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| I'm in the top row at the far right |
I'm sorry I can't remember his name,
but it was a turning point for servicemen when a Member of Parliament stood up
in the House of Commons and eloquently pleaded for jobs to be opened up for men
returning from overseas. London Metropolitan Police quickly obliged.
Training to become a London
policeman in 1947 differed greatly from today. We didn’t receive firearms
instruction or use computers to aid in investigation and we weren’t assigned
fancy cars equipped with GPS. No, the London bobby walked the beat and learned
indispensable skills such as how to stop a runaway horse.
That exercise was not as simple as
the training manual made out. The first step was easy enough - “Run in the same
direction as the horse.” Next, you were to grab the reins at the side of
the horse’s head, which would encourage the animal to slow down to a gentle
trot.
The first time I was faced with this
task, I ran with all my might and managed to catch up to the horse and grab the
reins, but instead of slowing down, it took off at an even faster pace causing
my legs to fly up behind me as I hung on for dear life. After I’d repeatedly
kicked myself in the arse, the nag decided it’d had enough fun and came to a
stop.
During this process my helmet had
flown off and one of the street urchins, who usually gave us so much trouble,
fetched it back to me instead of taking off with it. There was a grocer at hand
and I said "Give this boy an apple". The kid was so pleased that I
turned to the merchant and said "And how about one to take home for his
mum?" The boy's face lit up "Oh yes sir!!" Simpler times.
The recruits were a rough and tumble
lot. Most were veterans and the others not far out of their teens after having
lived in wartime conditions. We lacked social graces, to say the least,
and a good part of our training was the pursuit of making us gentlemen who
would be a credit to the force.
There were bad habits to break, to
be sure. During the war, troops would occasionally be invited to dinner events
and it became customary to return to camp with knives and forks for use in the
mess hall. After mealtime at the police college, cadets would be inspected when
filing out, just in case cutlery had inadvertently been pocketed.
If you lived close to the college,
you were allowed to go home at the end of each day; otherwise you lived in a
barrack called a section house during training. Since we would be working
a six day week, we trained six days weekly.
Fast friendships were made in the
section house and I particularly remember one fellow trainee. He came to me in
a panic because he’d lost his all-important warrant card and the penalty was immediate
expulsion from the college. I rounded up a few other trainees and we went off
to search the three parks he had been patrolling previously.
I went to the interestingly named
Tooting Bec Common which dated from Norman times. After scouring the grounds I
saw his warrant card winking at me from underneath a bench. I raced back to the
college before he went to confess the loss.
Saved from near disaster, this young
chap rose quickly through the ranks as a police officer, eventually leaving
London Met to become a high ranking officer in Hong Kong.
Since the vast majority of recruits
were ex-servicemen, we were experienced in the operation of firearms, but
London police don’t carry service revolvers, so that was a wasted talent.
Mind you, we were issued truncheons
made of lignum vitae, being the hardest wood around, which could do a fair bit
of damage to a noggin when necessary.
Our uniforms were designed to
protect us. It was difficult for suspects to attempt strangulation while
resisting arrest since we didn’t have collars and ties to pull. Our tunics were
studded rather than buttoned and instead of raincoats with belts and buttons
that could be grabbed, we were issued capes. Mind you, I found the iconic
bobby helmet of no great use as it was easily knocked off.
The most valuable preparation for
police duty wasn’t learned at the college, though. It was after
graduation, when we were each assigned to walk the beat with a long-serving
constable, that we really learned the ropes. One of my first nights out with my
veteran partner took an unusual turn.
Spying a man with a suitcase acting
suspiciously, my partner remarked intuitively, “He’s up to no good”.
Having caught the attention of the coppers, the man dropped the suitcase and
took off running. We were quick to the chase, with my partner grabbing in
his pocket to retrieve his police whistle.
Thing is, he happened to keep his
tobacco in the same pocket and a wad had somehow attached to the whistle. Next
thing I knew he was choking on the tobacco. We lost precious moments as I
pondered whether to pursue the suspect or attend to the officer.
Luckily, two bystanders saw the
situation unfold and chased down the suspect and brought him back to us. Meanwhile,
I thumped my partner on the back to dislodge the obstruction, with the wad
eventually taking flight from his mouth. As he sat on the pavement composing himself,
I arrested the suspect.
After marching the suspect down to
the station house to be charged, the desk sergeant asked who had made the
arrest. My "teacher" looked me squarely in the eye, then told the
sergeant "It was me." That’s one lesson I learned from him – to stick
up for myself in future.
