Of Mice and Men.... and yobs and dog crap [sorry Mr Steinbeck]

Having just returned from a 45 minute stroll through the countryside with my dog I needed to jot down a few things that got me thinking about a few things that, in turn, got me thinking. When I dog walk I am always equipped with a few bio-degradable plastic bags for those embarrassing moments when he just can't wait to use a proper public convenience. I always ask him why he didn't go before we left, but he just doesn't get it. Even though we walk on a semi rugged path with rough vegetation either side it is, nevertheless, frequented by lots of different people and occasionally their kids, so I feel that unless he manages to park his behind into places that others would clearly fear to tread, I still want to `pick up`. The only trace of our passing I want to leave behind are out foot/paw prints - and the occasional pee in the bushes. This morning I met a lovely English Springer Spaniel with an outwardly nice lady owner. Spaniel dumped right in the middle of the path and lady owner carried on by. I called over to her and offered her a plastic bag. She seemed bemused and her face changed from pretty/moderately happy-serene to `mouth like a cats arsehole` in a blink. I offered her a bag and she muttered something about not bothering on a country walk. I politely said that the path is frequented by me, as well as smaller kids, and that I didn't like stepping into a Richard* slap bang in the middle of the path. She huffed a bit, but then I gave in and showed her how it was done, retaining a clean, pong free hand in the process. I knotted the bag and offered it to her. More of the cats arse expression. This time I became a little serious, placed the bag in another clean bag, tied it off and handed it to her, telling her that there was a bin near where she would have entered the lane. On my return, I found the bag casually tossed into the grass so I picked it up and binned it myself, but hopefully she won't walk her dog there anymore. So this got me thinking about the state of play in UK Ltd. and a story Ray, an acquaintence of mine, told me a while ago. He lives in a part of town where there is quite a high rate of juvenile nuisance, which means anything from graffiti, noisy hoodie gatherings with lots of obscene language and empty lager cans being dumped in the street, to bag snatches and the occasional robbery at knifepoint. I won't bore you with the usual story that goes with this, suffice to say they continue blighting the area with impunity, because they don't fear an ASBO (I mean, f.f.s. what is there to fear?), they don't fear their parents (if they ever see them) and lowest on their list of `things to fear` is police or court. Ray's wife was six months pregnant. One autumn day she walked to the local shop,just under a mile from their home, pushing their 3 yr old in his push chair. On leaving the shop she was surrounded by the gang of six regulars all in their teens. She was verbally abused, her personal space was invaded and her pregnant bump was groped i.e. she was assaulted. The shopkeeper saw it, helped her and reported it to the police by telephone, but by the time an officer responded 4 days later, she declined to report the matter. The reason was that Ray had come home on leave. Ray is a Royal Marines Commando, 5` 6" tall, built like a wiry athlete and is someone I would describe as a one man armoured fighting machine. He is not well known `on the street` because he keeps a low profile plus he is rarely there because his membership of that elite miltary unit keeps him very busy on behalf of HM Government. Ray was told the story of the incident, the persons responsible were identified to him and he planned his solution. Every evening he would go out for a run as he always did when home on leave. On the second evening his quarry were there. The groper was sat on a low wall with his mates who were doubtless bathing in his personality as they smoked their fags and drank their beers. It was just past dusk when Ray jogged along towards them, only this time he pulled down the woolen cap comforter/face mask down over his face and as he came within range, he landed a neat right hook to gropers pasty chin. Groper was knocked clean over the wall, taking one of his admirers with him, as Ray casually continued on his workout run. Ray represented the Royal Marines at boxing. He told me that as he disappeared he saw groper being carried off by his mates and a few days later, he saw him looking very bruised and very groggy. A few weeks later, with Ray back on base the shopkeeper told Ray's wife about the incident with the mystery jogger and how the precinct had never been so quiet since it happened. Ray told me how he hated doing what he did and asked me what his actions actually represented in law, although he knew he'd broken it. I explained that he had committed an assault occasioning actual bodily harm, possibly grievious especially as Ray believed it was a perfect right hook and he'd broken the gropers jaw and a few of his rotten teeth. In the eyes of the law, he would have been arrested and charged and could have been imprisoned, certainly fined, and would have a criminal record. And what of the groper and his gang? Well along with their countless, cautions, ASBO's and community service, they also get community police schemes where, under the supervision of a local beat police officer, they get to play basketball and get taken to watch premiere football matches to keep them off the streets once a week. But Ray's wife still visits that shop and the shopkeeper says he's had no trouble since the `mysterious man in black` flattened the groper and frightened the shit out of him and his pasty obnoxious mates. The trouble is, if we all started to think and behave like Ray, would this be the beginning of the rise of the BNP ? I mean, surely no right(no pun) minded electorate would give them a mandate in either the UK or Europe, would it? No, lets just trust in our lawmakers and those that are charged with upholding what seems to be increasingly unenforceable justice, law and order. *Richard, as in `Richard the Third` - Cockney rhyming slang??? Work it out for yourself my American/Canadian chums! - thats why I always had a chuckle whenever I heard Little Richard, 'cos I bet he could be a `right one` at times.

