No Step Back

The story of one man’s life on a very different beat

by

Alan Lloyd MBE With N Williams

CHAPTER 1 2014.

I lie pressed between stark-white sheets in a stark-white ward of a stark-white hospital, staring at the stark-white composite squares suspended within the aluminium frame of the ceiling and think about my life, which has been anything but stark and white.

Overweight, and with an irregular heartbeat, I have plenty of time to stare and to think, and plenty of time to reflect on the years that undoubtedly brought me to this place for the second time in five years.

I’ve never been one predisposed to self-pity or to dwell on the past, but when you get to my age and are told by a doctor that you have a dodgy ticker you can’t help but do anything other than think of the life that might come to an abrupt end anytime soon.

I’ve thought of all kinds of shit since I’ve been here, from my love of swimming and football to my time as a copper, the monarchy and parliament, all the way down to everyday annoyances like refuse collections.

When you’ve got time on your hands your head will take liberties with matters that you’d otherwise not think twice about.

The nurse checks the bleeping box by my bed and smiles. “Looking good, Mr. Carr.”

“Please don’t call me Mr. Carr. My name’s Darren. Always makes me feel old when someone calls me ‘mister,’” I smile.

She returns appreciative nod.

the

smile

with

an

I am old. But age is a lot stranger on the inside than it is on the outside. It’s usually easy to guess the age of the outer-shell but if you ask anyone who is my age how old they feel they’ll tell you that they still feel young in the head. Me? I guess I feel about twentyone, even if my outer-shell is betraying me to the attractive middle-aged woman checking the digital heart monitor and managing to register an increase in rhythm as she leans in to check the electrodes stuck to my hairy, barrel chest.

I feel a cramp threaten an unsuspecting and underused muscle in my left foot and struggle to lift my leg beneath the tightly tucked, stark-white sheet, which triggers another memory from a time slipping away with the last few survivors of a generation that was born in conditions so far removed from those of today.

I’m pinned beneath the sheet and feel like the three year old boy - many decades

before - tucked under the mounds of bedclothes; heavy and scratchy wool - lovingly tucked in around the edges by my mother to protect me from the cold. *** February 1941 The cramped Anderson shelter is halfburied in the small garden at the rear of the terraced house. The curved sheets of corrugated iron that form the roof are less than six months old but have already begun to rust. It’s bedtime, and even though I’m only three I know I should be tucked up under the mounds of blankets my mother liked to wedge tightly over me and under the mattress.

But not tonight.

My mother had rushed into my bedroom and snatched me from the press of bedding and down to the outside shelter my dad had built from the materials supplied by some official bloke in a grey suit and matching trilby hat.

The wail of the air-raid siren strikes a deep fear into all who hear it and even at that young age I can understand that the siren is no signifier of good news.

I’m wide-eyed with fear.

I can hear the whine of a string of bombs that Mam says is being aimed at the

docks of the city five miles away. The whining is punctuated by the boom, boom of the big anti-aircraft guns I’ve seen up on the hill above my house. My big sister, father and mother huddle up close to me in the small, dark and musty interior of the shelter until another shrill piercing sound of the all-clear siren on the battleship-grey post some 50 metres from home brings temporary relief in the knowledge that, for now, the bombing is over.

Barely back in my bed, and unable to sleep, the siren wails again, warning of another impending attack and I’m carried once more to the tin shelter.

Such was life in the early forties - fear, hunger and anger. Most parents would die to feed their offspring and during the war many did. This wasn’t unique to Swansea by any means. The scenario was mirrored throughout many cities, coastal areas, and certainly wasn’t just confined to the east end of London, as many seem to think today.

Then, after becoming accustomed to living this way; it stopped.

The relief, the joy of not hearing any bombs from 1943 onwards, the news that the war had ended two years later, the incredible euphoria at the Victory street parties – AND once more, packets of Chocolate biscuits.

Lying in bed, I have flashbacks to my junior school in the late forties with good, committed teachers who taught us life skills as well as academic subjects‌ Respect.

Discipline.

Good Citizenship.

Religion.

Competent reading‌ ‌and arithmetic.

These were all disciplines that, in my opinion today, have sadly declined to an alarming level during the early part of the twenty-first century.

All these things flash through my mind as I lie and stare at those stark ceiling tiles, occasionally distracted by the antics of the other patients around me. *** I watch poor Winston in the bed opposite me struggling with one of those cardboard bottles provided for the relief of the bladder and see him grimace as a small damp stain appears on his no-longer-stark-white bed sheet.

I like to people watch. I suppose most ex-coppers like to do the same. I remember being told by one of my puppy-walkers when I first joined the job that it was better to watch and listen than to talk.

I look at the poor soul opposite because there isn’t much else to look at and I’ve had enough of thinking about the past for a moment, although I know that won’t last for long.

During one of our chats, to break the monotony of the ward, Winston admitted he’s two years younger than me, though I think he looks at least ten years older. Having heard his life story I realise why.

One of six children, times were very hard for Winston and, as it was for many young men of the area, it seemed inevitable that he would follow his father into the coal mines.

Although he had been a very bright lad at school, the circumstances of his family life dictated that he would not progress to a higher education.

“I was fifteen when I first went down the pit,” he told me. “Filling drams and making tea as I leant the task of ripping coal out of the ground in conditions not fit for rats.”

I listened in fascination - and not a small amount of horror - at the conditions the colliers endured. I empathised with his story of the tin bath set in front of the fire and the tepid water constantly topped up by his Mam’s hot kettle and how even that could only partially remove the grime of the black dust that somehow got everywhere and even permeated his soul. But the lad was young and strong and conditions such as he endured had been the same for his father and grandfather before him. It was what was expected.

As teenagers, we had been unknown to each other, but as old men, we discovered that we had two interests in common - boxing and soccer. We quickly realised that we had even come into contact with each other as Boys Clubs amateur boxers and had both played football for Wales at schoolboy and youth level - though in different years. We chatted for hours about our past.

Like others of my age, the National Service notice had dropped through the letterbox in my eighteenth year. My dad was a poorly paid shipping clerk and it was obvious to me that when I left for my National Service that I would have to leave home permanently and survive on my own. There was no way my parents could continue to support me.

Winston didn’t do National Service and continued to work in the mines. Colliers were an excused occupation during the war and still retained its special place even after the war. He had hoped to get out of mining by playing soccer and had his first year as a professional with a second division side when he was twenty-one. That provided him with £12 a week, which at that time was more than his father earned as a senior miner but smallfry compared to professional footballers today.

Winston had just got married and was hoping to buy a small cottage in the village for his young wife and imminent child. But fate had other plans for him. During the second year of his football career, having established himself in the side, a head-strong and reckless defender launched a crunching, double-footed tackle that would have got the perpetrator jail today but only served to prematurely end Winston’s career.

Not even a sending off from the referee.

How times have changed. I have trouble watching modern games where players fake injuries to earn penalties.

To rub a little more salt into the wound; at twenty-three, and on the sporting scrapheap, a double fracture of his fibula and

tibia, botched surgery and aftercare, resulted in his left leg being one-inch shorter than the other. Must have been hard to take because after all these years Winston still couldn’t hide his bitterness and disillusionment as he described his twelve months on the dole and how his hopes were further dashed when his wife left him after an affair with a travelling salesman. There was no other option for him but to return to the mines just before his twenty-fourth birthday and to move back home to live with his parents.

My National Service took me away to Catterick in North Yorkshire and was pretty much spent playing for a well-known Southern League side and thereby earning £6 per game to supplement my £1.10 army pay. I was doing so well I was even able to send money home when I was in the first team.

I was pretty good too!

I had played with and against great international players such as: Eddie Coleman, Duncan Edwards, Graham Shaw, Peter Swan, Alan Hodgkinson, Willie Hamilton,

George Hayes and countless others.

All were full internationals and all earning less than twenty quid per week. In my mind, Beckham, Rooney and Ferdinand aren’t good enough to lace their boots, not in the same league as those guys from my past who were earning under £20 as opposed to the £150,000+ a week they get now.

When my National Service ended, my soccer didn’t. It was back to playing and living away from home.

I received £2.50 for digs, £6 pay if I played for the first team, £3 for the reserves and an extra £2 for a win and £1 for a draw.

Winston couldn’t believe that I still had my little yellow hardcover professional footballer’s book that contained a clear printed warning to players that if they drank alcohol after Wednesday in each week during the season they could have their contract terminated.

Someone forgot to tell “Bestie” a decade later.

Winston and I opened up on all sorts of things, like the best mates we might have been had we taken the time to speak to each other all those years ago. He seemed more impressed when I told him I worked as a temporary postman during the summer months as a youngster and used to visit

boxing fairs and boxing booths to spar with an up-and-coming fighter for a pound-note if I survived a round. I didn’t do too badly either and won quite a few quid – along with receiving many hammerings in the process.

Times were hard and I boxed to learn how to look after myself in what was a very physical world. Men earned their living on the docks, steelworks and coal mines. It was hard, demanding work, fuelled on the weekends by beer. Licensing laws decreed that alcohol could not be sold after 10pm. Night shifts would clock-on at 9.30pm, triggering a massive surge of the relieved afternoon workers to the nearest pub to quench their thirst. It was a time of boom for the brewers but this patronage of local hostelries inevitably resulted in many punch-ups after the pubs closed. As a child it was impossible not to admire the cops who, without radios or other backup, had to deal with these disturbances, often alone, using a combination of tact and brutality, but almost always fairly.

Unlike others who lived through the sixties, my memories of the decade are easier to recall. There was an affluence and hope for the future. The Beatles led the start of their music extravaganza, replacing Alma Cogan, Alan Breeze, Billy Cotton Senior and so many others at the time. Alcohol was cheaper, the breathalyser had yet to rear its head, and those

who worked hard, had a car, had a freedom from the state not experienced today; even at the back end of the first decade of the new century.

National Service, Soccer, Government Service, the Police Force, and eventual retirement, were all in the future. Lying in my hospital bed, all this fills my head and I wonder how it passed so quickly?

Of all the memories flooding back the ones that seemed to dominate were those of my time in the police service. It’s impossible to serve any length of time as a copper without being affected by the job. A copper deals with all the shit that others can’t or won’t deal with. A copper should be the hero that others turn to in times of need but is often seen by some as being a pawn to enforce the whims of politicians. I can see how some people would think this, there has been enough occasions in which governments have used and abused the police for their own ends.

But if anyone got to spend some times with the coppers on the beat they would meet some of the best and most colourful characters imaginable. It’s true that there are some who should never have been allowed to don the uniform but the vast majority are the salt of the earth and will do what it takes to keep their beat safe.

Times change and the values of the past are eroded and subverted by those who should know better. Penny-pinching cut-backs and a dire lack of understanding of the role of policing has undermined the presence of the bobby on the beat. But there was a time when the beat bobby ruled his patch.

To be effective, the beat bobby had to be king.

No step back.

I was only six months into the job when I began to understand how the oldsweats felt about their beats. They had a pride in making “their patch� safe and free of crime. Most even took personal offence at the slightest misdemeanour perpetrated on their beat. It was a personal insult – a piss-take!

I got it!

CHAPTER 2 NOVEMBER 1970.

The call to the warehouse down at the docks – my beat – had begun to wind me up.

This wasn’t the first time the place had been screwed. I knew it was likely to be kids but that didn’t excuse the little bastards.

At least I’d get a cuppa.

The sun had barely made an impression on the horizon. Seven in the morning and the warehouse was still dark; a line of a dozen or so single light bulbs suspended from a central wound-cable failed to chase off the shadows cast by the stack of wooden crates scattered across the cavernous floor.

“You know, Mr. Carr, we don’t usually bother you with small things. See the skylight there?” a short, nicotine-stained, stubby finger pointed to a small sloping window set into an asbestos roof about forty feet above the floor.

“The glass has been broken about four times in the last month. It is a pain in the arse getting someone to go up and repair it all the time. We found this rope, they had obviously dangled it down and they probably dropped it when they were disturbed.”

I could see a coil of orange, plastic coated rope, the kind used to secure packages

and no-where near strong enough to support someone’s weight. It was lying, coiled like a resting snake near a small stack of wooden crates behind the irate owner. Each crate had a black-stencilled label identifying it as oranges, apples or bananas. “I am glad you told me, Mr Duncan,” I said. “If one of the buggers falls from up there he won’t stand a chance.”

Albert Duncan’s short fingers were perfectly matched to his short and stubby body. I’d met him on three occasions now and each time he seemed to be dressed in the same charcoal, pin-striped suit that seemed determined to part company with the overstressed buttons that held his swollen belly in place.

“Exactly,” he said. “It’s one thing to have stuff stolen but I don’t want one of the little bastards getting killed,” Duncan agreed.

I sighed. “Yeah. “If it’s alright with you, I’ll clear it with my sergeant and me and another bobby will watch inside the premises sometime over the next week. One of us will be here and we’ll catch the little buggers.”

“Thanks, Mr Carr,” replied Duncan as he held out a sack and opened it to reveal a selection of fruit as a sign of his appreciation for the service he was already paying for through his tax contributions.

I was about to decline the kind offer but remembered the last thing the sergeant said to me when I took the call; “If he offers you fruit…make sure it appears on my desk before the end of the shift.”

I gratefully accepted the offering and dutifully delivered it to the sergeant’s desk at Central Police Station. Permission to set up observations in the warehouse was a mere formality. I knew Sergeant Bert Harris was too partial to free fruit to deny the request.

Three nights of observations were pencilled in to my roster and my new pal, Alan Evans, volunteered to keep me company.

It made a change to work with someone on a night shift. Eight hours of walking cold, dark streets alone could be soul destroying on quiet nights. I was also glad Alan was coming with me for other reasons. I can look after myself – the boxing helps in that regard. I’m also pretty quick on my feet – the football helps with that. But Alan teased me that he could leave me standing over a hundred yards. As an even-timer myself I’m not sure about that but I knew he must be pretty quick. He’d scored a pretty sensational try for Wales against Scotland about a year previously and left three Scottish defenders flailing in his wake.

At least if we had to chase the little shits around the warehouse we’d stand a better than average chance of catching them.

We set ourselves up for what we knew could be a long and boring couple of nights.

Alan had already done a few of these “stakeouts” – as the Yanks call them - and came well prepared. Inside his kit bag was a thick woollen blanket, a pillow and a flask of coffee laced with a little Scotch; to take the edge off the chill, he explained. At the end of the first frigid night I had decided that I too would be better prepared for the next night.

As is the case in most stake-outs, the first two nights passed without incident but at least we had a couple of good sleeps at Her Majesty’s expense. It wasn’t until mid-way through the third night that something happened, just when Alan walked off for a toilet break. I heard a crash from high above. I could see two figures up on the roof. One of the figures shone torchlight down through the broken window and caught me in its beam.

Realising our cover was blown, I ran the thirty yards to the exit and saw both figures back on the ground. One of them mounted a pushbike and began franticly pedalling for the freedom whilst the other dashed towards a viaduct leading to the beach.

Alan had cut short his toiletries and had appeared from behind a tree. “Bet you a quid he gets to the beach before you catch him.”

Not one to shirk a challenge, I set off at a sprint after my prey. “You’re on,” I shouted over my shoulder.

To my surprise, the lad was quicker than I thought he would be and he was already about three-quarters of a mile from the warehouse and fifty yards on to the soft sand before I caught up with him and brought him down with a tackle Alan would have been proud of.

As was customary in those days, the lad copped a quick cuff around his ear for my troubles. On reflection, I should have hit him harder because he just cost me a quid and a quid bought a lot back in 1960. In fact I could buy six pints of bitter and have change for the bus ride home. Perhaps the thing that stayed my hand a little was the speed of the lad. At around fourteen years of age, he was a fit looking kid and, being obsessed with football, I couldn’t help but wonder if he played a bit.

Alan had jogged up to us and also felt the need to administer a little summary justice with another slap around the ear for the miscreant.

“Do you play soccer?” I asked, hoping something in common would relax him a little and get him to start talking about things more pertaining to the offence in hand.

The lad nodded.

“Soccer? That’s Wendy-ball. You should be playing a man’s game; rugby,” Alan sneered, and cuffed the lad’s ear again.

My curiosity was piqued. “What position do you play?”

“Centre-half, sir.”

“I play centre-forward,” I said.

“Perhaps you’d like to get your own back on me, on the field?”

“I’d like that, sir,” the boy frowned and nodded slowly.

“I bet you would,” I said.

