Look Who's Coming.....Spring of course!

It's at times like this I can feel myself getting all phisolosophical and when I get philosolifical I often reach out to that old favourite, The Maharishi Phucknuckel, and his words of wisdom: The darkest hours come just before dawn, so if you're going to steal your neighbours milk/newspaper/primroses, thats the time to do it. Sex is like air. It's only really important when you aren't getting any. Before you judge someone, you should walk a mile in their shoes. That way, when you judge them you're a mile away and you have their shoes. If you think nobody cares whether you're dead or alive, try missing a couple of mortgage payments. and finally, the most deep and meaningful of all his teachings..... Do not walk behind me, for I may not lead. Do not walk ahead of me, for I may not follow. Do not walk beside me either, just fuck off and leave me alone. Already I can feel enlightenment. After the comments demanding more guiding words, especially Brother Grasshopper of the Long Rifle With Many Pee Stops (well. we're of a similar age) I have consulted the Master once again, seeking the truth, the light and the way to the nearest pub. Be ready for the Damascus Moment: Remember, no one is listening, until you fart. If at first you don't succeed, avoid skydiving. (One for Ms Pepper): Don't worry, it only seems kinky the first time. (One for the B's in Blue) Don't aspire to be irreplaceable. If you can't be replaced, you can't be promoted. Coming soon, wise quotes from Winston (No, not him, the guy who runs the Caribbean Fuit and Vegetable shop in Brixton Market).

