by Harry Morris
Fortunately, the Road Patrol Inspector who attended the incident had a good sense of humour, and was more relieved that I hadn’t decided to change the route of my Orange parade and take them along with me for the ride!
Two Babysitters?
…
Tayside police received an urgent call regarding a violent male causing a serious disturbance in the main street.
Quick as a flash, two keen young officers, who just happened to be in the police station when the call came in, grabbed a set of car keys off the sergeant’s desk and ran out the door to the yard.
As they entered the yard full of vehicles, they pressed the remote control and saw a rather flash-looking unmarked car responding to their signal.
Both officers, without the slightest hesitation, jumped into the front of the car and within seconds they were burning rubber as they roared out of the police yard at speed.
All was going well until the previous shift sergeant, about to go off duty, walked out into the yard and discovered his family car had been stolen.
The police controller immediately broadcast a look-out for the sergeant’s stolen vehicle.
Within seconds of the broadcast going out, a mobile station responded, and informed the controller of its subsequent recovery.
Apparently the eager young officers attending the disturbance had unknowingly lifted the sergeant’s private car keys from his desk, mistaking them for an unmarked police vehicle in the yard.
However, they had a harder job trying to explain to the sergeant just how they had managed to miss the obvious clues available to them – such as the pink furry dice, a baby seat in the rear and a large ‘baby on board’ sign in the back window!
‘Who drives in a car like this?’ Over to you, detective!
Eye Got Set Up!
…
When John Smith was a young probationary constable, he was performing office duties and was instructed by the Desk Sergeant to go into the police cells in order to clean up a drunken male prisoner who had sustained a head injury and whose face was covered in blood.
The unsuspecting John entered the cell to clean up the drunken male’s face, after which he was about to leave the cell when the drunken male shouted out to him, ‘Here, Officer! Can you clean this one as well?’
John turned around to see the drunken male standing there with a huge grin on his face, holding his glass eye in his hand, which was dripping with blood.
The prisoner’s action was greeted with howls of laughter from the cell passage outside, as the Desk Sergeant and the prisoner turnkey, who were hiding in the cell passage, watching the entire episode, doubled up with hysterical laughter at the surprised expression on young John’s face.
I suppose, in all fairness, they were only keeping an eye out for him!
Know You Well
…
On a recent trip to Santa Ponsa in Majorca, Spain, I was reminded of an incident I was involved in on my very first visit.
It was shortly after I had undergone a vasectomy operation that we decided to go there on a family holiday. We were staying at a complex called Madrugada and it had a friendly, compact little bar underneath the apartments.
This particular night, prior to going upstairs to my apartment, I stopped off, dressed in my casual shirt and shorts, for a glass of beer.
It was whilst sitting outside at one of the tables, sipping away on my beer, that I saw this couple coming towards me and I instantly thought I recognised and knew the female.
‘Hello there! I know you, don’t I?’
At that, the male shook his head, gave a laugh, like it was a regular occurrence being recognised, and walked into the bar to order his drink, while the female stopped to talk to me.
‘Do you come from the Govan area of Glasgow?’ I asked her.
‘No!’ she said. ‘But I do work in Govan!’
I then thought for a moment: was she a police woman?
‘No, I’m not in the police. I’m a nurse, and I work in the Southern General Hospital.’
At that point the penny dropped and I immediately knew who she was. She was one of the nurses whom I recognised from my vasectomy operation.
‘You were present at my vasectomy operation! Do you remember me now?’ I asked her, in front of several other holiday makers who were sitting at tables and taking an interest in our conversation.
Slightly embarrassed, she remarked, ‘Sorry, but I don’t think I recognise your face.’
Quick as a flash, I replied, ‘I’m not surprised, hen!’
Then, without the slightest hesitation, I jumped up from my chair and dropped my shorts to my ankles.
‘Do you recognise me now?’ I asked her as howls of laughter rang out from the people sitting nearby.
However, for the sake of my dear wee mammy, I must point out …
Mammy, I was wearing pants underneath!
F.orgot, B.ut I.nvestigating
…
Recently I was out for a meal with American friends Dan and Teri, and Teri was relating an incident to me, involving her neighbour Don and his wife Mary.
Whilst in conversation one day, Teri had informed Don of a new restaurant in the area that they had recently dined in, and recommended it to them for the quality of food and the competitive prices.
Don and his wife Mary decided to accept their recommendation and visit the restaurant for themselves.
When Don and Mary entered the restaurant, there was no maitre d’ to greet them and direct them to a table. So, after a few moments, Don took it upon himself to find an empty table for two and sat down.
Having perused the menu and decided upon their choice of evening meal, they both sat back and waited for the waitress to come and note their order.