After some cajoling, which included the threat of another clip around the ear, I got the lad to give me his address and marched him the mile or so to his home. Knocking the tired looking door of the small terrace house, I came face to face with the boy’s father.

Recognition.

I had played against the father several times in the local football leagues.

“Tell your father what you have done?” I said, as I pushed the lad towards his father.

The boy was wise enough not to try to make excuses. “We tried to break into a warehouse on the docks, dad.”

As was customary at that time, the father instantly smacked the boy around the ears.

“Who was with you?” the father demanded, but the boy didn’t reply.

Honour among thieves.

“Go to your room,” the dad snarled.

The boy duly left. A wise decision, because his dad was clearly fuming.

“Make me a coffee?” I suggested as I followed the dad into the parlour. “That little bastard made me and Alan Evans run nearly a mile.”

We both smiled.

“You and Alan Evans? Didn’t have much of a chance did he? Still playing Dar?” “Only for the police…and only when they’re short, which seems to be almost every fucking week.”

The lad’s mam must have been psychic or something because she came into the room with two cups of coffee. I knew her too. She worked in a café on my beat and I often went there for a cup of coffee when on duty. “Bloody hell, Bill, all I seem to be doing is making coffee for this bugger. It’s moved from work to my home now.”

I grinned.

“What has he done?” she asked sheepishly.

“We’re in the process of sorting it out Jill, will tell you later,” her husband replied gently. She took the hint and left us together.

I liked Bill. He had been a hard player but always fair. Clean and sharp, and always played the game with a smile on his face. It was a shame to see him struggle with the disappointment of his son going off the rails.

“What sort of a lad is he?” I asked between sips of coffee.

“Good…generally. He plays for the schoolboys and hopefully will be playing against Liverpool schoolboys in the semi-final of the British Cup. The first leg is at Anfield, but he’s been starting to get a little too cocksure of himself in the last couple of months.

Too be honest. it’s only Jill he’s terrified of.

Doesn’t take too much notice of me,” he added.

“Good,” I said. “Got to have some respect in the house. Doesn’t matter where it comes from.”

He shook his head. “Nah! Should be the dad. It’s the dad’s place to be someone they can look up to and respect…fear even.

Not been good at that, I haven’t.”

“Don’t be hard on yourself. I was the same as him, Bill. Not clever, but I’m not frightened of any man who walks the earth, but I’m still fucking terrified of my mam.”

Bill laughed.

I knew I had to sort out the matter of the break-in and asked to use the house phone.

I checked through my notebook and found the number for the warehouse manager’s home. He answered on the second ring and I quickly filled him in on the events and how I proposed to deal with the case. He thanked me and confirmed my suspicion that he didn’t want to see the boy going through the court system.

I hung up and told Bill the good news who then called the lad back into the room to face the music.

Adopting my official police and courtroom voice, I said, “Right, Ken Coombes. I am placing you on probation for a period of three years, if you do anything like this again you will be taken before the court and this will be taken into consideration and you may well go to prison. Do you understand?”

The lad was visibly shaken. That was always a good sign.

“You will also go to Mr Duncan, the manager of the premises, and apologise.

Okay?”

“Yes, sir!”

“Also, the first Monday of every month for the next six months, at five p.m., or after you finish your paper round, I want to see you at my police box. Okay?”

“Yes, sir. Sorry!”

The lad left the room with his tail well placed between his legs.

“Well, Bill. He has loyalty as well; I’ll say that for the little bugger. Not divulging his partner in the crime. I gave him a good clip around the ear but he still wouldn’t tell me who his mate was.” *** January 1971.

The Coombes boy was still attending my police box, as agreed and turned up on a cold, wet and icy January morning as I was dealing with a very bad road accident. Two people, a young lad and a girl – I assumed was his girlfriend - were quite badly injured. I had my hands full trying to keep the girl conscious and talking to me and, at the same time, control the traffic building up on the slippery road. Coombes ran towards me. “Can I help?” he asked.

I was relieved to see him. I gave him the key to the police box on the corner of the road. “Go to the police box, use the phone and ask for an ambulance. Tell them it’s urgent and bring me the first-aid box.”

He did as I asked and quickly returned to me, still looking keen to help. “All done, Mr. Carr. The ambulance is on its way.”

The girl had stopped answering my questions but the lad behind the wheel was bleeding out from a seriously deep laceration on his arm. “Right. Use this pad,” I said to Coombes. “Elevate the arm above the heart and keep pressing, keep his blood in.” It was clear even to me, with my limited first aid training, that the patients’ artery had been damaged. Coombes’ help freed me up to start resuscitating the girl who had stopped breathing.

Looking back on that, I don’t know what I would have done without the Coombes lad. He remained calm with all the blood around and was able to ignore the wailing of two others passengers who had been in the rear of the vehicle but who were uninjured.

The ambulance arrived pretty quickly, although it seemed to take forever as I frantically tried to breathe life into the girl.

There is no better sight at these times than the arrival of an ambulance crew. The two injured

persons were taken to hospital and I learned later that they both survived. I still believe that without the assistance of the Coombes boy, the lad with the severed artery would not have survived.

A week later, Coombes received a letter from the Chief Constable praising his actions and a phone call from me to say that his “Probation” had ended. Nothing gives me more pleasure than to see a kid come good, but I wasn’t always so lucky with my selfimposed “Probation.”

I was once caught out.

Walking past a taxi office one day, the wealthy owner, a chairman of The Magistrates Bench, called me in to his office. Over a cup of tea, Mr. Morgan-Stone, a character who looked like Harry Seacombe (the Welsh singer and comedian) said, “We had a lad before us the other day for something minor. I asked if anything was known of his “previous.” The prosecuting Inspector said no, but the lad piped up and said he had been placed on probation by P.C. Carr for pissing over the Vicar’s roses.”

I almost choked on my tea.

Morgan-Stone couldn’t keep his sour expression and laughed. “We adjourned quickly and nearly pissed ourselves laughing.”

I thought I’d better play for touch quick.

“Mr Stone, it is only very rarely I do anything like that.”

Stone held up his mug of Rosie. “Not a criticism lad, I was talking to your father the other day, still great for his age. I told him he should be proud of you. I like the way you do things.”

Phew!

CHAPTER 3 THE SWINGING SIXTIES. In an article in the Los Angeles Times in 1982, comedian Charlie Fleischer is quoted as saying: “If you remember the ’60s, you really weren’t there.” I was only vaguely aware of the explosion of the sixties but for the reasons Fleischer alludes to.

The big names in entertainment at the time were Elvis and The Beatles, but they meant virtually nothing to me. I was wrapped up in my own world, finding my feet in my career and still kicking a heavy leather ball around the park whenever I could.

The police were poorly paid. The men about town with all the money seemed to be car dealers and company salesmen. They had cars, money in their pockets, expense accounts and the breathalyser wasn’t going to be introduced to bother them until the back end of the decade. It was the car Salesmen and any other kind of company salesmen that benefitted from the breakout from post war austerity. Guys like postmen, policemen, nurses and firemen hardly knew the difference. They were all still poorly paid and still led a somewhat frugal existence by comparison. Few had bank accounts and workers were usually paid on a Friday with cash in a brown envelope – the Pay Packet.

The salesmen were reaping the rewards of the car industry explosion. Those who were making money from rebuilding post-war society were able to indulge in the latest models to come off the production line at Cowley or Longbridge, but most coppers I knew still didn’t own a car. Alcohol was cheap, company luncheon vouchers were in vogue and pubs would resonate from Thursday lunchtimes with long liquid lunches for the salesmen and men about town.

Most of the eligible women had simple needs and aspirations – we all did.

Many of the women would attempt to land a salesman if they wanted to travel and be wined and dined, whereas one who wanted a council house or a house otherwise provided as part of an employment package would marry someone in a “steady,” if poorly paid, job. Though many jobs were poorly paid, there was plenty of work for those who wanted it.

The distrust of politicians hadn’t really kicked in. The thought of Mandy Rice-Davies and Christine Keeler bringing down a Conservative Government was faintly amusing at the time but John Profumo resigning because he lied to the house would hardly attract a by-line today. Profumo would not have found the need to resign in a cesspit where, today, the truth rarely raises its head.

For an MP to leave the house now he or she has to be dragged kicking and screaming.

None of them wants to lose their bountiful cash cow. Self-interest before service. That’s the mantra of most modern-day politicians. It seems the basic qualification to be a member of parliament is to be an inveterate liar and to claw and claim expenses with impunity, have no loyalty and just generally be dishonest.

Thank God for some honourable reporters in the so-called free-press who are exposing these no marks for the infamy their actions have warranted. The arrival of social networking has also made it harder for the corrupt to hide behind the shields of their lofty towers.

The sixties weren’t perfect. Corruption was probably just as rife but not as well discovered and documented. But for people like me it was still a time when you would rush out of the cinema just before the film finished rather than stand up and sing the national anthem at the end of every sitting.

But the anthem was always heard with respect and if you couldn’t make it to the exit in time, well, you stood to attention and sang with the rest.

Murderers could still be hanged, sentences were largely effective and though a far better quality of life was just around the

corner, we believed that society was relatively well behaved and decent. *** 1967 was the year in which Sergeant Bert Harris retired, but just before he finished he had a chat with me.

Well this is it, what’s hopefully coming to us all – slippers, gardening and the grandchildren, I thought.

Bert Harris was now in his fifty-fifth year, the retiring age for sergeants at that time.

“Well, the city has had their money’s worth out of you Sarge,” I said honestly. “Sadly, not too many of your kind around anymore. Most of the sergeants and senior officers now come from that college of nonsense at Bramshill. A few years on the beat and they emerge as sergeants. They haven’t a fucking clue. I remember you telling me a few years back that we would lose the streets, I think we have already lost them.”

“Yeah, and it will get far worse, Harris agreed. “Next year, the Force is going to amalgamate with three other forces. The politicians and Chief Constables are selling us down the river. The strength of a local force was its accountability to the watch committees, and the city had the local police force it wanted and deserved,” he continued.

“With amalgamation, centralisation will lead to a lack of local knowledge, police forces will be politicised. At the moment they are independent. Soon, no Chief will be able to act without Home Office approval. The dogooders, sixth form lefties who haven’t got a fucking clue, will end up as politicians, judges and administrators. I have dreaded this time.

Thank fuck I’m going.”

I didn’t necessarily agree with Harris’s assessment of the future but I never forgot his words. Now, more than forty years later, much of what the old sergeant had foreseen has come to pass.

CHAPTER 4 THE BEAT SYSTEM. The system of policing a busy city centre was vastly different in the 60’s from methods used today. An officer would parade on duty 15 minutes before the start time. He would parade and would receive briefings from an Inspector and Sergeant concerning such things as break-ins, violence, warrants, missing persons and car theft. There were no, or very few, policewomen working beats in 1960 - they were employed on other duties but their time would come.

The details of missing persons and stolen local cars would be entered in “add-onbooks” in the officers “official” personal pocket book, which was carried by the officer at all times. The bottom line was that before going out on his beat, he would have up to date information concerning people and events.

Today, a copper probably doesn’t even have a beat and would not be so well informed as to what went on as his predecessor of three or four decades ago.

Oh how times change.

The Constable would be assigned to a beat for some time. Some officers chose to stay on their beat for most if not all their

career. Most beats had Tardis-style square police boxes where a phone and some local records would be kept and, in some case, specially designated static phones where the public and police could phone in. There were no mobile phones or police radios in the 60’s.

Each day an officer had a different phone-in time for each hour, for instance: Monday; might be 10 minutes past every hour.

Tuesday; 20 minutes past each hour, etc, and the officer would have to phone the Central Police Station at the appointed time. If an officer didn’t ring at the appointed time it would be assumed that something untoward had happened and often a search party would be sent out for him. God help a copper who simply forgot.

A “point” was also part of his responsibilities. The point could be a road junction, where he would be at the end of his shift, and this was where he would be met by a sergeant for rendezvous’. The points would be different every day.

The officer, for the first hour, would patrol several streets on his beat and then write this observations in his pocket book for each hour, recording the streets he had patrolled. Any incident would also be contemporaneously recorded. A sergeant would then usually meet a constable on his beat at least twice a shift and would, on a

weekly basis, examine the officer’s pocket book for compliance of these orders.

A policeman, therefore, would know almost everyone in or on his beat. He would take it as a personal affront if any crimes were committed on his patch. Good policemen would tend to help any of their ‘parishioners’ when confronted by petty matters such as failing to produce their motoring records in time, or minor parking offences, etc. This would, in turn, develop trust and would provide a network of potential information regarding more serious matters.

One of the central problems facing police during the past two or three decades has been the reluctance of witnesses to come forward. During yesteryear, if a member of the public trusted his local cop sufficiently he or she would volunteer information in the knowledge that his or her identity would remain confidential. This was the trust that existed after the war, and which was to be destroyed by the short-sighted idiots in the Government and Home Office, who, for their own reasons wanted to make the police more accountable and politicised, cut numbers and forced the beat cops into cars away from the human face-to-face contact that had worked so well.

The arguments I hear for today’s efficient service, such as everyone has a radio

now - we have records on our computers at the touch of a button, do not stand up. The reality is that today’s policemen have no concept of working a beat, good oldfashioned police craft that kept the streets safe and clean. A mountain of paper work that defeats the object and keeps officers desk bound is the order of the day now, making coppers almost alien to the streets and the public they were intended to serve. After all, a policeman is just a witness to a judicial system of proceedings and thereby, surely, a mere statement of what he saw and did should be enough for the courts? It’s true that trust has been undermined by some rogue officers, by those who serve themselves before their sworn duty, but the changes implemented over the years do nothing but continue to undermine that trust that was once implicit in the service.

The absurd pursuit of targets that is ruining the health service and many other public institutions has become the management tool of choice by those who have little or no understanding of the service. I wonder, haven’t these clowns realised that computers are only at best storage implements; they cannot, and never will, replace the local knowledge and expertise of human beings dealing with human beings?

Today, everything is a gimmick.

Plastic policemen with no powers, standing by whilst kids drown on the basis that they were prevented from attempting to carry out a rescue because of Health and Safety and Risk Assessment issues, it sounds like a sick joke but it’s actually happened. In days gone by, if a policeman stood by whilst youngsters drowned, he or she would have been very properly disciplined and probably dismissed.

CHAPTER 5 THE NIGHT SHIFT. During the 60’s the pubs shut at ten p.m. In those days, men earned their living mostly by hard labour, in the mines, steel works, factories and docks, to name but a few.

There seemed to be an unwritten agreement that shift workers on the night shift would turn up for work at 9.30pm to allow the two-‘till-ten pm shift to go into the city for a pint. Furnace workers would be severely dehydrated after working eight hours in blisteringly hot conditions and a few pints would assist the rehydration process.

It’s true! Honest!

The lack of food, the alcohol on an empty stomach, the gulping down of pints at a furious pace - to get as much as they could inside them in little more than 30 minutes before closing time led to the inevitable drunken behaviour. But any disturbances were usually brief and easily dealt with. Nightclubs had yet to hit the scene and bring with them their own specific problems.

Unlike today, with easy access to alcohol almost 24/7, trouble would usually occur during the thirty minutes after the pubs closed. Every beat officer had to be on their “fronts” during this period. Static positions were made for officers so that they could see

each other by positioning themselves on either side of the road, or at road junctions or bends.

If an officer needed assistance he would flash his torch three times at the nearest colleague in sight who would relay the message to other officers in similar fashion. That way, quicker than any radio or car, officers could receive assistance from fellow officers in minutes. A beat car would be floating around the city with three or four officers aboard ready to deal with specific incidents and to remove miscreants from the scene and convey them to the charge room. It was a good system and it worked. *** I was on duty one Friday night on my “front” in the High Street of the city when I came across a colleague, an old sweat called Clive Roblin.

After exchanging the customary grunts, Roblin asked me if I was still playing soccer.

“Yeah,” I said.

I went on to explain how I had to leave Gloucester in the Southern League because now I have a “proper job” and that I was just playing Welsh League soccer.

“Playing tomorrow?” Clive asked.

“Yeah, but it is a bloody pain in the arse, Clive. Working nights from around four in the morning, I’m fucked, and when I get

home at six I can’t sleep. I then have to get up at eleven, travel to the match, play the sodding game and then come back to work where I’m fucked all night, and all for a few bob.”

“You soft twat, haven’t you sussed that one out?” Roblin said. “I heard you were warm, but you are just as fucking dull.”