Prejudice Comes in Many Forms

Being a dedicated biker, having held a licence for more than 35 years - quite a bit more actually - (ouch, that hurt) I always like to see myself as a biker first and a Harley or BMW or Honda or Kawasaki rider second. My point being that I like to ride and I like what riding gives me. It sort of feeds my soul. Over the years, especially in the police, I faced all sorts of prejudices; racial, sexual, religious, professional, even the fact that I was merely a police officer was occasionally turned against me. I encountered people who didn't just hate me because I was white and a police officer, they seemed to hate everyone and everything, even their own family. The worst racial hatred I ever experienced that was directed at me, personally, was from a man who was Jamaican and he seemed to fit the latter `hate everyone` category. That said, he didn't turn me against other Jamaicans although he did make me wary. Fortunately, friends I have who are from Barbados made me chuckle when they said it was OK and not to worry, as nobody else in the Caribbean liked Jamaicans anyway - prejudice again! I tried to rise above it and to be judged by my deeds and who I was, that is if I chose to hang around long enough for people to find out a bit more about me. Eventually, I got to the point where I just didn't want to waste any of my time and energy in trying to win a battle of words or sit through an argument that I judged was a waste of my lifeforce. Rather than get angry I'd just walk away if the situation allowed me to. In so doing I simply categorised people as either radiators or drains. Radiators give out warmth and drains...well you know what I mean. Now I quite like scooters in a way I cannot quite understand. I've never owned one, but I've ridden a couple, which is exactly the reason I would never own one. They just do not suit me or my style of riding and I simply don't want to ride one out of choice. They are practical and cheap to run and they have good weather protection so their owners can get away with wearing nice shoes in a bit of rain. Some of the bigger ones are even quick, very quick indeed, but they still don't float the boat for me. That said, if I'm out on a ride and stop for a stretch and there's some scooterists about, I'll stroll over and have a chat. Sometimes I get the wary look from some of my age, doubtless remembering the battle of mods and rockers of the bad old good old days, but when I show an interest in their machinery we always strike up a common thread - the joy of the open road on two wheels and occasionally The Who, Prince Buster and Harry J & The Allstars. Now if they all started hurling abuse at me, my bulky boots, biker clothing and my machinery I'd walk away, with as much dignity as I could muster. This has never actually happened to me, but if it did, then that would be my plan. If I'm `pushed into a corner` I will politely stand my ground but again, I would rather walk away from a drain and find a nice radiator to sit by as I drink my mug of tea. I would remember the faces of the antagonists if I could, and watch out for them next time so as to avoid them. In the police, I'd sooner talk a belligerent out of a pub than throw him out physically. During my time as a police officer I was both priviledged and lucky to have been able to resuscitate 3 people. One was an overdosed drug addict, one was a woman who had suffered a cerebral haemorrhage (I worked her heart and my buddy breathed into her until we got a pulse before paramedics arrived and hooked her up to the `Minuteman`, working around us in her cramped bedroom - we never even noticed them arrive and do it) and the last one was on a traffic warden who had attempted suicide in a public toilet, by slashing his wrists and then trying to literally cut his heart out. That was horrendous and he eventually conked out on me and died before the ambulance arrived - I got him breathing again but he was just leaking in too many places. What would be of total irrelevance would be for me to say that the first was white, the second was a Turkish muslim and the third was Afro- Caribbean. As I wrote this I had to dig deep before I remembered that fact. It was buried in the section of my memory, filed under "Irrelevant". Yet to my amazement, when I saw those muslims at Luton, protesting at our returning troops marching through the town, I felt such a wave of revulsion that for a few moments I hated every last one of them, their culture, their parents and their offspring. I would have been accutely embarrassed if my old friends (of Indian origin but as British as I am) had been in the room with me. I was wild, angry and wanting to choke the living shit out of these odious creatures who were spitting abuse at British soldiers who had returned from a tour of duty - a duty that was being performed at the behest of our elected politicians in Government - a tour of duty where they had lost comrades. I do believe I lost my temper! Had I been there I would have had to dig deep into my box of self control or I could well have lost it and ended up getting arrested. I hate violence yet I have used it, and threatened the use of it in a controlled manner over the years in order to effect the purpose of my office. I used my truncheon/baton maybe 3 times although I drew it on many more occasions than that. I have punched people bloody hard and then stood in court later and said so. I have pointed a gun at many people in order to effect an arrest. I almost shot someone, once. I came so very close. He turned out to be unarmed, yet I had every justification to shoot, right up to the point where I discovered he was not armed, but he was so lucky. That still comes back and haunts me from time to time. I could legally justify every occasion where I used or threatened the use of force, but I guess when I `lost it` in front of my television last week, I wouldn't have been able to justify the force that I wanted to use on those people. I suppose I should feel slightly ashamed. This is how the National Front exploited that void, the one between a race war or living together in harmony or indifference - frankly, Id settle for indifference if it meant a peaceful co-existence - harmony could always be the occasional bonus. I fear we're on an edge here and the masses of the less rational `great unwashed` out there, don't tend to think things through like I've tried to. Well, as Ogri would say, "Bollocks, I've always got me bike". I 'm off and I just hope I don't get some pizza delivery kid's smelly, gutless 50cc scooter stuck in my air intake - bloody pests.

Police in Pursuit - South African Style

I believe that if it had become too risky, the Force Control Room would definitely have called it off......

A Green and Pleasant land

I'm off up here for a ride. It's not far. The news has got to me. I think I need to get out more. Came back via this place. Empty streets in an old English City - hard times?

In Days of Old, When Knights Were Bold.....

Gordon Brown wants to award Ted Kennedy an `honorary` Knighthood. In a week when the IRA breaks cover with a mere machine gun murder of 2 British soldiers (Engineers awaiting their posting to Afghanistan this week) who were engaged in the anti-Republican act of collecting pizzas delivered to their barracks. 4 others, including the 2 pizza delivery guys, were also gunned down. Still, at least Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness condemned the act of murder - is this a `first`? Let's look at the word `Honour` for a moment. Wikipedia says of honour; the evaluation of a person's trustworthiness and social status based on that individual's espousals and actions. Honour is deemed exactly what determines a person's character: whether or not the person reflects honesty, respect, integrity, or fairness. Accordingly, individuals are assigned worth and stature based on the harmony of their actions, code of honour, and that of the society at large. Tell that to the family of Mary Jo Kopechne. But to be fair, I don't pay that much attention to Ted these days, so perhaps he really has discovered the true meaning of `honour`. How do I feel right now, in Gordon's Britain? Like Clint Eastwood's character in Gran Torino, that's how I feel - "Just Get off my Goddam Lawn..."