Twenty minutes passed and Don and Mary were still sitting at their table, patiently awaiting the arrival of a member of staff to take their food and drink order from them.
Fed up with having to wait so long and the complete lack of movement being shown by the waiting staff present, Don became very uneasy and slightly agitated.
Several moments later, totally disillusioned by the poor service, Don and Mary left the premises in disgust.
However, what Dan and Teri had neglected to explain to their neighbours was that as part of the cost-cutting exercises introduced by the restaurateur, in order to make it more competitive with other restaurants in the area, they had reduced the number of waiting staff by having the diners go up to the bar to order their drinks themselves, and place their food order at the same time.
Now, with such a simple self-service idea being introduced to restaurant diners, it is puzzling that Don didn’t figure it out for himself, nor indeed did he seek out and read the self explanatory notice board. But, more distressing than that, was learning that Don was in fact a former high-ranking and recently retired FBI agent!
Blackhill Tales
…
There was a railway line that used to run along behind the tenement houses in the Blackhill area of Glasgow.
As it reached a certain point on the track, there was a slight uphill gradient, where the train obviously slowed down.
As a result of this regular occurrence, the natives of the area, having read about Jesse James and his gang of outlaws, would deliberately hinder the train’s progress even further by greasing the railway tracks with chip pan lard, or discarded motor engine oil.
Whilst the train was negotiating the added obstacles, causing it to slow down considerably, the more sprightly youths in the gang would run alongside the train, before boarding it, sliding open a cargo door and relieving it of several of the big cardboard cartons it was loaded with, throwing them out to the rest of the gang to retrieve at the bottom of the embankment.
After completing their raid, they would jump off the train before it sped up again and rush over to open the stolen cartons to check out their haul.
You can imagine the expressions on their faces when they discovered they had only gone and knocked
off packets of sanitary towels, en route for Timothy Whites the chemist!
However, not everybody was disappointed, as later that day the younger kids of the area played Cowboys and Indians. These particular Indians were Apaches. Guess what the weans were wearing around their heads? Exactly! The sanitary towels.
Blackhill: full of black spots with brighter periods everywhere!
The Right of Reply!
…
The following correspondence actually took place between a resident of the Larden area and Lester and Bingley police.
Dear sir/madam/automated answering service,
Having spent the past twenty minutes waiting for someone at Larden police station to pick up a telephone, I have decided to abandon the idea and try emailing you instead. Perhaps you would be so kind as to pass this message on to your colleagues in Larden by means of smoke signals, carrier pigeon or Ouija board.
As I’m writing this email there are eleven failed medical experiments – I think you would refer to them as youths – in West Cornwall Street, which is just off Commercial Street in Larden.
Six of them seem happy enough to play a game which involves kicking a football against an iron gate with the force of a meteorite.
This in turn causes an earth-shattering CLANG, which in turn rings throughout the entire building.
This game is now in its third week and as I am unsure how the scoring system works, I have no idea if it will end any time soon.
The remaining five failed abortions are happily rummaging through several bags of rubbish and items of furniture that someone has so thoughtfully dumped beside the wheelie bins.
One of them has found a saw and is setting about a discarded chair like a demented beaver on speed.
I fear that it’s only a matter of time before they turn their limited attention to the canister of Calor gas that is lying on its side between the two bins.
If they could be relied upon to only blow their own arms and legs off, I would happily leave them to it. I would even go so far as to lend them the matches.
Unfortunately, they are far more likely to blow up half the street, and I’ve just finished decorating the kitchen.
What I would humbly suggest is this:
After replying to this email with worthless assurances that the matter is being looked into and will be dealt with, why not leave it until the one night of the year, probably bath night, when there are no mutants around, then drive up the street in a police panda car before doing a three-point turn and disappearing again.
This will of course serve no other purpose than to remind us what policemen actually look like in their cars!
I trust that when I take my claw hammer to the skull of one of these throwbacks you’ll afford me the same courtesy of giving me a four-month head start before coming to arrest me.
I remain sir, your obedient servant,
Tommy Tellthetruth.
The reply:
Dear Mister Tellthetruth,
I have read over your email and understand your obvious frustration at the problem being caused by youths playing in the area and the personal problems you appear to have encountered while trying to contact the police.
As the Community Police Officer for your street, I would like to extend an offer of discussing the matter fully with you.
Should you wish to discuss the matter further, please provide contact details (address / telephone number) and when it would be suitable to call.
Regards,
PC Runaffmyfeet
Community Beat Officer.
The conclusion:
Dear PC Runaffmyfeet,
First of all, I would like to thank you for your speedy response to my original email. It has only taken you 16 hours and 38 minutes. This must be a personal record for the Larden Police Station and rest assured that I will make a point of forwarding these details on to Norris McWhirter for inclusion in his next Guinness Book of Records.