I was mystified, and it must have shown on my half-soaked face.

“Watch and learn,” he said.

The pub opposite was closing its doors as a dozen or so men in working clothes stumbled out onto the street. It was ten-fifteen and the landlord exchanged greetings with the officers at the same time as shutting the heavy wooden door and turning the key.

Roblin pointed to two loud characters, clearly the worst for wear. “See those two twats arguing? They have been a pain in the arse all week. Time for a pull. Come on.”

I followed Roblin across the road and watched the old copper do his stuff. “You have been fucking about all week,” he said to the drunks. “I’ve warned you before. Now fuck off, or you will be in the pokey for the night.”

“I cant,” groaned one. “You’re standing on my foot, you bad bastard.”

The inevitable tussle then ensued. One of the men landed me a heavy blow on the side of my head, but most of the impact was absorbed by my helmet. I reeled back temporarily to see both men raining blows on Roblin. I jabbed my elbow in the face of one and stuck my now helmet-less head on the other. Roblin managed to punch one as well for good measure. Both of us dragged the men, fighting and kicking, the couple of hundred yards or so to the police station.

In the Charge Room, an overweight, scruffily dressed charge room sergeant addressed us in a tired, bored voice.

“Well?” he snapped at me.

“Assault on police and drunk and disorderly, sergeant,” I offered until Roblin quickly interrupted.

“No. Both in for D and D, Sarge,” he corrected. The intervention seemed to please the sergeant and I guessed it was Roblin’s way of mitigating any sense of guilt he may have had if the two men had been processed for the more serious offence of assault. Both men were placed in a cell and Roblin and I resumed our beat duties.

As we walked out of the back yard of the station, Roblin said, “Right. I rarely work a full night shift. We’ve locked up those two twats and the statement for Court will take us

about half an hour. At 2 a.m. we will finish duty and we’ll go to court in the morning. So, you’ll get to sleep between 2:30 and 9 a.m.

Court for half an hour at 10:30. You will be properly refreshed, play your game and come back to work feeling all hunky-dory. We’ve done our job, keeping the streets clean, everyone is a winner!”

I turned up in the morning, the Courts were in the police station in those days and there were even Saturday morning courts for those drunks and other minor offenders. I met Roblin and we both went down to the cells.

“Morning Paddy,” Roblin cheerfully greeted one of the two who had been locked up the previous night.

“What are you charging us with, Clive?” asked the one called Paddy.

“Only Drunk and Disorderly, Paddy, but it could well have been assault on police and you both may have gone down for that.”

“Cheers, Clive. Yeah, we had a fucking beano last week, had our bonus’s out.

Didn’t tell the wife and been pissed all week.”

Roblin and I laughed. I couldn’t believe the bastards had drunk their bonuses and not told their wives.

Different breed.

“Ok, then,” Paddy said. “Guilty plea from the two of us, Clive.”

“That’s the boy,” Roblin grinned.

“How is your sister doing,” Paddy asked. “Is she still working in the Queens?”

“Yeah, still there, Paddy.”

This was another lesson for me. Last night they were taking swings at each other and now, here they were, chatting like old pals.

“Give her my regards, will you, Clive.

Haven’t had a pint in the Queens for months.”

“Sure, but don’t give her any agro,” Roblin warned.

Paddy looked hurt. “Come on, you know me better than that, Clive. Men are men and are fair game, but I wouldn’t fuck a woman about.”

“No. Fair play. Credit to you for that, Paddy, but you are a fucking pain in the arse when you’re pissed.”

Both men went to Court, pleaded guilty, were given a £5 fine, which they had 14 days to pay. Coming out of court, Roblin gave me a cheeky grin. “See, Carr? Every one’s a winner. We got our rest and the divine angel of retribution has punished them for not

telling their wives about their bonuses and pissing it up against the wall.”

Roblin was a legend in the nick. He was true to his boast that he rarely worked a full night shift. One Thursday night, an exasperated Inspector addressed the night shift parade. Targeting Clive Roblin, he said, “Look, Clive, tomorrow night we are really short of men, so for fuck sake don’t lock up any drunks for the next few days.”

Roblin grinned but didn’t respond.

Next night shift parade at 9:45 pm, the inspector took the roll call. Roblin was missing.

“Anyone seen Roblin?” he enquired.

No one had.

At ten o’clock, Roblin entered the Parade Room holding two men by the scruff of their necks. “Drunk and Disorderly on the 76 Bus, sir,” he grinned.

Everyone, including the inspector, laughed.

There were many coppers like Roblin, experienced through working the streets and dealing with a variety of people from politicians to postmen, from clergymen to villains, and sometimes they were a

combination of more than one of those. The secret acquired over many years was knowing how to deal with everyone.

Roblin and I worked together again.

We were sent to a house in the city where an elderly woman had phoned the police to say that she believed her husband was in a gasfilled room. We arrived before the fire brigade, so we had to do something. Roblin opened the door and we both had the collars of our tunics over our mouths. Roblin smashed the windows with his truncheon to get air into the building whilst I turned off the gas at the mains. We found an elderly man with his head in the open oven and he was obviously quite dead. Roblin went through the man’s pockets and found a suicide note. He handed it to me and told me to put it in my pocket and keep quiet about it. I had no idea why. I also saw Roblin take two pound-notes from the man’s pocket and put them into his own.

He dragged the man away from the oven and closed the oven door. If there was ever a case of messing up a scene of an incident this was it.

The fire brigade then arrived and ensured the area was safe. Roblin and I took the details we needed and arranged for the disposal of the body and we got together over a cuppa to file the report.

I didn’t say anything at the time but I was concerned and not a little upset that Roblin had taken money from the dead man. I was new to the job but I was learning fast to keep my own counsel.

We read the suicide note. Addressed to his wife, it said, through shaky handwriting – which was probably to be expected - that the dead man believed he had cancer and did not want to be a burden to the family. He couldn’t see any option other than to take his own life.

Roblin told me to burn the note and warned me that it never existed. Once again, Roblin had mystified me.

The inquest date came and an accidental death verdict was recorded. After the hearing, Roblin took me to an afternoon drinking den in the city that was patronised by solicitors, businessmen, policemen and villains. As volatile a mixture of clientele as there could be, but there was never any trouble.

I was surprised to see the Coroner, Jack Dunbar, sitting at the end of the bar. He looked our way and approached us.

“Sad case, this morning, lads,” he exclaimed between puffs on a cigarette and gulps of whiskey. “Wonder which one of you pulled him away from the oven?”

Before Roblin and I could even deny the accusation the Coroner retracted it. “Only joking lads,” he said.

We had a quick drink and made an even quicker exit.

“Old Jack knows the score,” Roblin said to me. “Look, if we had played a straight bat and logged it as a suicide, the family would have been extremely distraught. That would be devastating for his kids. I have heard of several cases where a parent has committed suicide and then afterwards a close relative has done the same. It’s as if the family has been broken and it’s alright to top yourself. Well it’s not fucking alright. Not for the family. The family don’t have much money. With the dad gone it’ll be even harder.

Now, whatever insurance money that’s due to them will make it a little easier.”

I couldn’t hold back any longer. It all made sense, it was a grand gesture but it still rankled with me that Roblin nicked two quid off the poor bastard. “They could also have been two quid better off if a divine wind hadn’t put the notes of his into your pocket.”

Roblin punched me playfully on the shoulder. “Someone had to pay for our beer,” he explained. “If he could speak to us from the grave I know he’d thank us for doing things this way and would stand us a couple

of pints. You see, Carr, once again, even in death, everyone is a winner.�

I was gutted for the poor bastard and his family when the post-mortem revealed that the pensioner was in good health without any sign of cancer or heart disease.

How ironic was that?

CHAPTER 6 STREET STYLE”

CRAFT

“SIXTIES

No two days were ever the same. I did what I could to keep my beat safe but wasn’t always the paragon of virtue the senior officers would have liked me to be – at least officially.

Sometime later, Superintendent Franklin called me into his office.

“What the hell is wrong with you Carr?” Franklin said, not unkindly. “You’ve had some excellent arrests and done some really good work but I’ve had more complaints made against you than the rest of the Division put together.”

I trundled out my stock answer. “Well if you do your job without fear or favour, Sir, you will always get complaints made against you.”

Franklin was street wise and didn’t bite. “Telling a member of the watch committee to ‘fuck off’ is the last straw.

Lucky for you he won’t make a complaint because he knows your father.”

“I didn’t, sir. He was double-parked outside Lloyd’s Bank and was causing a hell of a big obstruction. It was chaos. When I

booked him he said, ‘You can’t do that, I’m a member of the watch committee.’

“What did you say to him then?”

“I told him to ‘F.O.’, Sir.” “You admit you told him to Fuck Off?” “No, Sir,” I replied, “just ‘F.O.’ meaning ‘follow on’ because he was obstructing traffic.”

“You fucking idiot! I’ve had enough of you,” barked Franklin. He was getting red in the face. “You are assigned to the docks where you’ll be among your own kind, you can fight and fuck about to your heart’s content. I don’t want you above the Castle, do you understand?”

“Sir, I have to patrol above the Castle to get here, Sir.” “Hitch a fucking a lift, fly, anything, I just don’t care. This latest complaint, telling a member of the Watch Committee to ‘fuck off’ is the last straw. Stay down there amongst the rest of the idiots.”

With that, the Superintendent’s Chief Inspector came into the room and I was unceremoniously dismissed. ***

Franklin had a slight smile on his face as he outlined the conversation. Both men had served in the Welsh Guards together in the Second World War. The Chief Inspector had been mentioned in dispatches and had proved himself as an abrasive copper over many years and laughed at Carr’s antics.

“That Councillor Concannon is a prick. He was tailor made for Carr,” said the Chief Inspector. “‛F.O. - Follow On,’ quite original that one!”

Franklin frowned. “Yes, but Carr is heading for trouble. He’s a good lad, but he’s fucking wild.”

“But his supervisors say he is respectful to them and doesn’t personally cause them problems. It’s just his actions on the street.”

Shaking his head, Franklin pulled a small bottle of Irish from his draw, spun the top and took a shot. “He will either end up in prison…”

The Chief snatched the bottle. “Or end up a senior officer, Sir,” he grinned as he took a shot. “He reminds me of one of our Superintendents, not a hundred metres away from me, when he was a young copper.

“Fuck Off!” Franklin laughed. The bond between the two men had been forged in

situations most men would never endure or understand.

CHAPTER 7 DEATH IN A DOCK. I finished learning beats and after a month was assigned to the docks area of the city on my own for the first time. I was there to replace a recently hospitalised, experienced colleague. It seems he had a kicking off one of the sailors, an Indian fella, a couple of weeks before. It had been a bad beating and the constable had spent a week in intensive care. There had been a few whispers about who was responsible but no inkling of any evidence to drag the bastard before the court.

Some you win and some you lose.

Swansea Docks has been one of the main ports in the UK and was responsible for the shipping of copper from the major city copper works (which gave rise to the nickname of Copperopolis for Swansea). Like any port city, the docks tend to attract a wide variety of people eager to earn a crust from the visiting ships and the crews equally eager to spend their money on the local attractions.

Wine, women and song usually results in boisterous behaviour that can and will descend into violence. Visit docks around the world and you’ll see the same sort of problem. Only the accents change.

Patrolling along the high Victorian Buildings and their hideous frontages, totally

out of character with the original construction of those fine buildings, modified through necessity and lack of planning vision after the damage sustained during the war, Gaudy shop fronts, marine-gents outfitters, I’m amazed at how they sell ill-fitting suits for way over the top prices to seafarers from the sub-continent.

It’s a warren of clothing, hardware and other shops, selling almost everything. These shops were rarely broken into but the prize for the villains was the camera shop, which despite its iron laced frontage, was often the target of nefarious activity aimed at the prize cameras of the period; the Leica’s and Rolliflex, which often appeared in the river pubs for sale at a fraction of their retail price.

The clocks had gone back less than a month before Christmas and it was raining heavily. I was walking towards the Tardis style wooden police box and it was approaching my hourly ring at ten-minutespast-ten in the evening. I intended to stay on the “front,” as my colleagues called it, where there was maximum activity, waiting for the drunks to stumble out of the pubs at around ten-thirty. I could think of better places to be but that was the job.

Rain dripped from my helmet onto my collar and snaked down my back. I entered the police box and made the obligatory call to the station before I threw my heavy cape

around my shoulders to add another layer of protection before I stepped back out into the deteriorating weather.

Three men in their late twenties approached and sauntered up to me. I could see them sizing me up and they were clearly intent on trying their luck. I learned a long time ago that, in situations like this, it’s vital to identify the leader. There’s always one that likes to think they are the top-dog. It wasn’t hard to spot the alpha-male in this little pack.

Wearing a black Donkey jacket, glistening with a sheen of rain, and built like a brick shit-house - and probably home to just as many flies as your average toilet. He was a dead-ringer for Desperate Dan, a manmountain. He stepped forward and stood inches from my face. “You’re fucking new here aren’t you, copper?”

A short-arsed little runt of a man peered around Dan’s solid bulk. “Wet behind the fucking ears!

It wasn’t just my ears that were wet.

“Employing kids now?” spat the third – a greasy and skinny turd of a man who was the height of Dan but probably less than a third of his weight.

I steeled myself. I knew that this was the time I had been warned about by my colleagues. This was the time to establish

myself on my beat. I had to lay down my marker and gain a reputation. I knew that moments like this could make or break a beatbobby.

No step back.

“Beer stains on the barmaid’s apron a bit too strong for you tonight, lads?” I sneered.

Dan wasn’t impressed.

“If we set on you now, copper, you would have no fucking chance.”

I could see the big guy was in two minds about setting about me. Assaulting a police officer back in those days not only meant a guaranteed custodial sentence but also a pretty fine kicking from the victim’s colleagues.

“I could drink you under the fucking table,” he added.

“Been taking the fucking brave pills again?” I said, my voice now becoming more menacing. I knew I could look after myself but I’ve also always been aware that there is always a risk in the unknown. There were a couple of unknowns here. The first was whether I could hit Dan hard enough to lay him out before his two lap-dogs joined in and the other was not knowing if Dan and his mates were experienced in the pugilistic arts.

My experience suggested they were probably more used to riding the menace of their threats rather than actually getting physical. All I had was a whistle to summon help, which would have been as much use as a chocolate fire-guard because, to my knowledge, I was the only copper on the Docks. I could feel the excitement, the fear, the tension that I had last felt when I had been boxing or when I had been playing a match in front of a large crowd. The adrenaline was already sky-high.

“You may well be more skilled in the consumption of alcohol, gentlemen, but this little bit of wood in my pocket will split one of you from asshole to breakfast time and I will knock the teeth of one of you tossers so far down your throat you’ll have to put a fucking toothbrush up your fucking ass to clean them.”

I liked that line. If I survived this I’d make a note to use it again.

“Now fuck off before you find out which one of you will be chewing their shit twice.’

Dan looked a little shocked for a moment but then began to blow smoke through his nose like the bull of a man he was. At that very moment, an old copper with some twenty-five years in the job, appeared

from around the corner. To my surprise, Dan greeted him.

“Hello, Dick.”

“Hello, Donovan.

Paddy,”

replied

Dick

“Hey, Dick, this is one wild young fucker?” Paddy grinned. “Threatened the fuck out of us, he did.”

“New breed, lads,” agreed Dick. “Not as tolerant as me,” he grinned.

I was left a little confused as Dick and the three men passed pleasantries for a while before the men turned away and walked in the direction of the River.

“Goodnight, lads. Mind how you go,” shouted the old copper.

I could feel a grudging respect from the three of them for the old copper and wondered how the old man had earned that.

“Lets go to the box,” Dick suggested.

“I don’t have an hourly ring until tenpast-eleven, Dick, and if the Sergeant finds me in the box before then he will play fuck with me. I’m still on probation.”

“He wont be down here tonight for a while, son, believe me,” Dick smiled.

“How do you know?”

“Son, one of the most important things you have to do as a young cop is to listen and not ask too many questions. You listen to me and stay in the police box for at least the next hour and don’t ask any questions. Do you understand? Remember, the basic rule of a wise cop; no one can make you see anything you don’t want to, you can take a horse to water but you can’t make it drink,” he added each word slowly for emphasis. “Do you understand me?”

I nodded my head, not having a bloody clue what Dick was on about.

I did as I was told and after what seemed like hours I checked my watch.

Midnight.

