woman. ‘I was in the queue at the butcher’s!’

  What’s He Like?

  …

  Whilst walking through a busy shopping mall one day, a young boy came running over to me with tears in his eyes and said, ‘I’ve lost my daddy!’

  ‘What’s yer daddy like son?’ I asked him.

  The young boy thought for a moment then said, ‘Horse racing and drinking whisky!’

  A reply that describes an awful lot of daddies in Glesca!

  Little Arrows

  …

  I once had the privilege of meeting and providing a motorcycle escort for Sir Elton John, to his concert performance at the SECC, Glasgow.

  I was instructed to go to the Holiday Inn hotel and meet him and his manager, John Reid, to arrange a time for him to be picked up for his show.

  I met with John Reid first in the lobby of the hotel and was taken upstairs by him to be introduced to Elton, whom I found to be an extremely polite, friendly and hospitable person.

  While I was there Elton showed me his large, mobile wardrobe, filled to the brim with his spectacularly flamboyant, colourful and over-the-top stage costumes, which I must admit were very impressive.

  ‘Tell you what, I’ll pick out something special to wear tonight Harry, for when you come to pick me up!’ he said, as I was leaving his hotel room.

  I have to admit I was somewhat surprised at his jocular and friendly attitude towards me and was even more surprised later that evening, when I turned up to escort Elton and he came walking out of the front door of the hotel dressed in a convict-style uniform and hat, brown in colour and decorated with the little black arrows all over it!

  I stood there somewhat taken aback as he approached me, and as he got closer, he threw his arms out by his side and said:

  ‘HOWZAT HARRY!’

  It’s In The Bag

  …

  I received a call one day to attend a large superstore in Renfrew Road, Paisley, regarding a male detained for shoplifting.

  On my arrival at the store, I spoke with the store detectives, who witnessed the theft and obtained the necessary statements.

  I then asked the store security, ‘What did the accused steal?’

  ‘A lawnmower grass box.’ Replied the witness.

  I then met with the accused shoplifter and had to satisfy my curiousity, so I asked him, ‘Why are you stealing a grass box?’

  The shoplifter boldly replied, ‘Off the record boss, I’m a professional shoplifter and between you and me, I blagged the lawnmower yesterday for a punter, but I didnae notice there was a grass box wi’ it, so I came back today tae get it and I reckon some bastard grassed me to the store security in the car park!’

  ‘How much do you earn shoplifting?’ I asked with interest.

  ‘I make a good living, stealing to order!’ he replied proudly.

  Puzzled by his cocky response about the grass box, I had to ask him how he had managed to walk out of a store with a large power lawnmower without anyone in security noticing?

  He winked at me and replied, ‘If I tell you that boss, you’ll want my job!’

  I then winked back at him, placed my handcuffs on his wrists and said, ‘Don’t think so mate!’

  Mini’s a Bargain!

  …

  Being recognised as a bit of a scatter-cash when it comes to spending money, it came as no surprise that there was no expense spared when it came to purchasing my first real motor car.

  There it was, in the paper, circled with a fancy 3D box, with the bold heading to make it stand out from the rest stating, ‘Bargain Of The Month!’

  I liked the name right away, a Morris Mini, brown in colour and all for the princely sum of £30 cash, from the Executive Car Centre, Paisley!

  On opening the driver’s door, the pungent smell of dampness should have been an obvious clue, but I accepted the salesman’s enthusiastic patter, ‘Can ye no’ smell that leather upholstery? Man, ye just cannae beat the real McCoy. None o’ yer cheap shite here.’ He enthused before adding. ‘And another wee extra feature fitted, is the sporty bucket-style racing seats!’

  They were certainly bucket seats all right! Saturated with water and the metal rimmed handle still attached!

  There was a ‘Hole in dem bucket seats, dear Henry, dear Henry’!

  The radio wasn’t working either, but he put it down to a faulty valve, or maybe a short wire!