Some days you just feel like this.....

..........and today is one of those *^%$£ days

S`not my job, mate.

I had a chuckle when I read this one from Inspector Gadget about the jobsworth's and the body in the wheelie bin. It prompted me to recall a time in sarf-East London when our night shift was summoned to the local railway station. A train driver had reported `hitting something` as he was about half a mile from the station and thought it might have been a man. Our inspector and a local British Transport Police officer gathered us together and, with the appropriate precautions in place, we started a line search just as dawn was breaking. It wasn't long before we started to come across the usual grisly bits and pieces associated with a ten stone human coming into contact with several hundred tons of fast moving train. Within half an hour we'd located pretty much everything except the head. Our diminished search team set off to sweep the area where we'd found the torso and where we expected to locate the final part of this awful human jigsaw. We'd covered pretty much everywhere we thought it could have landed, but found nothing. As we re-grouped around our glorious leader for another think, a railway worker appeared from behind a hut at the side of the track across from where we were standing and shouted out the strangest thing I think I've ever heard, "Oi, are you lot looking for a head"? Quick as a flash, our witty Inspector shouted back, "No mate". The rail worker just stood there looking a little lost. The Inspector waited a few seconds, milking the moment for all it was worth, before shouting, "Why, have you got one"? With that the bloke disappeared behind his hut and re-appeared with a galvanised metal bucket. Sure enough, it contained a head and, as luck would have it, it was the one we were looking for. I often wonder what he would have done if the inspector hadn't followed up with that crucial question. My second grisly tale comes from a dark, drizzly winters night in Ruralshire, when we took a call from a man whose wife we knew well. She was a poor troubled soul who had made many attempts to take her own life and it sounded like she'd succeeded on this occasion. We located the poor thing's remains along a fast stretch of line way out in the sticks. She'd lain across the line and was cut in two, quite neatly considering. In the time honoured fashion, we had to call a police surgeon to the scene to pronounce life extinct, even though the body was in two parts, about 30 yards apart. The Doc duly arrived, just after the acting sergeant from the neighbouring sub-division, a young chap who was destined for higher things and desparately wanted to take charge of the scene. Being a `veteran` sergeant with 3 years in the rank I happily allowed him the honours. The police surgeon arrived and came straight up to me, probably for two reasons; 1. I had the real stripes on my tunic and 2. He knew me quite well as not only was he a regular visitor to my station on general police surgeon matters but also, he had only that week performed a vasectomy on me. His first words were `Hello Mr Hogday, how's the stitches`? The high flying acting sergeant dived in as he clearly wanted to take the lead and keenly gave him a full briefing, explaining straight out of the book, why we had called the Doc and asked him if he would examine the victim and pronounce `life extinct` in order that we could continue the investigation. The surgeon looked at me and I explained that acting sergeant Newbie was in charge of this one. "very well" he said and, with a poker-straight face continued, "I can confirm that this half is definitely deceased but I haven't checked that half over there yet". The acting sergeant, still too tightly focussed to realise the dark humour, smartly ushered him over to the other remains to see if that was dead too, whilst the rest of our little trio had a quiet chuckle, as only police, ambulance, fire and other practitioners of the dark arts of dealing with life and death can. Disclaimer: I make no apologies for what may seem my irreverence at the scene of these grisly events, the images of which remain with me if I choose to think of them, but nevertheless wish to assure anyone reading this that all relatives were treated with the utmost compassion and dignity.

Their Day

Happy to help you,.... by passing the buck back to you

A story I heard from an `A1` source last week. Young woman drives off from home in the family Land Rover, with toddler, Labrador and associated baby gear on board. Unbeknown to her, there is a big leak in the diesel fuel line somewhere. She has driven about 3 miles when, at her first stop, she notices the diesel smell, pulls over and sees a growing puddle underneath the vehicle and the trail of diesel behind it. She also notices the fuel gauge has dropped notceably. She pulls off the road and switches off the engine. Having motorcyclists in the family, she knows the risk diesel spillages poses to bikers, plus the spillage at the place she stops is large and she feels she must report the hazard so someone else can assess any appropriate action. She telephones the Hampshire police, taking the trouble to use the non-emergency 0845 number. She relays her story, and her route, to the call centre where one of the call handlers tells her "Nothing to do with us, you need to ring the fire brigade luv". Asking how she does that and being a helpful soul she requests a local number but is told, "Dial emergency 999". She queries this, apprehensively, but is nevertheless told a second time to do so. The Fire and Rescue service tell her this is not an emergency and she should notify the police who will probably contact the local highways authority. She concurs, but tells them the police told her to call them via the 999 system. There is a moment of silence. Being now more concerned about getting off the side of the road with her son and doggy, she disregards plan A as a bad idea and sets about looking after herself and arranging personal recovery. Speaking as an ex control room type, we would have accepted the call, logged the message and then we would have passed it on to Fire and Rescue or the local highways authority. From personal experience, it would have been the latter as diesel does not represent a fire hazard in the same way that an equivalent pool of petrol would have. We'd have thanked Ms Joanne Public for the call and asked if she needed any help before ringing off. Job done. Bloody `helpful` these non-emergency call centres. Actually, that was not the balanced view I like to apply, so I'll re-phrase my last - that particular call-centre operator was not as helpful as s/he could otherwise have been and would benefit from operational advice or closer supervision otherwise everyone else in there, as well as the real police, will get a bad name. That's better. But how many experienced call centre supervisors or police advisors are there available in these places anyway? They must be frazzled. Oh and there's an epilogue. When she got home her neighbour informed her that two cycling PCSO's had called ( on their own initiative, the control centre hadn't directed them) having discovered and followed the oily slick back, from about half a mile from her house, to tell her she had a leak. So a hip-hip hoo for the other non-police, non-emergency service who, had the call centre taken the bloody call, could have squared the circle and made them (and the police, who the public think they are) look on top of their game. Ain't hindsight wonderful. Whereas I admire someone public spirited enough to become a PCSO, I was not convinced of the wisdom of the move in such large numbers, towards what I somewhat cynically saw as a real sleight of Government hand in dressing them up in almost police uniform but only empowering and training them to deal with :