I thought I’d been in there long enough, and that perhaps the old cop was winding me up. There was a lot of banter and Mickey-taking of young recruits, no different to that experienced by youngsters in many professions and trades of the time.

At that moment I had decided to leave the cosy interior of the box I heard the key turning in the door. One of the sergeants, Bert Harris, who had earned himself a bit of a reputation as being a bastard towards the new recruits entered.

Oh fuck, I thought.

“Ok son?” enquired the sergeant.

I could tell that he was agitated and could see that he was sweating profusely.

I didn’t know what to say or do. I was expecting the inevitable bollocking.

“Let’s go for a walk,” he said.

I did notice that there was no mention of the fact that I should not have been in the police box at that time without a good explanation and was more than a little surprised that the old sergeant hadn’t even asked for one.

The rain was now lashing down and the sergeant was pleasant but seemed nervous, out of character from my previous contacts with him. I found it strange because I knew Bert Harris had been a Sergeant-Major during the Second World War and had seen a lot of active service. He had even been awarded the Military Medal. We walked on quietly for a while and the Sergeant took me to the extremity of my beat, which happened to be the furthest point away from the River. “Book a conference with me here in your pocket book. Mark it up as being at 11.20pm, son,” he said. The actual time was nearly an hour later. I hesitated until the sergeant continued.

“This is probably where you were at around that time, son, so book a visit.”

We were now sheltering under a railway arch. He added, “Make your book up now and I’ll sign it.”

I duly made the false entries into my official police pocket book, listing streets I had not patrolled, premises I had not checked, and then booked the false conference at 11.20pm – as instructed. The sergeant duly signed my pack of lies.

You are the footballer aren’t you?”

Without waiting for a reply he added, “You will do okay here if you keep your nose clean.

Always remember, you can lead a horse to the water but you can’t make him drink. No one can make you see or hear anything you don’t want to see or hear, do you understand?”

What’s all this about?

I nodded, “I think I am learning that fast, Sarge,” although I still had no idea why the old-sweat and now the sergeant were telling me this.

“Good lad, good lad,” Bert Harris said as he walked away in the pouring rain in the direction of the city centre.

What the fuck was that all about? I was baffled.

I placed no significance to a report in the local evening paper four days later that the body of an Indian seafarer had been found in

the River near the dock entrance and that he’d been missing for four days.

Some you win and some you lose.

No step back.

CHAPTER 8 BIG SHOES I made my hourly ring at a police box on the outskirts of my beat. I checked my watch and smiled, I was spot on – 11 pm.

“Go to Crymlyn Street, there is a huge punch up there,” the female operator warned me.

Crymlyn Street was nearly a mile away by road but there was a short cut over the mountain. I was fairly certain I could find my way, even in the dark, a legacy of the time I had been a telegram boy with the GPO before playing football and had delivered telegrams to an isolated bungalow on the mountain several times, though always in daytime.

Stumbling a few times on rocks and in ruts, I arrived at the piggeries leading from the mountain to the streets below. I could see two very powerful men in their early forties, stripped to the waist and laying into each other in the middle of the street. Even from my vantage point some distance away I could hear the crack of flesh and bone over the shouts of the crowd. It seemed the whole street and a few others besides had turned out to watch.

I was distracted by a small red glow of light about twenty metres away. I could feel the hairs on my head begin to tingle; this could be awkward. I flicked the switch on my torch and drew my truncheon and then sighed as I saw Sergeant Jock MacGregor sitting on the grass, the glow from his cigarette casting a red glow on his face. Jock was of the same mould as Sergeant Harris and had the same attitude to life and policing.

“Put that fucking light out and put the staff away,” commanded the sergeant.

I shrugged and sat alongside him.

“Docker-boxer Morgan down there and Coal-Trimmer Dai Draper, lad,” grunted the sergeant. “Strong bastards!” The information was coming out in one line edicts.

“Been to the Vale pub, probably.” The sergeant paused to savour the smoke. “Have about ten pints each inside them, I would think.”

“Shouldn’t we go down and arrest them, Sarge?” I whispered.

“Don’t be so fucking daft. Watch!” replied the old sergeant. “Good fight. Been at it for nearly half an hour.”

It was obvious to me that both men were tiring rapidly but neither seemed prepared to quit.

After another ten minutes, the old sergeant doused another cigarette in the grass.

“Right, Carr, go down and arrest them,” he commanded.

“Aren’t you coming, Sarge?”

“No fucking chance. Since Bob Dart retired these bastards have been taking liberties. Drinking late and causing trouble.

Time for you to be a hero, lad. Your beat now!”

The sergeant watched Darren walk amongst the two fighters. Bob Dart would have stopped the fight by his mere presence.

He was a hard bastard, working the beat when Jock first arrived in Swansea decades ago.

Brought up in tough times in a tough valley where the only thing truly respected was a fast pair of fists. Dart was also a nasty bugger and would never take a step back. Carr was developing the same air of menace. His colleagues knew Car could handle himself but now it was time for the community to find that out too. A beat copper was nothing without respect. *** No step back.

At 52 years of age, Jock MacGregor would be retiring in a few years. This bit of the job was more suited to the youngsters but Jock knew he could be of use if things got a

bit ugly for Carr. He watched the developments to make sure that Darren was okay.

Boxer Morgan aimed a half-hearted punch at the young copper as he stepped between the fighters. The jeering crowd roared and swore at Carr to piss-off and mind his business.

Jock watched the young copper parry the blow from Morgan and punched him hard in the stomach. Morgan buckled. Carr moved quickly, grabbed both men and frog-marched them away from the stunned crowd towards the police box at the end of the street. There was little resistance.

Smiling, the old sergeant waited until the crowds had dispersed before he disappeared into the night. *** I had the two men in the police box. It was clear that both men were relieved to have been locked up, health, honour and street credibility had been saved by the arrest.

I reached for the first aid box and began patching up minor abrasions. I poured both men a cup of tea. The police box wasn’t big but it still had enough room for some of the basic essentials to make a shift bearable.

“Right lads, have this one on me. Not going to lock you up, but I’m working this beat now and if you think you fuckers can drink in the Vale after hours, get pissed and entertain the street with a brawl you can think again. There are kids who saw that. Get this fucking straight, I am not going to have it, lads. I will be there most nights at stop-tap and ten-past-ten is ten-past-ten. Any of you fuckers drinking after that will be done.”

Draper grinned. “You working this beat permanently? Shit! You must have dropped a clanger.” Draper sipped his tea through split and swollen lips and winced.

“They put the trouble makers out here,” he added perceptively.

I might well have been young in service but I wasn’t thick. “Draper, you fuck off home, and Morgan, you stay here a little bit longer and remember…this ends now. If I have a repeat of this I’ll fucking stitch the two of you up...and I don’t mean with sutures.”

Mumbling acceptance, Draper thought better of finishing his tea and left the police box.

Morgan waited for the door to close then dropped seven cubes of sugar into his cup.

“Hold on a minute, for fuck sake,” I snapped, “don’t take the piss. You’re not in the fucking tea kitty.”

Morgan shrugged and dipped a finger the size of a fat pork sausage into his cup.

“Could have used hot water.”

“And have you two throw it over each other, or worse, over me?”

The big man smiled. “Saw you playing for the police against the Dockers last Thursday. My lad, John was playing for them.

You’re a dirty fucker. Some of your tackles were way over the top,” said Morgan.

I ignored the dig. Draper would either be well on his way by now or hiding around the corner to finish the bout, but I’d done my bit and as the old-sweat kept telling me, what I don’t see can’t hurt me. “Right, off you go now, Morgan...mind how you go.”

A few weeks later, it was a Friday night and I was off duty and having a pint of beer in one of the city pubs in the High Street.

I had a game the following day. As a professional player I’d have been in deep trouble drinking anything alcoholic after a Wednesday, but police fixtures were different.

We were set to play a team up in Surrey and an overnight stay had been planned. A bus was arranged to leave at 7:30 from the police station. I had left my kit in Bob Thomas’

house after a post-training piss-up on Wednesday evening. He lived in the Uplands of the city, about a mile or so from the police station where I had my digs. I had meant to collect the kit in the week but time had passed me by. I decided to call around Bob’s early in the morning before the bus arrived.

I now had a dilemma.

Should I go home for an early night or let my hair down a little and hit the Top Rank?

I smiled to myself. I knew it was no contest. I was single and in the mood for a little female company.

I went to the bar for another drink and was surprised to find that there was a drink in for me. Turning to see who had bought it, I caught a glimpse of boxer Morgan slipping out through the door.

I sat with my back against the wall and watched the clientele in various stages of stupor. City pubs are different to village pubs.

They all sell booze but city pubs are somehow slicker. Even the customers are bloody slick.

It wasn’t long ago that I made my first couple of visits to the local after I’d joined.

The old-sweat I was with made it clear that a pub was no place for a copper to be complacent. Pubs were different for coppers.

Even the bastards who smiled at you would stab you in the back if they got the chance.

I finished off the pint, kindly supplied

by Morgan, and stepped out into the yellow glow from the sodium street lights.

The cold night breeze whistled up High Street from the direction of the castle and I set off for the Top Rank.

I hadn’t got more than a few yards when two of the local toe-rags stepped out into the road ahead of me. Robert William Jones and Arthur Thomas Price were well known to me. It always amused me that nearly all the toe-rags had more than one first name, as if their parents had big hopes for their future. Jones and Price were into anything and everything. Pick-pockets, shoplifters, muggers, small-time drug dealers.

You name it, these twats had done it. I didn’t like them and they didn’t like me. Why should they?

“Mr. Carr,” Jones drawled. He held out a leather briefcase. “Found this down on the Strand. Thought we’d better hand it in to the police.”

“Found it?”

Jones feigned shock. “Mr. Carr. What are you suggesting?”

I wasn’t suggesting anything. I would have put my house on them having nicked the thing – if I had a house. “You know where the station is. Been there enough times.”

“Don’t think so. Don’t like the place.

Allergic to pork” They both chuckled like little schoolgirls.

“Well, I don’t fucking want it. I’m off duty and on the piss.”

Jones shrugged and threw the case into the gutter. “I’m sure the owner will be impressed that you had the chance to return it to him but couldn’t be arsed.”

I wasn’t in the mood for all this. I knew Jones had stolen it and knew his address. It would be impossible to prove it, especially since his prints were all over it and he now had an excuse.

I stepped into the road and picked up the case.

“That’s a good boy,” Jones sneered.

I stood slowly and stepped into Jones’ face. “Why don’t you take a dose of fuck-off tablets before you find yourself prescribed with antibiotics for cuts and grazes?”

Jones tried to remain cool but his ‘hard’ expression was slipping. He stepped back and both men sauntered off like pimps on a promise.

I stood and thought about walking up to the station to book the case into ‘found property’ but the call of the Rank was stronger. The case could wait.

The Rank was heaving and I left the case at the coat desk. Every club had a coat desk then. Everyone wore coats in those days, not like today where most kids would rather die from hypothermia than be seen wearing a coat on a night out.

A good night was had and I ended up walking into the Sandfields, case in hand, to continue my new relationship with a gorgeous blonde by the name of Beryl.

The rattle of milk bottles being dropped off at the door below the bedroom window startled me from my drink and exertion-induced sleep. I checked my watch.

Shit!

It was 6:55 and I had to get to the Central Police station to catch the bus for the trip to Surrey.

I tumbled into my clothes and grabbed the case. It was at that moment that it occurred to me that I hadn’t checked the contents. There wasn’t much inside, going by the weight. No time to check, I waved a swift goodbye to Beryl and set off at pace towards the police station.

I could see the bus waiting on the road outside the front of the station. The exhaust was pumping out clouds of dirty black smoke and Jeff Howells was standing by the door, looking at his watch.

I dropped my pace to a slow stroll; didn’t want him to think I was too keen.

Look cool.

He saw me and shouted. “Where the fuck have you been. The boys broke in your room thinking you were dead.”

“They better fix the fucking door or there’ll be other things broken,” I growled and gasped, trying to control my breathing and maintain my cool.

Jeff saw the case in my hand. “Is that your new kit bag? Where’s your stuff for the overnight?”

I stopped at the door to the bus and opened the briefcase. Inside was a copy of Men Only magazine; the personal attributes of a stunning naked lady adorned the front cover, a magazine that was affectionately known as a ‘Cock-book’ in the locality. Stuffed in the corner of the case was the only other item in the case – a pair of underpants.

I shrugged and grinned. “What else do I need?” *** I returned to work on Monday morning. The rain had eased to an occasional spit and the roads of my beat were washed clean for the line of pensioners’ queuing at the door to the Post Office.

“Morning, Mr Dart.”

I stopped alongside an old lady who waved an arthritic hand at me as she paused briefly before shuffling on her regular trip to collect her money for the week.

Pension day.

Exploits of the fight and my role in it must have been vastly exaggerated, and had spread around the community like wildfire. I had, apparently, beaten up Boxer Morgan and Dai Draper - together!

My predecessor, Constable Dai Dart had been a legend in the area but had retired 20 years earlier and no-one had come close to commanding the same level of respect. I must admit that I felt a surge of pride to be associated with the grand old man!”

I felt I was finally learning my street craft.

The simple philosophy of a cop was you had to win. The beat bobby was the custodian of the patch.

No step back.

CHAPTER 9 THE OPPOSITE SEX. I lie in the hospital bed, staring up at the ceiling, watching the patterns created by the lights from the cars turning in to the car park below. I checked my watch – visiting time. At least I’m feeling a bit better. The heart attack scared the shit out of me. I’ve always been in control and for the second time in five years I’m at the mercy of my failing body. At least my mind is still active.

The attractive nurse saunters past the bottom of my bed. Even though I’m in my seventies there’s no rule to say I can’t at least appreciate a pretty woman. *** So, I lived in the single mess at the police station for the first few years of service. The rooms were not much more than space for a bed and sink. Plain and simple, with no frills. I earned eight pounds a week and two of those went towards my board and lodge.

During my youth, I had been obsessed with fitness for soccer and boxing and had been a virgin until national service. Even then, a few fumbles with ladies of the night in Malta was the sum total of my experience.

But being a copper in those days was a pretty

good tool in the armoury of a horny young man. I wasn’t afraid to use that weapon from the armoury either. Beryl the Blonde wasn’t my first roll in the hay. By the time I’d bedded Betty I was well able to navigate the terrain of the fairer sex and call on my football fitness to at least last until halftime.

I’d only been living in the police accommodation for two nights when a couple of my new mates ‘twisted my arm’ to go an pay a social visit to the Top Rank on the Kingsway.

I dressed up smartly, as was another custom in those days, and proudly displayed my Welsh Boys Clubs Soccer International badge. I felt the business, like a Peacock and looked it too. I went to the club with my mates. Dance Halls and clubs closed at midnight in the sixties, so a rapid case of courting was needed if I was going to acquaint myself with the opposite sex.

I had a few dances, dancing was not a strong point, but I managed a few moves that at least looked fairly coordinated.

Coordination was a strong point of mine on the soccer field but seemed to abandon me when it came to dancing with women. Just as the last dance was being announced, I saw a pretty, sexy looking woman about the same age as myself. Although I’m not afraid to mix it with anyone in a scrap on the streets,

approaching a pretty woman and asking her to dance was a different thing altogether. I took a deep breath and asked her to dance. She looked totally bored and said she was tired.

She said that her feet ached. I knew what was coming – the brush-off! All in the eye-shot and amusement of my friends.

One skill you learn quickly in the job is the ability to soak up piss-takes from mates without resorting to violence. But I didn’t have to wait long to redeem myself.

A week later, I was on point duty just outside the city’s railway station. It was time to knock off and a colleague took over from me. I was crossing the road to go to the back of the café opposite to have a sneaky cup of coffee when the pretty young woman who had given me the brush-off in the club crossed the road. She caught my eye and I caught hers.

“Hey,” she said. “I didn’t know you were a cop. Sorry for not dancing with you on Saturday,” she paused next to me and even I recognised the flirt. “Are you going this Saturday?”

Before I could answer she said suggestively, “Will definitely keep you a dance if you are. In fact you can dance with me all night if you want?”

Not surprisingly, I paid the club another visit on the next Saturday. The

Bouncers didn’t charge cops entrance fees when off duty in those days; it was one of the perks of the job and things were definitely looking up.

True to form, the girl, who introduced herself as Kathy, saw me leaning against the bar with the obligatory pint in my hand and and we spent the rest of the evening together.