I.E.D.

My entire police service was overshadowed by Irish Republican terrorism on the UK mainland. Sometimes the shadow was very dark, sometimes it was barely visible, but it was always there. This included shootings from small arms, including sub machine guns as well as countless bomb threats and very many detonations of Improvised Explosive Devices (I.E.D.) A lot of current news stories coming out of Iraq and Afghanistan refer to IED's exploding under army vehicles or at the roadside and I often wonder what the general public imagine, in their mind's eye, as to just what an `improvised` explosive device is all about. The IRA became expert in creating home made explosives or HOMEX as we used to call it, out of weed killer and other agricultural chemicals. One could be forgiven for thinking that this smacked of the home chemistry set and somehow lessened the effect. The truth is that IRA HOMEX was at least 80% as effective as military or industrial explosives and the way these devices were developed over the years left us and our friends in the Army in no doubt that we were dealing with a significant and deadly threat. Either way, whether HOMEX was 80% or 60% as effective it was purely academic, as the resulting death and mass destruction regularly proved. The bombs that caused multi-million pounds worth of collateral, human and economic devastation in the City of London, Manchester and elsewhere were HOMEX devices. The two pictures on this post are of the scene of an IRA bomb that I attended minutes afterwards. Many of the officers captured in these photographs were my mates. I was 2 blocks away, yet the building I was in shook from the massive blast and plaster was dislodged from the ceiling. It went off on the same day as the infamous `Old Bailey` bomb where many innocent people were injured but, miraculously, no one died. These pictures were of the incident on my Division, in Great Scotland Yard. The bomb was outside the HQ of Army Recruiting in London which was next door to the police Mounted Branch's central HQ which also had stables. Horses were present when the bomb detonated. I used to regularly have my full English breakfast in there. The last one I had was at 7.30 that very morning. I consider myself lucky not to have been there for an afternoon cup of tea, but then luck plays such a big part in these things. Both multi-storey brick built buildings were cracked from the pavement to the roof. In the lower photograph, at the end of the street in the background, is the Admiralty in Whitehall, just down from Trafalgar Square. All the Admiralty's windows visible were blown out in the shockwave, the extent of this damage exactly matching the width of Great Scotland Yard, it's buildings channeling the blast across the street like a big cannon. A parking meter next to the car containing the bomb was later found on the Admiralty roof, over 300 yards away. The pavement was littered with coins from that parking meter. One flying 10 pence piece took off a mans finger as he was walking by the Admiralty - 10pence worth of shrapnel, one of hundreds of pieces that could have damaged so many more tourists and pedestrians going about their business. I bandaged what was left of the finger and tried to find the missing digit whilst he waited for an ambulance. Finally, the video I've inserted was sent to me from a good buddy and ex colleague who has been working in Iraq training the fledgling police force. It is an example of an IED roadside device, although out there the insurgents do have real military ordnance to utilise in their bomb making, but improvised it still is. The person who detonated it by remote control was most probably watching the security forces convoy and chose the moment to initiate the device. I would hate for anyone to be led into thinking that the word `improvised` means it is in any way `amateurish`.

"Forgive" sounds good......