  In other words, I think it was a wire – less! Definitely something missing that’s for sure.

  ‘Don’t worry sir, we’ll replace it!’ he said with an air of confidence. ‘Are we paying by cash here, or would you like me to fix up credit arrangements?’ he enquired.

  ‘None of your HP credit payments for me’, I said, handing over my hard cash! £6 of which was made up with crisp new 10-shilling notes from my unopened police pay packet.

  With the ignition key thrust into my hand, I jumped into the driver seat and started it up!

  In an instant, I noticed there was no ‘va va voom!’ It was more like a ‘buzz buzz buzz!’ For a brief moment I thought there was a wasp stuck up the exhaust pipe, but no, that was the noise from my souped-up, (clapped out) mini engine.

  ‘Just listen to that engine man, it’s purring like a cat!’ said the drooling salesman with his syrup of fig hairpiece, slightly askew.

  ‘Purring like a cat’ my arse! It was more like ‘squealing like a pork belly pig!’

  The noise emanating from under the bonnet, suggested a slack fan belt. Or in my case, probably a slack snake belt!

  Even the MOT certificate turned out to be a duplicate. The examiner obviously didn’t believe it the first time!

  However, I put all that to one side as I drove out onto the main road.

  Let’s see what this baby can do, I thought. nought to sixty in eight the salesman said, he forgot to mention days and not seconds.

  I should have remembered a favourite old saying of my father’s: ‘The only good thing about Paisley, son, is the main road leading out of it to Glasgow!’

  Well, I was on it and I was eager to burn some rubber.

  Forget Michael Schumacher – he was just a ‘Cobbler’ from the Govan area when I was at school.

  With the pedal to the metal, I was off in a large puff of smoke. So much so, I actually expected a genie to appear from behind the dashboard and grant me three wishes.

  Like, ‘I wish I had an engine’, ‘I wish I was a mechanic’ and thirdly, ‘I wish someone would kick me in the testicles and give me a wake up call.’ helloooo!

  Well it was the pantomime season after all. (Oh yes it was!)

  Having been on the road now for just over thirty minutes, enough time to go home and back on a bus and driving flat out, I finally came across a sign for Glasgow.

  The art of prayer really does work.

  Now, I know a Mini engine is not the most powerful, but this one of mine, wouldn’t pull a sailor off yer granny! Suffice to say, I would have been hard pushed to pull the skin off my Ambrosia creamed rice pudding!

  A man and woman on a tandem bike and an old woman, pulling herself along in a wheelchair, with one leg and a punctured tyre overtook me twice!

  Come to think of it, maybe the holes in the floor of my car were for my Doc Marten boots to go through, so I could run and make it go faster! Then again, maybe they were part of the braking system.

  Suddenly, it began to rain quite heavily and I switched on the windscreen wipers … Nothing! Zilch! Nada! Zero!

  In layman’s language, t
hey didn’t work and as the rain got heavier, it became more difficult to see the road ahead.

  Drastic times require drastic measures, as I rolled down my window, put my hand out and grabbing hold of the wipers, I began operating them manually, thrashing them up and down the windscreen. Not recommended!

  To cut a very long story short, I decided not to hold onto it for too long. Depreciation in value and all that.

  So, while I was still a student at the Police College, Tulliallan, I was offered the chance to purchase another Mini, this time from sergeant Colin Robertson, who was a college instructor.

  As we say in Glasgow, it was ‘minted’ and into the bargain, the purchase might secure me some much-needed brownie points with the seller! So, after checking that the window wipers worked properly, I bought it!

  Here I was, twenty-one years of age and the Jeremy Clarkson of Govan, coupled with the fact, we were the first two-car family in the street. Mind you, there were only two houses: it was an awfy wee street I lived in.

  Was I becoming an obsessed collector of cars, I thought?

  As it was, Dougie Mack, a fellow student, just happened to be looking for some form of transport himself and practically begged me to sell my manually operated spare Mini.