issuing of fixed penalty notices (e.g. riding on footpath; dog fouling; litter)

Power to confiscate alcohol and tobacco

Power to demand the name and address of a person acting in an anti-social manner

Power of entry to save life or prevent damage

Removal of abandoned vehicles

Bloody hell, there isn't even any mention of Ghostbusting in there. Tapping into my cycnical side again, I might call this a Government exercise in `bullshit` or a `con`. Whose idea was it anyway?

Ancient target set for the police - please don't get here in time

Watching the non-surprise-of-the-year departure of the current Home Secretary (there will be another following shortly) and the mile-wide oil slick in her wake, made me recall a previous one and how there is a clear history of setting unrealistic targets for the police, even at the very basic street level. Of course, in those days we had no facts at our disposal about second, third or fourth homes, floating duck islands, phantom mortgages, soft porn films (there was no satellite TV then) or the mysteries of allowances - we just always assumed there was a great big pot from which they could scoop out nice supplements to their wages. On that occasion, our assumptions were wide of the mark and thanks now to the Telegraph and the Freedom of Information Act I now know that we'd seriously underestimated things. Yet somehow they mostly all seemed likeable, in fact some seemed positively `likeable rogues` although I will not use that latter expression in respect of the Hon. Peter `Duck Island` Viggers whom I had a professional working knowledge of in my latter years. I don't know about him being a `rogue`, but likeable he definitely wasn't. Come to think of it, neither was Tom King - perhaps none of them were likeable after all? No, surely not. Willie Whitelaw was a gent and I really enjoyed the occasional word with Merlyn Rees - oh dear, is this how time clouds ones memory? I mean, with the news just in this morning, of the resignation of Hazel Bleary, I can't even remember how a Prime Minister is supposed to re-shuffle an incomplete pack of cards? I mean, is there any point, particularly when you can only play `snap`? Anyway, back to my rather dull anecdote. The late Labour Home Secretary, Roy Jenkins, had his registered main residence in the Notting Hill area of London. We had a very strict timed response to certain very sensitive premises if their alarms were triggered. The Home Secretary's was one of them. We had a 3 minute deadline but at any one time we could be a few miles from the venue. Anyone who knows that area of London also knows the nightmare traffic. Most police Area cars in central London would spend part of their journey up and down kerbs in order to make rapid progress to a 999 call, but ours was an armed response to a specifically high risk government minister and so we had to motor. Depending on the time, our 3 minute response was nigh on impossible to achieve, but our drivers usually achieved the impossible. After a spell of `accidental` alarm activations a memo arrived in our base, from the Home Sec's personal protection officer, via our commander in New Scotland Yard. It requested that, with immediate effect, we stopped using our emergency siren when responding to the Home Secretary's alarm activation as it was annoying the Home Secretary and upsetting his neighbours, which was a bit rich as it was him who kept setting the bloody thing off. Now a silent approach is a tactic that police can use under certain circumstances, but on this particular job there was absolutely no tactical advantage without specific additional information. Our deployment in the immediate vicinity would definitely be tactical, especially as we were inadequately armed with mediocre firearms and with no body armour, but in order to scythe ones path through a mass of traffic and indifferent drivers there was no time for discretion and politeness. We were not much amused. Still, compared to the `targets` set for the police these days by the Government's bright young Home Office `think-tankers` (bit of `Nu Cockney` there?) , it now seems like a very reasonable request. [The picture is of a car I actually used to crew].

Where does one look for inspiration these days?

On the left is last months Home Secretary, someone in whose hands were entrusted amongst other things many aspects of internal national security . On the right, a few pebbles that sit in my kitchen window. They are from Omaha Beach, Normandy, France. I cannot think of a greater inspiration than to look upon those five pebbles.