When I joined the Metropolitan Police, London, I and my fellow recruits were treated to a process of training that is experienced in varying degrees and quality, by police officers the world over. Not only was it necessary to teach us law, police procedures and the means to apply the use of force as well as trying to avoid it, but we were also on a journey of indoctrination into what, for me, became something akin to joining a large extended family. Most families have their own hierarchy, customs, norms and shared values as well as `skeletons in cupboards` and the police is no different. But it is difficult for anyone, let alone a releatively naive 19 year old from a lower middle class background, to absorb the culture of such an organisation with such responsibilities in just a 4 month spell at training school followed by 20 months of on-going training. Looking back, I think they did a pretty good job in steering and moulding me so that at the end of my training I could walk through the gate that leads to the world of police and policing. One of our `indoctrination` lessons included a visit to what used to be known as The Black Museum of New Scotland Yard. As you would expect, it's not called that anymore and is now The `Crime` Museum, but the change of the name has not watered down the fact that it is still not a place for the faint hearted and it is also one of very few British museums that is not open to the general public. My recollection of the visit is a little hazy, mainly because of the years that have passed, but there are a few things that are still burned into my memory and which I can see now, as clear as on that visit, over 35 years ago: A collection of the actual hangman's nooses that were used to dispatch numerous convicted murderers, sentenced to death - grisly relics of the days when the state retained the right to do such a thing. (When I last looked, Treason was still the only offence for which a British court can sentence to death but that may have gone as well. I just can't be bothered to check). The bath used by the infamous `Acid Bath Murderer` John Haigh, a serial killer of the 1940's. Match boxes containing the pubic hair, clipped from the poor female victims by John Christie, after he murdered them in his lodgings at 10 Rillington Place. But the one exhibit that has always remained the most vivid was that of the operational log book of an unmarked police car, known as a "Q" Car. "Q" Cars were usually crewed by a Detective Sergeant, a detective constable and a uniform branch Class 1 advanced driver from Traffic Division. It was a specialist crime car dedicated to high end criminal activity and usually tasked by New Scotland Yard CID. In those days all Area Cars (marked fast response unit) and "Q" Cars had an ops log which would be maintained by the designated radio operator. All calls to the unit, as well as those to neighbouring area cars, would be logged by the operator. Any actions taken, persons and vehicles stopped would be referenced briefly in the log. It was an official document and had to be preserved on completion. The log we were shown at The Black Museum was typically dog-eared with scribbled entries. However, this one had a dark brown stain across its page and into the other pages that had obviously been stuck together by a spillage. The writing ended abruptly. The writing was part of a vehicle/person stop check. The dark brown `spillage` was the blood of Detective Constable David Wombwell, aged 25. Along with his 2 colleagues, Det. Sgt David Head and PC Geoffrey Fox, he had been conducting the check on the vehicle and its 3 occupants, known to PC Fox as local villains. Suddenly, one of them produced a Luger pistol and shot DC Wombwell through the eye at point blank range, killing him instantly. The killer then got out of the car, ran after the Detective Sgt and shot him in the back of the head before turning his gun on the third officer, PC Fox, at the wheel of the "Q" Car, callsign `Foxtrot One-One`. All three officers died at the scene and the killings, in Acton, London, caused a public outcry that led to the forming of the Police Dependants Trust that exists to this day. The killer was a criminal named Harry Roberts who was eventually convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment. 2 days ago I was sitting in bed, drinking tea and reading the Saturday paper. I opened it and on page 3 I suddenly found myself staring at Harry Roberts, a name that was burnt into my memory all those years ago as I sat with my colleagues, in stunned silence, in the Black Museum of New Scotland Yard. It seems that despite many attempts to secure his release over the years, both legally and by attempting to escape, he may yet be permitted his freedom. He claims he is now just an old aged pensioner. May I draw your attention to this example of another criminal who is also an `old aged pensioner`. For anyone who may feel a tinge of sympathy for his case, I just wanted to say that the sight of DC Wombwell's blood on that log book, the sort of log I used so many times in my time on Area Cars in London, stayed with me throughout my service and is with me now, as I type this, with tears rolling down my cheeks. If this man is released, like the three men who killed my dear friend in the execution of his duty in Oxford Street and who were sentenced to 9 years for manslaughter and released in 4, then what hope of justice is left for the police of this country to cling onto as they go about their duty as Det Sgt Head, TDC Wombwell and PC Fox did in Braybrook Street, London, August 12th, 1966? They were "family". PS: See what happened to another old colleague of mine and the p.o.s. that shot him PPS: One of my blog followers `Dickiebo` has a very personal insight into this post. Read it here.