  Without too much persuasion, I managed to convince him, to talk me into selling him, my wee brown passion wagon.

  ‘OK! OK!’ I said, reluctantly. ‘Give me thirty quid cash and she’s all yours!’

  ‘Why call it ‘she’ you might ask? ’cause it was an absolute cow in the morning! And the rest of the bloody day I might add. I had to tinker about with the engine just to start it. It was like performing foreplay every time I went into it, before I could get ‘her’ to do anything!

  However, Dougie was a single guy and had money burning a hole in his pocket, so I couldn’t help but smile, when driving down the motorway on my way home from the Tulliallan Police College, for the weekend, when I was overtaken by Dougie, waving away frantically and blasting the horn with great excitement, as he passed.

  I think that was the first time it had passed anything.

  I tell a lie, it once passed water on the day the radiator hose burst, but therein lies another story!

  On returning to the police college the following Monday, I had to laugh, when I asked Dougie how the car was running and he informed me, it had been scrapped!

  ‘Scrapped?’ I said, somewhat hesitant and surprised.

  ‘Aye. Ah gave a burd a lift home from the dancing on Friday night and as I was reversing back, listening to ‘Suzi Quatro’ on the radio, when I collided with an ‘Audi Quattro in the car park!’

  ‘Whit! Her husband?’ I enquired.

  ‘Naw ya numpty! Another motor in the car park. A bashed in the driver’s door. That cost me an arm and a leg’, he added.

  ‘What about your damage?’ I asked, trying to sound concerned.

  ‘My damage?’ he replied. ‘The bloody sub-frame collapsed and dropped down, but the burd was a darling, so, I ignored it and drove along a country road and parked up, in a field for a wee winching session, while we listened to Wet Wet Wet. As it was, it turned out to be more like ‘Pish Pish Pish!’ as the rain became heavier and poured down.’

  ‘Later, as I went to drive away, the ground was that soft with all the rain, the bloody motor had sunk and was now up to its axles in mud.

  So, there we were, stuck fast in the mud and so I had walk it to the nearest house to call out Newbridge Vehicle Recovery, who attended and proceeded to ‘rip’ me off along with the rest of the sub-frame, as he towed my Mini out of the field.

  ‘Total cost for my weekend: thirty quid to you for the motor, a hundred quid to the Audi Quattro driver for the damage to his door and forty quid for the recovery driver and as if that wasn’t bad enough, I never even got my Nat King Cole!’

  As he stood there staring at me, I said sympathetically, ‘Ah well Dougie, some people are just lucky with cars! Some people are just lucky in love! But unfortunately for you Dougie my son …’

  I paused for a moment, before saying, ‘You’ve just got too much money!’

  Name That Tune

  …

  My colleague Ian Whitelaw from the Strathclyde Police Pipe band was telling me in conversation that they are to release a new CD of Scotland’s finest bagpipe tunes. The only hold up is, what to call it.

  Without the least bit hesitation I suggested, ‘How about Criminal?’

  Will Power!

  …

  I’d just come out of the chippy with a meat and potato pie, large chips, mushy peas a jumbo sausage and two pickled onions, when a wee homeless man sitting outside, looked up at me and said, ‘Here mate. I’ve not eaten for two days!’

  I looked down at him with admiration and said, ‘I just wish to f**k I had your bloody will power pal!’

  Donald & Johnny Ramensky

  …

  There was I performing my nightshift duty, reading over my police reports when the main door of the front office was opened and in walked an elderly male. Slightly gaunt in appearance and stooping forward, I instantly recognised him as Donald Lindsay, a former police colleague of mine and now, long retired from the old City of Glasgow force of several years ago.

  ‘Hello Donald!’ I said, putting my hand out to shake his. ‘How are you mate?’ I asked, delighted to see him after so long.