Secondly, I was delighted to hear that our street has its very own community beat officer. May I be the first to congratulate you on your covert skills?
In the last five or so years that I have lived in West Cornwall Street, I have never actually seen you.
Do you hide up a tree, or have you gone deep undercover and infiltrated the street gang itself?
Are you the one with the acne and the moustache on his forehead or the one with a chin like a wash-hand basin?
It’s surely only a matter of time before you are head-hunted by MI5.
Whilst I realise that there may be far more serious crimes taking place in Larden, such as smoking in a public place, or being a Muslim without due care and attention, is it too much to ask for a policeman to explain, using words of no more than two syllables at a time, to these little twats that they might want to play their strange football game elsewhere?
For example, the football pitch behind the citadel, or the one at DJs, are both within spitting distance, and might I also be so bold as to suggest that so is the bottom of the Albert Dock.
Should you wish to discuss these matters further you should feel free to contact me on 010 1010. If after 25 minutes I have still failed to answer, I’ll buy you a large one in the Dewdrop Inn.
Regards,
Tommy Tellthetruth.
PS, If you think that this is sarcasm, think yourself lucky that you don’t work for the cleaning department!
Stop!
…
I was out patrolling on my motorcycle one day, when I saw a driver failing to comply with a ‘Stop’ sign on the road. He drove straight through the junction, narrowly avoiding collision with other traffic.
I immediately gave chase and stopped the vehicle.
On speaking with the driver I said, ‘You failed to comply with the “Stop” sign at the junction.’
‘Oh, come on,’ the driver said. ‘Give me a break, I slowed down, didn’t I, is that not enough for you?’
I pointed out to the driver that you’re not meant to slow down, you’re actually meant to stop. That’s why it is called a ‘Stop’ sign.
The driver looked at me with a smug expression on his face and began to remonstrate with me.
‘Slow down! Stop! Slow down! Stop! What’s the bloody difference, you idiot? They’re both the same thing!’
I then ordered him to step out of his car and said I would attempt, in my own way, to explain to him the difference.
The driver shook his head in disgust as he stepped from his car and stood in front of me, waiting for me to give him my explanation.
At which point I drew my police baton and started giving him a ‘Rodney King’, walloping him repeatedly across the head and body with it.
As a result of my drastic action, he started screaming in agony at being struck, whereupon I said to him, ‘Right, now! Do you want me to slow down? Or stop? Slow down? Or stop? It’s your choice!’
I think you can guess what his answer was. But you can be sure he learned from that lesson that there was a considerable difference!
Dating Agencies
…
A young cop contacted a dating agency with the request to find him the perfect companion to spend the rest of his life with.
‘She must be small and neat, with a cute face,’ he said. ‘And she must love water sports and group activities!’
The agency loaded his request for the perfect mate into their computer.
Several moments later, the computer printed out:
‘Marry a penguin!’
Three Amigos
…
During the start of my service, Jimmy Clark and I were joined regularly by David Ball, another young cop who was on our course and we soon became like the ‘Three Amigos’.
Being three keen footballers, we socialised quite often and enjoyed each other’s company – and that of Whyte & Mackay!
However, David was an awful guy for meeting up with a female and if he dated her more than once, and she smiled at him at least twice in that time, he wanted
to marry her.
As it turned out, it suited Clarky and me, ‘cause we were always the first names on his guest list at the engagement party, and Clarky always said, ‘Keep the receipt for the present, so you can return it and get your money back!’ But the best way was to just tie an elastic band to the present and it was back in your possession when you left the party.
I say that because David’s engagements never lasted very long, in fact sometimes they were over before the party ended!
As his best friend and confidante, Jimmy Clark would usually talk him out of it and afterwards he’d wink at me and say, ‘That’s another party guaranteed in a few months’ time!’
This would be long enough for David to meet another potential fiancée, and for us to suggest the venue of the party.
After about his third engagement party and his latest wife-to-be had her dreams of marital bliss ruined by his amigos, who had enlightened her with a few porky pies about his sexual preferences, David actually confided in us a few months later about his latest visually impaired blind date!
This was the one, and of that there was no doubt in his mind.
He had met Callie for the first time at his local Kwik Save superstore, where she was employed as a cashier assistant, and, in David’s words, ‘It was love at first sight for both of us!’
This was serious stuff, made more obvious by his absenteeism at our regular ‘Amigo’ meetings in the pub.
Jimmy was worried.
It wasn’t so much losing a loyal drinking buddy, who hosted good engagement parties, as gaining a potential wife for David that we hadn’t chosen, and who would definitely put an end to our weekly drinking sessions and our quarterly social nights, hosted and financed by the latest fiancée’s parents!