I had no chance of buying a car on my wages so I either had to escort Kathy home on the bus or via Shanks’ Pony. Kathy lived two miles away from the city centre so I managed to get a quick snog before I started to walk her home. Sod’s law, the Welsh weather had no respect for a horny man and absolutely no intention of keeping us dry, but what could have been a wash-out quickly became something far more pleasurable. Somewhere along the route, Kathy pulled me into a doorway out of the rain and began exploring some of my nether regions.

We eventually reached her terraced house in a decent street on the outskirts of the city and she invited me in. It hadn’t stopped raining during the past hour and we were both soaked. I learned that her mother was widowed. Her dad had died of ‘the dust’ at 45 years of age. Too many coal miners died of pneumoconiosis and other chest diseases, depriving families of their only breadwinner for many in those days.

Her mother eyed me very carefully as I entered the scullery. “Working tomorrow son?”

“No, not ‘till Monday,” I respectfully replied.

“You had better stay the night then.

Kathy get him a towel and take off those wet clothes and hang them on the drier.”

With that, “mam” went off to bed.

After a suitable time-lapse, Kathy took me to her bedroom insisting that it would be all right. I discovered that Kathy was far more experienced than me in matters of lust and passion, and she was very bloody noisy with it. At one point I even stretched to reach my discarded sock to shove in her gob but it was just out of reach. I was worried her mother was bound to have heard her screams. If she did she didn’t let on and I didn’t get much sleep that night and my sodding ears ached the next day.

I might have been a little naïve when it came to matters of the flesh but I wasn’t a complete mug and I wasn’t being fooled. A pretty girl is asked for a dance – she refuses and later finds out the guy is a cop. She then drops her knickers in the blink of an eye – you see what I mean about the job having its perks? But I also wasn’t going to be taken in.

Some women, it seems, were just turned on

by a uniform and others saw the opportunity for a police house and matrimonial domesticity.

I met Kathy quite regularly for the next three months but she became less inventive in bed and seemed to become almost mechanical as far as the sex was concerned.

During one such session she paused and said, “We get on okay, don’t we?”

Taken aback a little, I said, “Yeah, great.” Though, on reflection I could have thought of more suitable reply and a more suitable moment to be asked.

Out of the blue she said, “Lets get married.” That pretty much poured water on my flames. I hurriedly listed several reasons why at present that would not be advisable.

“Well, you’d get a police house. You have a steady wage and we could have kids.

I’m not going to work in that sweet factory forever. I’m 21, it’s time I thought about getting married.”

I saw her a few times after that but we soon drifted apart. I was learning the ways of city life. Six months after we finished, a photo appeared of her in the local evening paper. A radiant Kathy was grinning back at me out of the page, dressed in a white dress and I

smiled. Her wish had come true and she had married. That was the last I ever saw her.

CHAPTER 10 MEMORIAL GARDENS PUNCH UP. As I approached the end of my two years probationary period, I was still living in the single men’s quarters at the police station and, on reflection, the two years had been a mixed bag of experiences.

Two commendations by a High Court Judge, Chief Constable’s Commendation for bravery, but the good stuff was also tempered by two disciplinary hearings.

Considered “dangerous” by some senior officers, I was left wondering what it was they expected from their me.

I was sheltering in the doorway of Boots the Chemist, another miserable night shift in prospect, more bloody rain. Where the hell does it all come from? Wales has always had a reputation for being a bit wet but no one really appreciates just how wet it is until they have to walk around in the bloody stuff for best part of eight hours a day or night.

Even in those early days I was well aware that rain was often the best policeman.

A good shower soon cleared the streets, washing away all the booze fuelled ardour and testosterone. There were far fewer arrests on a wet night than on a warm balmy summer’s evening – a recorded fact!

A summer’s evening – enjoyed by most “normal” people - meant trouble on the streets after stop-tap. A miserable winter’s night full of rain cleared the streets. Just the way it is.

Two cocky men in their early twenties walked past me as I sheltered in the convenient recess provided by the Chemist. A real mismatched pair of leery characters. One was tall, but looked about a foot shorter due to his stoop – probably a genetic throwback to his Neanderthal ancestors. The other was strutting his arrogant arse in a manner that exceeded his physical stature; a guy with a clear case of small-man syndrome. “Fucking awful smell around here Ron,” the cocky little bastard sniped in a voice clearly intended for my ears. I seemed to attract unwanted attention back then.

“Yeah, a real filthy smell…bit like pig shit,” replied the Neanderthal.

I was already pretty cheesed off but I didn’t bite. I could see Sergeant Bert Harris coming towards me, some distance behind Little and Large. I tried to muster up some enthusiasm for the pending conference, supervisors seem to like bullshit and I could always shovel it with the best of them.

“Alright Sarge,” I said.

“Aye. Everything ok?”

I grunted an affirmative.

Harris nodded down the street and strolled on amongst the flotsam and jetsam of the city night life.

“Probation ending soon, Carr.”

“Aye, Sarg. The last two years have flown by.”

“How do you think you have done?”

“Dunno, some good, some bad. I don’t really give a fuck anyway, Sarge, if they sling me out I would get more money labouring than I do now.”

“Aye,” Harris agreed sagely, “You would that.”

“Private conversation son…you have proved to me you can keep your own counsel.

Some of us think you have the potential to be an outstanding officer. Other supervisors think you are a Marxist twat and are dangerous.

One or two are even talking about not recommending you for appointment.”

I shrugged my shoulders. I really wasn’t surprised or bothered.

“Ok. This conversation is not to be repeated, Son. Just like the army, there were soldiers who died for their country and carried out unbelievable feats of bravery, often unsung, unannounced, and unrecognised.

Other wankers, cowards, could talk the talk and often ended up with bravery awards and mentioned in dispatches. I’ve discovered, during my time in the job, that the same shit applies to the Police force, son.”

We made the police box in the centre of the city, without incident, and had took off our wet coats. Even drinking a cup of tea in the small box was a bit of an ordeal for two men of our physical stature.

At least my mood had lightened and I thought I’d wind Harris up a little. “Hey, Sarg, you must have been able to talk the talk too. I was told you won a military medal. So you were certainly mentioned in dispatches.”

Harris bit. I could see the steel in the man’s eyes. “Look,” he said, as he removed his shirt. He showed me a bullet wound just below his left shoulder. Harris turned around to show the larger exit hole clearly visible on his back. “Fucking Pegasus Bridge. I had two hundred fucking yards to go, carrying a wanker of a mate who shit out.”

Harris then showed another bullet wound just above his right knee. I suddenly felt ashamed of the dig and needed to change the subject quick. “Fucking hell, Sarge. If anyone came in here now they would think we were a bit keen on each other.” Before the Harris could reply, I dropped my trousers to

reveal a four inch cut above my left knee.

“Gloucester City versus Llanelli, 1958, Sarge.

And I didn’t get a medal for that, only a fucking sending off.” Harris laughed. Despite the considerable age gap we had now formed an understanding between us; a bond through a shared sense of humour and justice.

“Right. I want to see you after you’ve had some grub. Back down here at three am,” Harris said, as he shook his coat and began dressing for the rain once more..

We left the Tardis and went our separate ways. *** At the appointed time, Harris and I met again over another cup of tea.

“Right, Carr, history lesson number two. I have a lovely loyal wife and two lovely kids. I, and so many of my generation, put our lives on the line to give them a better life and to keep them away from that fucking German madman. When I walk down this street, I want my wife and children to be able to do the same without anyone fucking them about. Do you understand?

I didn’t reply. Of course I understood the sentiment but not where this conversation was going or why he decided to have it now.

“When you meet a member of the public for the first time, always treat them in the manner you would like your mother or father to be spoken to. But if they don’t show you, or more importantly the uniform any respect, or start fucking about, you have to do something about it. You have to keep the streets clean, son. That is what we get paid for. Society wants you do its dirty work and if you drop a bollock they will wring their hands piously and hang you out to dry. We are able to keep the streets relatively clean now, but the time is coming, in your time, you will see this turn to shit. The Queen’s Peace will not be kept. It’s as simple as that. Long before you retire, we will have lost the streets. I can see it happening now, with the wankers they are now promoting to senior officers. They are all college-boy-pricks who seem happy to let those bent politicians get more and more involved with policing. Mark my words, son, they’ll soon fuck it all up. Look at you…at the moment there are enough of us supervisory officers to support you and to help you to get through probation. Twenty years from now there won’t be a place for someone like me or you. You’re type will be sacked and me with you, that’s if we’d ever make it through the entrance tests and interviews.”

I knew he was right. Even in those days, 1962, I knew policing was changing, and not for the better. Just after the war, some

twat in Government had got some chinless wanker of a senior officer to set up a college for Inspectors and above. 1960 saw it relocated from Ryton-on-Dunsmore, Warwickshire, to Bramshill. I couldn’t, for the life of me, understand what could be better taught in a college that couldn’t be taught out on the streets. But then, it wasn’t meant for coppers like me. It was meant to separate the senior officers from the rank-and-file, to create a division of status and continue with the age-old class system the country was built on. I have no doubt that many senior officers will defend the place. There were and still are things that need to be learnt within management structures that me and my ilk would never need to know. Things like planning for major incidents and public order.

I understand all that. But I’m always suspicious of people dressing up in mess-suits and supping wine whilst discussing policing instead of supping a pint in the bar of the local with the mates who just helped you out of a shitty situation on the streets.

Of course, supervisors were necessary beasts, otherwise coppers like me would have run the streets the way we wanted rather the way politicians saw fit. There were five inspectors on my division and they would make the decisions on all sorts of things from staffing, operations, discipline and, in my

case, even decide if I would pass the probation and get to stay in the job.

“Knocker and Stan are on your side,” Harris assured me. “So is the Admiral, though he thinks you’re a twat. The other two don’t count but Superintendent, old Eb, is also onboard, so you’re ok” “Thanks, Sarg. You didn’t have to tell me, but I appreciate it, makes my future decisions a bit easier.”

Harris drained his mug and banged it down on the small desk. “Right, son. Have a job for you…”

“What’s that Sarge?”

“The Memorial Gardens Gang.

Bastards getting out of control. Missed the call to National Service, see. Soft twats who think they are the dogs bollocks. Doing too many blaggings and muggings. Got to stop it.

Come from above - old Eb has decided…how many of the lads lodging in the station can you trust?”

I knew what he was getting at and it had nothing to do with honesty. “Well there are 12 single lads lodging in the station…”

Harris interrupted. “I don’t want fucking statistics.”

“Hang on, Serg. Let me finish what I want to say…” I continued. “Only five of

them can handle themselves and three of those are fucking useless in court and couldn’t keep their fucking mouths shut if they ever got interviewed. So, basically, that leaves two plus myself. I know it sounds like poor odds – three against twelve, but hang on…I have three mates, one in Swansea and two outside, who were in my unit in the army. We owe each other favours. They would help out and they are as warm as toast and thoroughly reliable. Would trust them before a cop any day.”

Harris laughed. “Yeah, know what you mean, son. When I was younger, if I had a problem I would call on one of my mates from my unit before a cop. I’ll leave it to you then, Darren. Remember, if you get caught you’re on your own.”

I raised my eyebrows. He didn’t need to say that. My own time in National Service had taught me how senior officers worked. If everything went well they’d take a pat on the back. If things went tits-up then they’d bail out of the boat quicker than a rat.

“Remember, any shit hits the fan and you are on your own, this conversation never happened.”

“What a surprise, Sarge! I take it there will be no uniformed officers around the

Memorial Gardens next Friday at around midnight?

Harris didn’t reply. He stiffened and adopted his authoritative voice once more.

“Right. Book a conference here at three-thirty am.”

Harris signed my pocket book.

“Take eight hours off on Friday night.”

“I don’t have any time on my overtime card, Sarge,” I replied.

“You do now,” said Harris. “Get it sorted. I’m counting on you.” *** Friday night came and I needed an alibi for what was likely to come. My two chosen accomplices - fellow cops - were in the mess room of the single men’s quarters, playing snooker. There was a nervous new lad with them.

At eleven-fifteen I suggested we retire for the night to get some sleep. The others didn’t object and nodded agreement. The new lad also went to his room, following the others up the stairs. They made sure that the new lad saw them going in to their bedrooms.

Once inside, they moved swiftly, casual clothes for them, whilst I chose my slightly tired looking suit. Every step had been planned and discussed. Through our windows

we gained access to the iron fire escape and went our pre-determined, separate ways ending up under the shade of the Castle some hundred-fifty yards from the memorial gardens. We took great care not to be seen by any patrolling cops, though it seemed that Harris had somehow done his job because there didn’t appear to be any around.

As arranged, we were met by three very fit looking former acquaintances of mine. No greetings were offered or exchanged. I gathered them together and outlined the plan. One of the new arrivals said, “Oh fuck, not the Gutt all over again?” I knew what he meant but ignored him.

“Right leave the serious stuff to us,” I said to my police colleagues. You provide back up. Don’t show your faces. The others donned balaclavas.

I produced a bottle of beer from out of my pocket and pushed the top off and sprayed most of it over me. Suited and booted with a dripping bottle of beer in my hand, I staggered into the memorial gardens. It was minutes before midnight and it was not long before I was approached by a scantily dressed woman, no more than eighteen years of age.

I turned my head to one side as if I was too drunk to focus properly.

“Want to fuck me for a quid?” she asked, pulling her skirt up to reveal a stunning pair of legs” “Ah. okay” I slurred.

She held out her hand and nodded towards a dark corner. “Let’s go behind the tree over there,” She led and I stumbled in her wake.

The girl got to the tree and lifted up her top, she wasn’t wearing a bra. She grinned at me and starting playing with her nipples – a cracking distraction technique, I have to admit. Without warning, she stepped aside as I was grabbed from behind whilst another man stepped up in front.

“Get his money!” barked the voice from behind. He had a fair grip on me around my neck but nothing I couldn’t handle.

The man facing me swung a slow and very telegraphed kick at me. It was easy for me to block the blow with my left foot and then, using the man holding me from behind as a lever, I arched my body backwards and kicked the guy in front as hard as I could between his legs.

BINGO! Before the guy collapsed to the floor in agony, I brought my elbow down and in to the other man’s stomach, turning as I did so

and following through with a knee in the nether regions. No matter how big or strong a bloke is, catch them a good one in the bollocks and they’ll hit the deck.

I heard shouting behind me and looked up to see several other toe-rags rushing to help their downed partners in crime. Before they reached within ten feet of me they were ambushed by my specially selected squad of non-existent law enforcers. Legs, arms, fists, feet and just about anything and everything else flashed through the dim sodium glow from the street lights some distance away.

The fight didn’t last more than a couple of minutes. A mass of writhing bodies littered the Memorial Gardens flower beds.

Some moaned whilst others were no longer able to do so – at least temporarily.

I was in bed twenty minutes later. *** Sunday night. Back to work for my last night shift of the rota.

Patrolling down the High Street, I was met by Sgt Harris. He had the young police constable who we had used as an unwitting alibi for the material time of a significant brawl that took place in Memorial Gardens.

“Alright, Sarge?”

“Is it?” asked Harris. “Your uniform looks as if it has been slept in. I have told you about your appearance before. Let me have your pocket book.”

The sergeant entered, in red ink, “This officer must smarten up his appearance.”

He booked a conference and walked away.

I understood. *** Even back then, some people loved to complain and a pretty interesting complaint was made by one of the youths who, apparently, recognised me at Memorial Gardens. This meant that the inevitable internal investigation would be set in motion.

A few weeks passed before the wheels of the disciplinary cart finally revolved enough to appoint a driver for the proceedings destined to follow. I discovered that the Inspector in charge of the internal investigation was Stan Gould. I admit that I breathed a sigh of relief because I got on well with him.

He arranged an interview in an empty office in the station.

“Constable, you are not obliged to say anything unless you wish to do so but anything you say will be taken down in writing and may be given in evidence.”

The caution is one of the first things any copper will learn when they first put on the uniform and, for busy coppers, is something used every day. When it’s delivered to me it always sends a shiver up my spine and triggers rational feelings of dread. “I understand, sir,” I said.

The Inspector opened a tan coloured folder to reveal a typed statement of complaint from the second toe-rag I kicked in the bollocks. “Right, an allegation has been made by a Mr. Phil Davies that you beat him up in Memorial Gardens last Friday night. He alleges that you and several others assaulted him and some friends at around midnight. He has received hospital treatment for some internal injuries.”