  Donald looked at me with a blank, vacant look on his face and said,

  ‘Do you know me mister?’

  ‘Of course I know you; you’re Donald Lindsay and I’m Harry Morris. We worked together. Surely you remember me?’

  My response went right over Donald’s head and he said, ‘I can’t find my gloves and I need to wear them when it’s cold or my hands get sore. Have you got my gloves?’

  I quickly realised that Donald was ill and within a very short time, I learned that he was missing from a south-side Nursing Home, where he was being treated for dementia.

  As I sat alongside Donald, keeping him occupied, while awaiting the arrival of staff from the nursing home, my thoughts took me back to our days at Craigie Street Police Office. Donald had spent most of his police service there and I always looked upon him as a very smart, polite and knowledgeable officer, of whom I searched out on numerous occasions to ask his advice on a particular police matter.

  On one of the occasions I was fortunate to be partnered off with Donald, working alongside him on the Divisional Crime car, he related this story to me about one of the best known criminal ‘safe crackers’ in Britain, called Johnny Ramensky, the son of a Lithuanian immigrant to Scotland, whom he had the task, along with his partner Bert Gordon, of escorting from the Glasgow High Court to Peterhead Prison, after his brief appearance at court for the last time, to appeal against his latest custodial sentence.

  Often referred to as ‘Gentleman Johnny’, because he never displayed any violence towards anyone when arrested, his crimes were always that of breaking into premises and opening and removing the contents of their ‘safe’!

  An art of ‘safe-breaking’ that Johnny performed rather well, in fact, unfortunately for him, it was rather too well, in respect that his expertise work was instantly recognisable by the police and he was subsequently arrested within a few days of the crime being discovered.

  It was also an open secret that in 1942 when war was raging across Europe and whilst languishing in a prison cell, as a guest of HMP Peterhead that Johnny wrote a letter to the government requesting that his undoubted skills be utilised and put to good use.

  Johnny was ecstatic when his request was accepted and he was seconded into a special commando unit led by General Lacey and dropped behind enemy lines, in order to use his mercurial ability to break into German Officers safes and remove all secret documents required to assist the war effort.

  He was asked to perform a similar operation during the fighting in Italy, where, as one of the first troops into Rome, he blew open and removed all the contents of fourteen foreign embassy saf
es in one day, including one belonging to Hermann Goering, the Nazi military leader.

  During his brief appearance in Glasgow for his latest court appeal, he was allowed a private visit from his family, who were present, before being placed in the rear of the police car and driven off on the long journey back up to Peterhead Prison.

  It was during the long and tedious journey in heavy traffic that they decided to stop off for a break and change of driver.

  Johnny had intimated he was ‘choking’ for a drink and he also required to visit the toilet.

  Donald pulled off the road into the car park of a Country Tavern and as they were about to apply the handcuffs on Johnny in order to convey him inside to the toilets, Johnny sighed and said.

  ‘Here guys, why do you have to do this to me when I need to pee? Why you not let me go in myself without you and your uniforms and I will buy the drinks for us to enjoy?’

  Donald and Bert looked at each other and deliberated for a moment. They both knew, under the circumstances they could not enter the licensed premises in uniform and enjoy the thirst quenching delights of a cool beer on this warm day.

  However, in the short time they had spent together in Johnny’s company, they had formed a mutual relationship and Johnny always displayed the utmost respect and admiration for the police and the difficult job they performed on a daily basis.

  ‘Please guys, trust me!’ Johnny pleaded.

  However, having listened to Johnny’s reassurances, Donald and Bert looked at each other and agreed to his offer. After all, it would be the last time Johnny would get the opportunity to visit a pub of any description, for quite some time.

  ‘Okay!’ Donald said, putting his hand into his pocket. ‘Here’s some money to buy the beers, but don’t let us down Johnny!’

  Johnny assured him he had nothing to worry about and taking possession of the money, he casually walked towards the door of the Tavern and disappeared inside.