“What time was that again, Sir?” I said, acting bemused.

The Inspector sighed. “Just before midnight last Friday.”

I paused for a moment in thought then said, “I would like to make a statement, Sir.” The Inspector looked surprised. “You don’t have to but if you do it will have to be under caution.” “ That’s ok, sir. assured him.

I understand,” I

I had already given this some thought and got him to write down the following...

The Statement after the Caution read: “Last Friday night was my day off. I played snooker until about 11pm in the police station mess room and then went to bed. A number of officers will confirm this. I have arrested Philip Davies on two occasions previously and consider this complaint to be defamatory. He is trying to stitch me up. I will be reporting the matter to my Police Federation Representative and a solicitor.

The matter is now sub-judice, as I wish to take legal action against this man for this deliberate attempt to defame me. I will therefore not be making any further comment.”

Inspector Gould smiled.

“Then that must be the end of the interview, constable. I will, of course, be making further enquiries.

As I stood up to leave the room, the inspector said, “Off the record, Carr...Sergeant Harris says he saw you in the corridor of the mess going for a piss at around 11.50pm. last Friday night, mind how you go son.”

That was the last I heard of the matter.

CHAPTER 11

INTIMIDATION Police officers in the sixties faced a lot of intimidation. They worked their beats alone and were often the target of criminals attempting to frighten them.

I remember one such incident several years later. By this time I had married and divorced. I had moved in to a police house and then into a flat after my break up.

“Team policing” was a situation consisting of a van with three officers inside which would be used to attend to incidents during the nighttime. On this occasion, a young cop had been beaten up by two brothers who, after arrest, continued fighting in the van. They had obviously been drinking and after one took a swipe at me I replied in kind with four of five really heavy blows, which took the sting out of him.

The lad made the usual threats against my kids and ex- wife; who he knew was a teacher and had taken up a temporary residence in one of the rougher areas of the city.

My “ex” rang me one day to say she was leaving the area and looking for a teaching post in the east of England. This would cause me severe heartache as I would not be able to see much of my two children.

During our chat, my ex-wife told me that my six year old son had been approached by a man outside the school and asked if he was the son of Police Constable Carr. The lad innocently admitted that he was and was told to watch himself as something terrible would happen to him.

I was incensed and went to speak to my son. He told me what happened and I got him to give me a description of the bastard.

There was no doubt that it was the man I had an altercation with in the Police van some weeks earlier.

I had to do something quickly.

At this time I was a registered firearms user, authorized to use the police issue weapons in times od feed and very occasionally using my 12 bore Aya shotgun to join in a pleasant, pheasant shoot (try saying that after a few pints).

I knew the bastard’s address and went to have words. It was a mere 200 yards away from my ex-wife’s new place. The two roads were connected by a 50 yard walkway which had leafy bushes on either side and was about six feet wide. It was an eerie place. I remember it was once the scene of a rape many years before. I discovered that the low life who threatened my son went to a city nightclub every Wednesday night.

I formed a plan of action and decided to socialize in the same nightclub on the same night. When our paths crossed, it was usually accompanied with some dirty looks and the predictable insults; “Filthy smell in here,” or words to that effect. I didn’t bite.

One Wednesday night, my opportunity finally presented itself.

I had been chatting up a woman for weeks. She had seemed equally keen on me and things were developing well. I had taken her home a few times, but I hadn’t progressed any further than a peck on the cheek. She had had rather a lot to drink this particular Wednesday and on dancing with me invited me to spend the night with her.

Result!

Just before midnight, I saw the piece of filth child-threatener leave the club. I told the girl that I felt sick and needed the toilet. I raced to the convenience and jumped out through the window, down the fire escape and watched while the guy waited for a taxi. I raced ahead in my car and parked up in a street a little away from my ex-wife’s place. I grabbed my football bag from the boot of my battered Triumph Spitfire and hid amongst the bushes on the leafy walkway near the guy’s house. Two people passed me whilst I waited but they didn’t see me.

Ten minutes later, the toe-rag arrived, whistling merrily with his hands in his coat pockets. I let him pass and sneaked up on him from behind. I got to a couple of paces behind and rushed him, threw my arm around his neck and put him in a headlock. He was shocked and struggled but I wrestled him to the ground. It’s at this point things got really interesting. I kept my foot on the bastard’s throat and I took my shotgun out of the kit bag and put a cartridge into the breach.

“Listen you horrible piece of shit,” I said. “If any fucker goes anywhere near my boy again, this will be for real and don’t think about complaining. I’ve covered my arse and will always cover my tracks.” Just to ram home the point, I very calmly pulled the trigger. I had put a blank into the breach, but it was obvious from the smell that the man was absolutely terrified as the trigger clicked.

Very menacingly, but with a quiet tone, I said, “Next time it’ll be for real.”

I left the bastard lying in a mound of his own shit and raced back to the nightclub, hiding my gun enroute, just in case the bastard called the police and I was caught redhanded with the shotgun in my possession.

Within 20 minutes, I was back in the club.

As I exited the toilet, I saw an off-duty colleague who was also a bit worse for wear. I couldn’t believe my luck and had a chat with him for a few minutes before returning to the dance floor to my rather irate girlfriend.

“Where demanded.

have

you

been?”

she

“Oh sorry, love. One of the boys caught me outside the toilet. Couldn’t get away from the drunken bastard.”

She cooled down. “Come on then, take me home and shag me,” she slurred.

What is a man supposed to do? I was happy to oblige, but within minutes of entering the house, my pissed girlfriend was fast asleep and snoring for Wales. Another opportunity never to be repeated was missed, but what an alibi if the toe-rag made a complaint.

I saw the bloke a few weeks later. He passed by quickly without making any comment. There were never any more problems with this particular man, but the incident was enough for my ex-wife to leave the area. She was as good as her word and took up a teaching post in East Anglia. This meant that I saw very little of my two children for several years; the formative years of their lives. This was one of the more serious costs of being a policeman in the sixties.

*** Several young officers hadn’t been as resourceful as me and had been intimidated sufficiently by the city scum to leave the force or to move to another location. The number of times officers had been threatened, had their cars or houses trashed, approached just before court by villains not connected with the case and a dark word in the ear; We will have you!

Sadly, this did have an impact with some younger policeman who would dumb down their evidence accordingly to save their own skins.

To survive and do your job well you had to win. Failure was not an option and you had to do whatever it took.

No step back.

There’s only one type of person a criminal respects – someone who’s prepared to descend to their depths to enforce the law.

It was certainly true in those days. They never respected anything other than the character traits they aspired to themselves. You had to be harder than everyone else.

CHAPTER 12 ALAN HERMAN SHERMAN THOMAS One of the families living in the dockside area was the Thomas family. Living in a dilapidated Georgian house of three floors, each room was almost derelict and unfit for rats. Grandmother, son, daughter-inlaw and the rest of their brood lived there and the place was further crammed, at various times, by several others.

The grandmother tried to hold everything together with only partial success.

I looked at orders one day and there was a reference to one of her brood - Alan Herman Sherman Thomas. He was wanted on warrant for non-payment of fines.

I decided to sort the matter out and walked to the house.

The grandmother was scrubbing the slate step out front, as was the custom back then. Inside was like a shithouse but the step had to be see to be clean.

“Alan around, Gran”? I asked.

“Now you know I wouldn’t tell you even if he was,” she sighed.

I could hear kids squealing and crying inside. Gran held up her hand, turned and

went inside to restore order before she reappeared once more on the slate step.

I warmed to her.

“Could get a warrant and search the place you know,” I teased.

“But I don’t think you would do that,” replied Gran “Maybe not, but you never know,” I said.

I wanted to execute the warrant but there was a burning question I needed answers to, and it held more importance at that time than feeling her grandson’s collar.

“Anyway,” I said. “How the hell did you come to call your boy ‘Herman Sherman?’

Gran visibly relaxed, “Well, my husband, David was in the war and one warm summer’s evening I went down to a pub near the foreshore. There was an American tank outfit based there. Well I was a young woman, who had needs, you know,” she smiled, “and the Yanks were always willing and able to satisfy needs of the local girls. One of ‘em bought me a few drinks and, well, you can guess the rest.”

“Yeah, okay. I’ve got the picture. But why the name?”

“Well there was more than one of them you see...several in fact...and as I couldn’t be sure which one it was I decided to name the boy after the tank.”

I sniggered. “Don’t know what to say to that, Gran,” I said. “Mind you go and tell Alan to come to the box and give himself up to get the fine sorted, otherwise some other cop will come and lift him.”

Gran grunted and I continued on my beat. *** Now I’m telling the young coppers that “a police officer looked upon a beat as his own patch. Every crime or incident on it was an affront to his pride and efficiency.”

On a night shift, officers were expected to examine each premises on their patch at least twice, once before meal time and once after. If a break in was discovered in the morning, the Detective Inspector would often pull the officer out of bed and check what time he last checked the building.

In the case of the Herman Sherman warrant, pride dictated that I would have to arrest him before another cop did it. The cop banter in the mess room would have been incessant if I didn’t.

“Hey! Had to arrest one of your parishioners today ‘cos you are too fucking idle to do it. You don’t know what’s happening on your own fucking beat...And that would be one of the kinder comments. Police banter was brilliant, as long as you were giving it and not taking it!

Police contacts were vital too. A good officer had access to many avenues. I had one such contact in the Department of Employment; a middle aged lady who I had ‘met’ after one boozy Christmas Party many years before.

A quick phone call...

‘When is Alan Herman Sherman Thomas ‘bunning’ love?”

Bunning was collecting dole money.

a

local

term

for

“Oh, it’s today. Ten-thirty.”

I glanced at my watch; ten-fifteen. We quickly exchanged pleasantries on the phone ending with me asking if she wanted a replay of our Xmas Party Bonk.

Tactful – that’s me.

I hurried over to the DOE, which was now housed in a recently vacated school building. I kept out of site and saw Herman Sherman coming out of the building at tenforty.

Sneaking up on the bastard from behind, I put Herman Sherman in an arm lock and told him that there was a warrant out for him.

It was a busy time with lots of people around on the street.

“You’re not taking me in, Carr,” he said.

The inevitable struggle ensued. With the amount of people about, I had to be careful not to become too “enthusiastic” and Herman Sherman knew it all too well. If it had been night time then Queensbury rules would not have applied.

To make matters worse, Herman’s brother Charlie strode out of the dole office and joined in the melee. Charlie was a raw, thick, powerful youth of 18. I had my hands full. I managed to get hold of one of Charlie’s hands and shackled him to the school railings with his handcuffs, whilst taking a hail of blows from Herman Sherman.

I resorted to my tried and tested remedy…I caught Herman with a good right boot to the testicles. I allowed Herman a few minutes to stop wailing and rolling about and then dragged him in the general direction of the police station and had gone about half a mile when, thankfully, a passing police car

stopped and gave us a lift the rest of the way.

Herman was taken straight to court.

Half an hour later, one of the local newspaper reporters, who was in court, came up to me, laughing. “Hey Darren, one of our reporters is at the bun house, one of the Thomas’s has been handcuffed to the railings.”

Oh fuck! I thought. “I forgot all about Charlie!”

After the Court dealt with Herman Sherman, I hot-footed it to the local newspaper offices, which happened to be on my beat and I went straight up to the Editor’s office. The portly general manager of the newspaper was at his desk and, as was acceptable in those days, he was puffing on a fat cigar. He reminded me of Perry White of Superman fame.

I had to eat humble pie, told him of my predicament and the damage it would do to me if the paper carried the story.

“Would like to help you Mr. Carr, but you know we have to have absolute impartiality and independence in these matters. I’d like to help you but, sorry, I can’t,” adding mischievously with a grin; “Anyway, it’s also one hell of a story.

Probably make the nationals.”

I remembered a young reporter telling me that I needed to join the local Lodge of the Masons. I thought about that now. If a member of his lodge had been asking for a favour then it probably wouldn’t have been printed. If you were in the loop and you didn’t want anything published, it wouldn’t be.

I thought quickly. “Okay. I understand that.”

Moving to the window overlooking the road, where several cars were parked on double yellow lines, I said, “I like to think I’m a fair copper. I tend to concentrate on the more important matters, like crime and assaults and tend to neglect things I consider to be of little importance…like illegal street parking. Perhaps I’ve been wrong? Perhaps now I’ll have to start doing my job properly.

And I’ll start by booking all those cars, including yours, which are parked on double yellow lines outside your office.”

I knew that would have limited impact but had another ace up my sleeve that I wanted to keep for another occasion but needs must.

“Oh, and incidentally,” I added. “ I may have to carry out further checks on a Jaguar car seen in suspicious circumstances at the back of the timber sheds in the south dock a few weeks ago at 1 am in the morning.”

As I left the room I added; “Mind how you go.” I knew I didn’t have to elaborate any further.

One of the lads working an adjacent beat had recently told me how he came across the editor in his Jaguar car with a male member of staff a few weeks earlier. They had been in a compromising position. Very compromising for someone happily married for thirty years.

I left the room. I had no intention of booking those parked cars today, nor making those inquiries into something I believed had nothing to do with me – even if it was still illegal at that time and something that I felt should have nothing to do with anyone other than the people concerned. But, as soon as the article appeared it would be war. It would cost the staff a fortune.

The article never appeared in the local press.

Once again, local knowledge was vital for working a beat and for self-preservation.

CHAPTER 12 FEED THE FIVE THOUSAND With many years under my belt I suppose it shouldn’t have come as a shock when my shift Inspector called me in for a chat and suggested I take the sergeants exam I can’t say I hadn’t been thinking of it.

I knew I could do the job better than some of the younger tossers who were coming in to the job. It was obvious to all the old-sweats that some were shit-scared of working the beats and wanted to get quick promotion to get off the streets. At least I had done my time as a proper copper. The enhanced pay and pension terms also held some modicum of attraction too.

I admit that it came as a shock to me when I discovered, after six months of swotting, that I’d passed the promotion exam.

I knew I was more than able to pass it but I had this suspicion that those who would be marking might fiddle the result to keep me in my place. So, I was even more surprised that the powers-that-be saw fit to promote me to sergeant.

Being in charge of a shift in a town was alien to me to begin with but I soon got my feet under the table.

During my first summer night shift at the nick we got a call over the radio stating that a fishing boat had been stolen from the Giant’s grave moorings and was seen chugging its way up the Neath river towards the town.

I gathered a couple of the younger constables and jumped in the station Leyland van. We raced off up Windsor Road and turned down past the railway arch down to Milland Road – the road from which the Welsh, Hollywood actor Ray Milland took his name.

I stopped the van behind a shed near the Canal Road and got the two lads to sneak down to the river, which I vaguely remembered wasn’t easy to do because of the high brick wall that formed the bank on our side of the river. I didn’t know the area too well, so let the youngsters take the lead. First mistake!

The younger of the two constables was a lad named Jeff Darling, fresh out of training school, but a local lad who had been born and bred in Skewen, about a mile or so on the other side of the river. He seemed keen to impress, so the other lad and I followed him at pace through some bushes and on to the edge of the bank where Jeff promptly slipped on mud caking the brick edge of the bank and

tumbled down into the frigid, black water below.

Bollocks!

I knew I’d have to do something, being a strong swimmer and an amateur life guard in my spare time.

“Can you swim?” I asked Rhod Thomas, the other lad with me.

I could see his expression turn grim as he slowly nodded.

I laughed. “Don’t worry,” I said.

“Wouldn’t expect anyone to do something I wouldn’t do myself.”

I could now hear the boat engine bubbling away in the shadows to my left. The rhythm was slow and regular. It seemed to have stopped.

I took off my tunic and hung it on the branch of a tree as Jeff splashed around in the dark below.

Rhod relaxed at the sight of me disrobing. I think he was impressed with my leadership.

He leaned over the edge. “Don’t worry, Jeff,” he shouted. The sargggggeee,” he screamed, as I nudged him off the bank.

The splash sounded very close to Jeff.

That was good.

Both the lads had managed to make it to the brick-faced bank wall and were stroking slowly down river to a point where I could see the wall drop towards the water.

“Sarge!” Jeff shouted. “Found the boat. The bastard’s gone.”

I could hear the rustling of a body pushing through bushes somewhere ahead but it was too dark to see, even with my torch.

I ran back to the road and hurried in the direction the boys had swum. I heard a car engine start and then the screech of tyres but caught no sight of the car that I suspected had taken the boat thief away.

I followed a narrow track down to the river’s edge and found the two young coppers sitting inside the little boat, wrapped in a tarpaulin.

“Well done, lads,” I shouted. “Shame you lost the thief,” I sniggered.

Being a sergeant had its advantages.

I got the lads to drive back to the station whilst I waited for them to send some other lads back to relieve me at the boat.

There was no way we’d get a twentyfoot fishing boat in the property store at Neath but we’d have to take the loose items for safety.

The boat had nothing of real value that I could see but there were three large fishing nets coiled up in the cabin.

The van returned and we loaded the nets in the back.

It was customary in those days to let the boys have a cooked breakfast together in the station on a Sunday morning – the only time in the week when things were pretty quiet in comparison to the rest of the week. I wasn’t going to upset tradition; after all, I like a cooked breakfast as much as anyone, even when I was training hard for the football.

Those of us with duties in the station on morning shift also had the occasional cooked breakfast before the town began to fill up for the day. After two or three weeks of eating bacon and eggs I was getting a little fed up and fancied something a little different.

I had a plan!

The two lads who had decided to go for a swim were still soaking wet, stripped to their underpants, their tunics, shirts and trousers hung from various parts of the charge room and both were supping cups of tea when I entered.

“Don’t bother dressing, “ I said. “You two in the van.”

“Eh?” Jeff looked dumbfounded.

“Go on. Get it. You too, Rhod.”

The lads did as they were told and jumped in the back with the nets.

It was now a little after 4am and the sun was beginning to have an effect on the horizon.

“We’ll have to be quick,” I said.

I drove the van about three miles onto Port Talbot’s patch and parked it on Aberavon seafront. The bay is huge with the cranes of the steelworks to the left and the long sweep around to the right which took in Swansea Docks all the way down to the Mumbles Head.

I opened the back door of the van and got the two lads out. “Bring those nets,” I said.

The two officers did as they were told and I was impressed by their attitude, under the circumstances.

We carried the nets down the concrete steps to the beach. Thankfully, the tide was close in to us. The tide here had one of the longest ranges in the world because it was so flat.

I slipped off my boots and trouser, stripped my shirt and tie and carried one of the nets into the sea. “Come on,” I shouted.

The boys grabbed a net each and did the same.

Fish for breakfast.

CHAPTER 13 PRESENT DAY Lying in this hospital bed, unable to move other than to take a pee, I’m filled with emotions that I’ve spent seventy-one years trying to contain. I’ve been a hard man. I’ve confronted things most people would run from but the hospital ward and threat of death isn’t easy to face. I’m well practiced at hiding my feelings but under the calm persona I’m bloody furious that I’ve been reduced to this bed. I’ve never had much patience for being sick. I know it sounds ridiculous but I detest illness and anyone who uses it as an excuse to avoid their duty to their family, friends or colleagues. It’s an even bigger pet hate of mine when a police officer fakes illness to avoid their duty to the public who pay the wages.

I remember one officer who was off sick so often that we all ended up calling him “Billy-the-Sick.” He knew we called him this but it didn’t seem to matter much to him. He was a strange bloke. Was he lazy or was he just plain scared of the streets?

I don’t know.

But thinking about him has triggered links to other memories that are at first seemingly unconnected but are now clearly

portents of future bleak events that would blight South Wales and most of the U.K. *** It is 1983 and I am a Sergeant in the division I served as a constable for many years.

I’m now charged with watching over constables and ensuring they toe-the-line when I had little time for toeing-the-line when I was in the same position. But times had changed and I saw my role more as being an educator and a line of defence between the beat Bobbies and those above me in the pecking order. It’s that sense of duty to the lower ranks that had also got me elected to the Chair of the Police Federation of the area.

‘Billy-the-Sick’ is holding court during a meal break at the Divisional Police Station. Billy had been a constable of 15 years at this time and had spent more than half that time on the sick. Whenever he was assigned to a beat he would report sick shortly afterwards and a lengthy sick spell would follow. He had therefore spent most of his service, when he managed to come to work, answering public enquires at the front desk or as a clerk to one of the Superintendents.

My duty Inspector had told me that Billy-the-Sick was to return to beat duties

under my supervision but that I was to take it easy on Billy and ease him in gently.

“No. Fuck him, Inspector,” I said.

“The twat should be treated like everyone else.”

The inspector shrugged his shoulders.

He knew there was no point in arguing. It was an easy out for him because I was the union man in the area and if I was saying Billy had to be treated like everyone else then it relieved him of any forthcoming flak.

Billy was allocated his beat and a Panda car to cover it. A couple of hours into the shift there was a report of a road accident and I told the operator to send Billy to deal with it. The whole shift listened in to the radio transmission and waited with baited breath as Billy did his best to get out of it. In the end, I had to order him to attend over the radio network. The rest of the shift officers were not disappointed. I could picture their smiles all over the station area.

It wasn’t long before Billy was calling me to attend for a conference at the local beat outpost.

When I got there Billy was looking pale and stressed. He briefed me on the accident and then waited, as if for me to tell him what he should do next.

“As you would know, Billy, as a man with your experience, it is a simple section 3 RTA. You didn’t call me up for that did you?”

Billy stuttered, and I suddenly felt sorry for the guy. After 15 years he was still way out of his depth and began to sink before my eyes.

“Okay, Billy,” I said. “Take the statements and if you have any problems putting the file together come and see me and I’ll give you a hand.”

We both left the station together. Billy went to his panda car and I saw him bump his head, ever so slightly, on the roof of the car as he entered. I shook my head as I saw him drive off.

Within half an hour, I received a report that a police constable had collapsed and had been taken to hospital.

I raced up to Morriston Hospital to find Billy lying prone on a trolley. The nurse said he had apparently hit his head on the door of his panda car and had later ‘collapsed.’ I couldn’t bloody believe it. If the bump I had seen had resulted in his current condition then he must have a head like a fucking egg-shell. God help him in a punchup.

The casualty doctor told me, in confidence, that he couldn’t find anything

wrong with Billy, but as it was a reported head injury there were protocols that had to be adhered to. I went to see Billy, who was very swift to tell me where he’d left the paper work for the road accident he had been sent to deal with so that I could assign it to another officer.

Pass the bloody buck!

The duty Inspector called me to speak.

He didn’t sound happy. “Fucking hell, Carr.

This is a world record, even for Billy-theSick. I told you to take it easy with him and he doesn’t even last a shift with you, not even half a fucking shift.”

I was unrepentant. “Fuck it, sir. An officer with fifteen years service is sent to deal with a simple road accident and once again he fucks off sick, he should be sacked.”

Billy wasn’t seen back in work for another three months!

I tend to think that he had an indelible yellow streak running down the centre of his back. He was a coward on the beat but a lion in the mess room!

When he returned from his latest bout of life-threatening ailments, Billy was holding court during meal break in the canteen, speaking in a low, conspiratorial voice he liked to adopt when he had news. He wasn’t a lot dissimilar to Christopher Lee’s version of

Dracula. Half a dozen or so of us sat around eating our packed lunch, sipping tea under a cloud of cigarette smoke.

Billy was back on light duties, wiping the arse of Superintendent Dorian Davies.

“Saw a memo on Dorian’s desk…was about a leaked memo from the Ridley Report to the Economist.”

Winston Brice, a copper whose face still bore the blue scars from his previous job as a coal miner, looked shocked. “Fucking hell, Billy. You should be in the CID. You know more about what goes on in this station than they do.”

Ignoring the remark, Billy continued.

“The report said that Maggie Thatcher is set on taking on one of the major unions because she is hell bent on smashing union power. I think the three mentioned were the Miner’s, the Ship workers, and the Transport and General, something like that. The report had been leaked to the Economist…whatever that means” “What the fuck has that got to do with us?” one of the constables enquired.

Winston was deep in thought. “The Miner’s is the strongest union in the country, but coal is the most under threat. We have the best coal in the world down here in the South Wales coalfield but it costs quite a lot to get it

out. There is over 400 years of coal in our hills yet to mine” Everyone fell silent.

Winston continued. “Thatcher will go after the miners. She can buy Polish and Nicaraguan coal far cheaper than we can mine it.”

Another old sweat piped up; “Joe Gormley is finishing. He brought Ted Heath down because he was calm, marshalled his troops well, and struck when Ted was weak.

This fucking idiot Scargill, is no Joe Gormley.”

The discussion was only of passing interest to those assembled except Winston Brice. “I bloody knew Maggie was up to something. Why did she just give us a decent pay award? She’s going to stir the pot and I think all hell is going to break loose. If the government offered the miner’s a 100% rise, Scargill would still be against it. Mark my words, both sides are squaring up and Scargill will have his fucking strike.”

Winston was right. Two months into 1984, I was working in the Special Patrol Group when we called to the docks where a giant ore carrier was unloading Polish coal for a nearby steel works. The sun had begun to set below the Mumbles Head as a line of Miner protestors were picketing the entrance

to the docks. As the sun set I remember thinking if it was setting on a way of life that had once been the backbone of the community? Was this the last day of the miner? Would tomorrow be the first day of the demise of the industry that had created communities in Wales and around the UK? It had, as Winston prophesised, begun to kick off.

CHAPTER 14 THE MINERS STRIKE During the next few weeks, my unit visited many of the coal mines in South Wales. The consensus I picked up from the miners was that they didn’t want to strike.

Like anyone else, they had bills, mortgages, kids to pay for. To strike was to forgo pay. In many cases they balloted against it and then one of Scargill’s henchmen came down and impressed on the union leaders that Scargill insisted they strike. Whether that was true or not, it was certainly the vibe that me and my colleagues were getting from the mining community at large.

My grandfather had been a miner in the Treorchy pits and I still have a deep respect for the men who went underground.

That respect came from men like my grandfather who impressed on their children that they should stay away from the pits if they could. That didn’t mean they wanted to see the pits close. The opportunity to work, and earn decent money from that work, was vital to the community. But men like my grandfather wanted something less dangerous for their children. “Vam,” he’d say to my mother, “don’t let the boy work underground, keep him on the surface, keep him healthy, not a victim of the dust.”

CHAPTER 15 PRESENT DAY At least I got to live into my seventh decade. It’s strange how the misfortune of others can make you feel better. Sounds really callous, but it’s true. *** I think about a bloke I met outside the Employment Exchange in Swansea. I was about thirty at the time and a man who looked about fifty shuffled up to me. “Can you tell me where the Pneumo’ Board is, officer, please?”

“Yes, sir. It’s there,” I said, pointing to the Department Building alongside us. “It’s on the top floor, but there’s a lift just inside the door.”

I knew a little about Pneumoconiosis.

No one connected to the mining community would be ignorant of the dreadful lung condition caused by inhaling the coal dust.

Most suffers were reduced to a life supported by oxygen and very little mobility due to a dramatic shortage of breath. I watched as the man struggled to walk up a two foot incline towards the lift inside the office door.

An hour later, I was again patrolling outside the department when I saw the same

man I had seen earlier. There were tears in his eyes.

I asked him if he was okay.

“Officer, how old are you?” he said.

Rather taken aback, I replied, “Thirty.

Why do you ask?”

“I’m twenty-nine. Thirty in January, and I’m fucked by the dust. I have just been before the Pneumo’ Board and they told me there is fuck all wrong with me.”

The miner was angry now. “Look at me, I can’t breathe and can’t walk fifty yards on the flat. I’m fucked at twenty-nine and they say there’s nothing wrong with me. They just don’t want to pay me invalidity or a pension. They won’t recognise the dust. Those bent doctors are in the pay of the fucking Coal Board and they’ll fight this until we are all dead” It turned out he was right. That’s exactly what happened.

I tried to give him support in a noncommittal way. When I assisted him onto his bus and saw him disappear into the distance, I thought, What sort of a fucking country do we live in? ***

With the Miner’s strike building and a terrible reality now, many of the police had divided loyalties, with several of those facing striking miners with father’s, brother’s, or other relatives or friends still working in the mines.

So the strike came into full force in the South Wales valleys. The Chief Constable took the sensible view that he only wanted South Wales coppers to deal with South Wales miners. He didn’t want other forces creating havoc on his patch.

Assistant Chief Constable Vernon Bradshaw was a huge Nazi-looking man who was actually nothing like his appearance.

Vernon had once worked the docks area in Cardiff and was very much a man of the people who members of the public knew and respected. They felt safe with Vernon Bradshaw. He was also, however, highly intelligent and practical, unlike most senior officers at the time.

I had high regard for Bradshaw even though he once turned down my leave request to travel to Scotland for the rugby international.

I had been given a ticket for the game at Murrayfield. Never having been there before, I enquired of Bradshaw if I could have

some time off. Bradshaw refused, claiming I was indispensable.

I was really miffed. I kept thinking of all the support I had given the man, both as an active SPG sergeant and in my capacity as Chairman of the Police Federation.

Very soon after permission had been refused, my unit came across a bus full of miners from Derby, they were what we called “secondary pickets.” Secondary Pickets were people who were protesting but not directly associated to the site of the picket. The usual mode of operation was to inform the Control or Operations room and follow the pickets until they realised they were being followed and left the police district. I duly informed the Operations room that we were following the bus onto the M4 when a loud voice boomed over the radio.

“P.S. 699 Carr, receiving?”

Bradshaw’s voice crackled over the radio.

“Return to headquarters immediately. If you think you are following that bus to Murrayfield, you have another fucking think coming!”

So much for radio protocol!

This brought much laughter to those who knew of my refused request, not least of all, me.

CHAPTER 16 THINGS GET WORSE May 1984 saw the first ‘scabbing.’

A miner turned up for work and the police were assigned to ensure that he entered the mine safely and that there was no public disorder.

It pretty much passed quietly until the miner returned to his home right in the heart of the community. To make matters worse, he had only become a miner six months before and had moved to Wales from the West Country.

Lack of community ties or loyalty equals potential trouble with the local miners.

The guy returned to his house after the shift had ended. There was a large number of miner’s and villagers angrily protesting in close proximity to the house. The scene was becoming tenser by the minute.

There were several “top brass” senior police officers flapping around and I felt their mere presence was inflaming the situation.

I had to do something before the cork popped from the “nasty” bottle. I approached Bradshaw. “Sir, can I have a private word with you?”

“Sure. What do you want?”

“Can you lot piss off, sir? I think your fancy uniforms are inflaming the situation, we’ll sort this out.”

Bradshaw thought for a few moments then nodded his head. He tapped me on the shoulder and went to his fellow senior officers – still in my earshot.

“The chairman of the Police Federation has just told us all to fuck off and let his boys deal with it. Come on, gentlemen.

Time to fuck off.”

Relieved, I called my boys together.

“Right, lads. These are human beings who have a genuine grievanc. Relax, take your helmets off if you must, hands in pockets and just talk to the people Take the sting out of this if we can. Prepare to take a little shit… but only a little,” I warned.

I walked along the road on my own, helmet in my hand and the other hand in my pocket – clearly no threat to man or beast. I noticed two women in their late thirties, neighbours, standing by their gates.

I strolled over to them and smiled.

“Home to tea with wifey shortly?

Meal on the table and a massive overtime wad in your pocket is it?” one of the women sneered.

I smiled. “No. divorced, love. Have to get my own bloody tea when I get home.”

“Join the club. Me and Nancy are divorced too. My bugger ran off with the bloody barmaid from the Queens. Didn’t last long before he came crawling back though.

Not having any of that. Sent him packing” I sat on the low garden wall.

The woman next door leaned over the wall. “Sergeant, I would make you a cup of tea but my husband is the Lodge Secretary and it wouldn’t look right.”

“Yes. I understand, love,” I said.

“These ladies here are going to make me a cup of tea anyway,” I added, smiling at the other women at their gates.

Under the circumstances they really didn’t have to do anything but, fair play, one of the ladies disappeared into the house to brew some tea. A few minutes later, she brought a tray containing a large mug of tea and some chocolate biscuits.

The tea was excellent. I looked around and could see and feel the anger and the crowd dissipating. One of my men was trying on a miner’s helmet, which was probably going too far with the “friendly” bit, but the boys were doing a great job engaging with the public and taking the heat out of the situation.

Old Sergeant Harris would have approved!

“So where are you going to take Nancy and me for a drink tonight,” the woman who made me tea asked. “You can pay with all that overtime you are getting out of us?” she teased.

“Can you imagine that? I said. “I live fifty miles away so you would have to put me up for the night. Mind you, the two of you could, if you wanted. I’m single and fit, but can you imagine your boys in the mine finding out in the morning? You wouldn’t have a window left in the house!”

The small gathering relaxed and laughed.

On a more serious note, I added, “My grandfather worked in a mine in these coalfields at Treorchy a couple of generations ago. Personally I’m as sorry about all this as you are, but we have a job to do. Several of our lads have brothers and fathers in these mines” “You’re alright, Sarge,” the tea lady said.

We were joined by a few younger lads who were aged in their twenties. They seemed relaxed but I guessed they were there to hear what I was saying to the women. They sat on the wall near me and chatted.

“Going for a pint tonight?” one asked a mate.

“Yeah, going to meet Jones the Scab’s grandson.”

I was confused. They spoke about Jones the Scab’s grandson with fondness. Not what I expected. A scab was generally thought to be the lowest of the low within the mining community.

When the boys moved off, I asked how Jones the Scab’s grandson had got his name.

Nancy, the Lodge Secretary’s wife explained. “Jones scabbed in the 1926 strike.”

“Fuck me! You haven’t kept this going from 1926 until now and lumped it on his grandson?

Nancy cut in. “We never forget. Shit on us and it will not be forgotten or forgiven…ever! The grandson’s alright, mind.

He’s a good lad. He understands.”

“I’m beginning to see,” I said.

“Thanks for the tea” Before I could leave, Olwen, the Lodge Secretary’s wife wanted to explain more. “See, the reason we are fighting for the mine is it’s only slightly uneconomic. The mine loses about four-hundred-thousand pounds a year. When the mine is in full swing,

the pub has to hire an extra barmaid, as does the hairdresser, and most other businesses have to take on extra staff. The place is buzzing and alive.” She stopped to light a cigarette and blew the smoke out of the corner of her mouth. “Take the mine away and it all goes to shit. The community is knackered.

Doesn’t this idiot government realise that they will be paying tens of hundreds of thousands of pounds more in benefits if they close the mine than they would to keep it open producing the best bloody coal in the world?

There is no other work around here in this valley. This is political spite. This is not about economics, if it was they would never close the mine. The Peacock vein in our mine has enough coal for 200 hundred years.”

I nodded. She certainly seemed to have a case and I understood and agreed with her. It just seemed wrong. Didn’t make any sense to me. But I also knew that coal mining prematurely stole fathers and sons from their families.

Professionally, I should have kept my mouth shut. But that’s just not me. “I remember when I was ten,” I said. “My grandfather begged my mother not to put me down the mine.” The women nodded sagely. I went on to tell them the incident with the 29year old man outside the employment exchange.

“This valley is beautiful,” I said.

“Take the mine away and it will recover, alternative employment will be found and then 29 year old men will not be knackered by the dust and shafted by officials.”

It fell silent.

Looking back on my comment now, from my hospital bed, I can see I was wrong.

“So is that offer of a drink still on?”

Tea lady asked.

“Would love to,” I said, “but…” I just shook my head. It could never happen. I walked away feeling more down about the situation than I did before.

“Fuck this bloody strike,” I muttered. *** The world of crime did not stop revolving during the miners’ strike and, indeed, some toe-rags made the most of the reduced police man power on the streets.

As a sergeant on the SPG, my team and I were very occasionally called away during quieter times to help our colleagues with some dodgy situations.

One such call came from a mate in Swansea CID. They had a search warrant to execute; an early morning job with the Gambling Commission regarding illegal

gambling in an Indian restaurant on in Swansea.

I met with my old pal from CID at Central Police Station and got a quick briefing from him and the guy the Gambling Commission had sent a smartly dressed toff who wanted to be called Charles, to execute the warrant. My team was going to provide muscle in case the gamblers got a bit leery.

We squeezed the CID and ‘Charles’ into the back of the Transit and pull up near the target premises. The milkman and postie were the only people on the streets. That was always good news. Not one to shy away from a bit of argie-bargie, I pile out of the van and decided to take responsibility for gaining a quick access to the place.

I aimed a size 10 boot at the lock of the door and kicked the bloody thing clean off its hinges. I lead the way and rush in and, sure enough, there were a couple of tables set up for cards. The piles of bank-notes and coins were evidence that gambling was certainly going on.

I let the CID and ‘Charles’ do their thing and stand around waiting for the gamblers to cut-up rough.

No deal.

None of them seemed to have any inclination to make a run for it or to put up any kind of fight.

None of them made an issue out of being caught red-handed. The owner of the place was a little miffed at losing his front door though. He came up to me and said, “Why did you wreck my door? It costs a lot for a new one.”

I could have ignored him but thought he deserved an explanation. “Any job like this needs instant access, in case you try and get rid of the evidence…”

“I understand that, sergeant,” the owner interrupted. “But the door was unlocked and you could have walked in.”

Fair complained.

play

to

him…he

never

*** So the strike rumbled on. The rest of the country was experiencing real problems but it was more or less well contained in the Welsh coalfields in the early days of the strike.

After a few months, positions hardened and this was, as Winston predicted, becoming a war of attrition. It was clear to everyone that no side was going to back down.

Standing at the gates of a colliery in the bitter winter was not fun. The miners were a hard bunch but I cringed when I saw one of them, no older than my son – about eighteen – standing on the picket line in a T-shirt.

What a twat!

I could see him shivering. I couldn’t help but think of my son and decided I had to do something. Inside the gates of the colliery was a catering van we were using for refreshments. I strolled over to the kid and told him I’d buy him a cuppa. He looked relieved until a short-arsed, jumped-up union convener – no bigger than Arthur Askey – put his ore in. “If he steps across that picket line he’ll be a scab,” he warned.

What a twat!

I wasn’t having any of that. I grabbed the union convener by the collar and dragged him over the line.

“Now you’re a fucking scab, too,” I snarled. I dragged him up to the catering wagon where I bought him and the freezing kid a cup of tea. After that, all the miners used the wagon for hot drinks. *** Although they were supported by the Union, miner’s families were going through untold hardship, but almost to a man they

refused to yield. This had now become more than just political. It was personal.

The police were working a minimum of four hours overtime every shift. This was a welcome boost for many of the officers, me included, who were never able to put away any savings. But I realised it was at the cost of decent people fighting for what they believed in. Even if their leader was just as misguided as Thatcher.

There were lighter moments albeit laced with the most tragic events that were totally unrelated to the strike. *** Liverpool were playing in the Heinsel Stadium in the final of the European Cup. There were pickets outside a steel works where lorries were continually entering and leaving, despite the picketing of the miners and the inevitable requirement of police presence.

A pattern had now emerged. The picketing miners would rave and shout at the vehicles, the police would let them providing there was no violence or intimidation. If the press were present, the miner’s would put on a show and push at the police line and the police would hold them back. It was just posturing now, no miner there was intending to hurt a cop and no cop

was intending to hurt a miner. Of course, even though the strike meant everything to the miners, that didn’t mean to say they had suddenly lost their love of sport.

I was approached by a lodge official.

“The boys want to watch the match.”

“Mine too,” I said. I thought for a moment. “Ok come with me.” I led the lodge official to a works canteen and spoke to a foreman. “Look if I guarantee there’ll be no trouble, can a couple of miners and a similar number of my lads come to watch the match here?”

The foreman was uncertain eventually gave his permission.

but

It was agreed that there would be four coppers and four picketing miners “on duty” at any given time at the flash point. The rest of them, cop and miner alike, were inside, watching the match. The rota was religiously adhered to with returning coppers and miners relaying the current stage of the match. When a vehicle approached there was only half hearted picketing until one cop came in saying breathlessly, “The press are here.”

All turned out in a hurry. A large lorry trundled towards the entrance gate. Both groups, once more, put on a show.

The Lodge secretary knew one of the cameramen from previous encounters. “Now

piss off, Len. You’ve got your pictures. We want to watch the match.�

And so, normal service was resumed.

You can imagine the abject horror we all felt when it emerged that deaths had occurred in the stadium. This united miner and cop in universal grief. This more than anything, before or after, put the strike into perspective for cop and miner alike. One of the older miners likened it to a disaster in the pit he was working in 30 years before when 20 miners died. *** There were the inevitable tensions among the officers but my small group remained intact without too many difficulties.

The officers had been involved in a particularly difficult day’s work and Darren told them to finish early.

The six lads headed for the nearest pub on the High Street. They drank copious quantities of beer. I felt that I should leave them alone as I was still their sergeant and they appeared to want time on their own.

There was only one thing for it: I carried on drinking in other pubs.

Near closing time, and now well drunk, I was trying to plan my lift home but

came to the conclusion it would have to be an expensive taxi.

I think my Guardian Angel then intervened. I was approached by a tall statuesque blonde. After a pleasant conversation, she invited me back to her flat.

I was just about to leave with her when Helen, appeared. Helen was known to work in a massage parlour in the city and an “acquaintance” of mine (purely platonic, I must add).

“You are coming home with me, now!” Helen said, as she grabbed me.

Two girls fighting over an ugly forty year old! In my drunken haze, I thought it was his birthday.

I don’t remember much about the journey but, back in Helen’s flat we both stripped off and went to bed together and fell asleep. I woke up in the morning and tried it on with Helen, only to be rebuffed.

“Bloody hell, Helen. I was fixed up last night and you pulled me and now you don’t want to bonk me. What’s your game?”

“You stupid bugger,” she said. “I could see that you were pissed. You must ‘ave been ‘cos you were pulling Rebecca Gilzean.”

“So?” I asked, Confused.

“Gilzean is a bloke, you prat,” she said. “He’s a tranni’. He’s also been sent down for five years for safe-breaking.”

Fuck-in-hell!

Helen laughed. “Can you imagine the headlines in the News of the World?”

I was really shocked and couldn’t answer.

“I could think of a few headlines myself, but you would have made the headlines for sure, Dar. He’s a tough bugger too, so the fight between the two of you would have been something else.”

I felt sick. “Helen, I owe you,” I whispered. *** Many times after that, I would see Helen in a bar. We didn’t have to speak but I always left a drink for her! *** By early 1985 attitudes are hardening.

There is no sign of the miners giving in, even though the end of the strike is just months away. The miners are a stoic lot but the

hardships experienced cannot be imagined by those with a plasma TV, money to buy food and a pint and fuel to keep them warm today.

From conversations with family members in the police force, they were experiencing real hardships.

The coal board and government were talking more aggressively, threatening miners with dismissal if they continued to strike and the miners retaliating in some cases with violence.

There was one such miner living in a terraced house in one of the valleys. An old wizened unfit and ill man had only a few months to go before natural retirement. The bastards at the coal board had targeted him and several like him and threatened them with dismissal without pension unless they returned to work. That’s how determined they were to break the strike.

How bloody brave of them!

The old guy’s wife was suffering from cancer and he had a tired, weak heart. Feeling that he just had to go to work to ensure that he got his pension, he cracked and broke the strike.

This was an example of the utter stupidity of the strike. You could imagine the concerns of the striking miners; months and months of deprivation and loyal to a man by

not crossing the picket line. When all that time, hurt and effort looks as if it’s being thrown away there will be repercussions.

The old man’s house had been trashed.

Windows broken, door kicked in.

Me and one of my trusted men spoke to the old man. He explained his predicament in resigned factual tones. He added with a courage that humbled us both.

He spoke very quietly. “They will not break me, for my wife’s sake, I have to keep going to work.”

With that, a group of five lads in their twenties approached and one of them called out. “Wait ‘till the coppers have gone. We’ll finish the fucking job.”

I looked at my colleague and we followed the lads. I had a chat with the rest of my squad. “Make sure no fucker comes around the corner,” I said as the young men disappeared around the houses on a hill above the river bank.

We followed.

When we caught up with them I totally lost it. “Come here, you brave bastards.

Do that to one of your own, a defenceless old man?”

Me and my mate stripped off our tunics and dropped our helmets on the ground.

“Come on you brave fuckers,” I said.

“Five of you to two of us. No uniforms on.

Come on.”

The red mist had descended and I tore into the group; punching, butting, kicking, followed by my mate who was far more clinical and decisive. It was over in minutes, but to be fair, the young men didn’t really put up any resistance.

I grabbed the ringleader. “Right you little twat. You will carry a vigil outside the old man’s house because if anything happens to him, I will find out where you live. I won’t be involved but I will get one of my lads to stitch you up for something you haven’t done.

See how you fucking like it.”

“Ok, ok,” replied the leader, imploring my mate, “Keep this fucking madman away from us.”

As far as I was aware, to the end of the strike, no further inconvenience was experienced by the old man, but, sadly, I heard that he died prior to the end of the strike.

THE EIGHTIES The eighties decade slips by and, half way through, I’m due to retire. Brought back from the riot squad to do my last year or so relieving other sergeants on the beat.

I’m not too impressed with either the current crop of senior officers or the standard of recruits and feel my time is well and truly up. I now appreciate how old Bert Harris felt when he was due to retire. One of his failings, as both a soldier and policemen, was his dress, not the smartest bloke on parade by any stretch of the imagination. I was starting to get embittered and I could identify completely with Bert Harris, nearly 30 years ago. Nothing changes, only the faces of the people.

It’s only the jockey’s that change, not the horse.

Political interference, poor standard of senior officers who were introducing fancy gimmicks as a substitute for proper policing, I was becoming increasingly remote and disgruntled.

Walking up the High Street, still not quite fifty but starting to feel my middle age setting in, I saw an officer not previously known to me striding down the High Street. 6’ 3” tall, impressive build, tanned, really smartly turned out. He came over to me.

“Okay, Sergeant?”

“Is it?” I answered moodily.

“Yes Sarge. I…” “Don’t give me any crap. Who are you?” I snapped.

“Don’t remember me, do you Sarge?”

“Should I son?” As I said the words something flickered in the long lost reaches of my memory.

“Perhaps not. You must have dealt with hundreds of people. You knew my father.

You used to play against him in the local leagues.”

The flitter of recognition…“What’s your name son?”

“Ken Coomes.”

“Bloody hell…that little villain.

Played a bit of football, too. How far did you get with it?”

“Not far, Sarge, Welsh League and a few Southern League games, but went in the marines for five years and now joined the force.”

I had another flashback to old sergeant Bert Harris, a generation ago.

“Bit big to give you a clip across the ear now, Constable,” I grinned.

“Don’t know about that. Still wouldn’t like to take you on, Sarge.”

I stiffened. Never been good at sentiment. “Right 2214. Book a conference with me here.”

I started to turn away to wander the beat, when Coomes stopped. “Serge,” he shouted.

“What do you want now?” I snapped.

Coomes paused “Thanks,” he said quietly.

and

nodded.

I choked a little. “Mind how you go, son.”

I did my best to look after Ken Coomes during the remaining months of my service, recommending him for the Special Patrol Group and the CID a little later.

The lad was to have a meteoric career; ending up as a Chief Superintendent, having also seen service in Northern Ireland.

Sometimes, a clip around the ear is worth far more than a visit to a court. *** I was really pleased to be invited to Ken Coombes’ retirement bash a generation

later. Now in my seventies, it’s heart-warming to hear the lad saying nice things about me. *** Swansea Crematorium is packed, awaiting the arrival of the hearse transporting the coffin draped in the police service flag.

A line of smartly dressed serving police officers stand to attention, ready to gently carry the coffin down the aisle towards the altar of the cinder-block and honeycoloured wood chapel. None of those on funeral duty would have served with the officer at rest in the coffin; they were too young and now worked in a service far removed from that experienced by the colleague beneath the flag.

Beneath the flag lies a man whose reputation, humour and dogged determination to do what he believed was right, had brought hundreds of people to hear the eulogy that can’t hope to encapsulate a life that has breathed its last.

I stand in the foyer, along with many others who cannot squeeze into the chapel. I can hear a number of friends speak warmly of the man who was known to all as Lloydy.

Very little is spoken of his time in the police service. There’s no need. Those of us who served with him know all we need to know. I

also knew that Lloydy had already written down his memories of his time in the police. I knew, because I had spoken to him several times and had promised to read the draft and to edit the manuscript.

The speakers in the chapel recall warm moments of Lloydy’s commitment to Life Saving in the Mumbles and of the club he created and nurtured to International honours and of the M.B.E he received for that work.

I stand and watch those around me; all lost in private memories of the big guy. I remember standing in the same picket lines, in awe of the man’s presence, his walrus moustache and enormous chest, and, over cups of tea in the mess-room, hearing the stories that had elevated the man to legend status.

Rest in Peace Alan Lloyd MBE. Nigel Williams (ex PC 699).