Bobby on the Beat

by Pamela Rhodes

  They sat for a while pointing out other new and gruesome aspects of the case that the newspapers were revelling in reporting.

  ‘Hey, hey,’ said Jack after a while, sitting up in his chair. ‘Ring-ring.’

  ‘What?’

  He went as if to pick up the telephone on the desk in front of him. ‘Christie here.’

  ‘Yes?’ Tony answered, going along with it.

  ‘Come on over, and I’ll dig up a girl for you!’ Jack sat back on his chair and laughed uproariously.

  ‘You’re sick,’ said Tony, struggling to suppress his own smile, more at the audacity of the man than the joke itself.

  ‘Well, if you don’t laugh you’ll cry, right?’ Jack said, and downed the rest of his tea.

  After that, the whole country awaited Christie’s trial with bated breath, and everyone knew that if he was found guilty, whatever anyone’s views on the matter, it would be death for him at the gallows.

  Off duty, walking home to my digs, a hearse suddenly appeared, coming slowly toward me down the road. It was followed by a procession of vehicles and mourners, with lots of flowers everywhere.

  As the hearse carrying the coffin drew level, I stood to attention at the side of the road, and saluted. I wondered if it was anyone I’d met.

  As I resumed walking, I thought to myself that we can never know what is round the corner. Life is full of surprises.

  13

  While the country geared up for the trial of the decade, the nation was also readying itself for the party of the century as Elizabeth II, who became Queen on her father’s death, got ready for the coronation at Westminster Abbey. All the papers were full of anticipation: what would she wear, who would be there? But what was most exciting for everyone was that we’d all be able to watch it, live as it happened, on the television. It would be the first time most of us would have seen the Royal Family in the flesh, apart from pictures in the papers.

  ‘For the first time ever, we’ll all be able to see it. Actually see it, in our own houses. That’s what’s so marvellous,’ said Caroline one morning over breakfast. ‘Mrs Fisher across the road has promised we can all go round and watch it on her television set. He still won’t get one, Terence. Says it’s too expensive, and a malign influence on the nation, beaming images in. Could be used for devious purposes by the government, he thinks. But I’m rather excited about the whole thing.’

  ‘How does it work exactly, television?’ asked Lily, as she neatly sliced the top of her egg off, and sprinkled a pinch of salt over it, like she was enacting a sacred ceremony.

  ‘Heavens. I don’t know!’ said Caroline. ‘Ask your father when he gets back.’

  ‘How do they get them into the TV set in the first place, the people, and then into every single person’s house at the same time? That’s what I want to know.’ Lily was not giving up easily.

  ‘Do you know?’ said Caroline, looking over at me.

  ‘Can’t say I do. I’ve never even seen a television set. My mam says she’s getting one for the coronation too, but it’s all new to me.’

  ‘Isn’t it something to do with light waves?’ said Katy, who was the scientist of the household, and could often be found examining insect specimens on the kitchen table. She had even built a small wireless set once, with the help of her grandfather; they managed to pick up Radio Luxembourg for a few minutes, and something in French. ‘I read something says they beam the pictures over as electrons through the air,’ she went on. ‘Like radio but with light, and that makes what we see on the set.’

  ‘Well, that’s more than I know. All I can say is, I’m looking forward to seeing that little princess become a queen. I think she’ll more than fill her father’s boots, and that’s a tall order in itself. And seeing the dress she wears, of course. I bet she’ll look beautiful. Like a swan.’

  But before we could watch the ceremony, and before the party could start, I still had work to do. This time up at Gallowgate Camp, an army barracks nearby. Back at the station, the Sarge had given me a message to deliver; I didn’t read it, but it seemed quite urgent.

  As I stepped out on the grass at Gallowgate, the camp seemed windswept and desolate, just a few tanks driving up and down, some army lorries in the distance and Nissen huts behind. There didn’t seem to be many people around, but eventually I found the main office and was shown to a seat by a young lad in uniform, who offered me tea you could stand a spoon up in, it was that strong. Nice for warming your hands around the mug, though. When the Corporal came along and took the note briskly, I was quite relieved to be able get out of the camp, which had such an eerie air.

  As I walked back down the hill to the bus stop, I saw the bus that would take me all the way home to my digs already waiting. I had to hurry to make sure I made it. I hopped on board the big double-decker just as the driver was about to leave, and the conductor saw me in my uniform and gave me a big smile.

  ‘Afternoon, constable,’ he nodded. But instead of continuing on his way and taking fares, he hung on for a moment and stroked his chin, unsure whether to speak.

  ‘Is everything OK?’ I asked.

  ‘Yes. I mean … well, maybe not.’ He lowered his voice to a whisper and clutched my arm. ‘It’s just that. Well, it don’t add up,’ he said, his nose pressed up right against my face and breathing all over me, pointing further up the bus.

  When I looked over, there was a young lad in soldier’s uniform sitting on his own and looking out of the window.

  ‘He just doesn’t look right to me. Something in my bones. And I’m usually right about these things.’

  Finally he relaxed his grip on my arm and went on up the bus, collecting fares and whistling a warbling tune at the top of his lungs.

  As I approached the young soldier he saw me coming, averted his eyes and looked back out of the window.

  ‘Excuse me. Have you got your passbook?’ I asked. He didn’t look much older than about eighteen; he was very gaunt in the face, and quite ill-looking.

  ‘Pardon?’ he asked, pretending not to have heard.

  ‘I said, have you got your papers?’

  ‘Oh. Umm …’

  ‘What’s the matter?’ I asked, as he looked as though he was about to burst into tears. ‘Are you AWOL or something?’ I said, half joking. But the look on his face told me I was right.

  He hesitated before answering. ‘Suppose I am.’

  He looked down sadly, as though he’d given up.

  ‘Where have you been?’

  ‘Living in the woods. Three days. Under a tree. I made a shelter, like what they taught us. Survival and things.’

  ‘In the woods! What have you been eating?’

  ‘Not a lot. I caught a rabbit but then I couldn’t bring myself to kill it in the end. I never wanted to be in the army. I was trying to get home. I think this bus goes the right way. Think it does, anyway.’

  He looked faint, and as though he might pass out at any moment. I felt sorry for him, but I had to take him in to the station because that was procedure. I didn’t have any handcuffs or anything, as we WPCs didn’t carry them, but when the bus stopped at Victoria Road roundabout we got off, and I asked him to come with me. He didn’t look like he was going to put up much of a fight.

  ‘You sure you’ll be all right with him?’ asked a man at the front of the bus.

  ‘I think I’ll manage.’

  The young lad didn’t look like he was capable of walking far on his own, let alone running away.

  When we got to the station, the Sergeant rang the Red Caps, the military police, who came to take him away. And although I knew I was doing my job, I did feel a little sad for him as they carried him off into the van, and back to the garrison he’d been so desperate to leave.

  Over the following few weeks, the whole town was talking of little other than the coronation. Summer was in the air, and a party feeling with it. Even the most ardent anti-monarchist couldn’t help but succumb a little to the special occasion.

 
; I’d never seen a television set before, and for me this was going to be the real treat. I eagerly awaited the rota, to find out whether I would have the morning off to watch the ceremony. Eventually I found out I would be starting at two p.m., so I could watch it.

  On the big day, Caroline, Lily, Katy and I all trooped over the road to Mrs Fisher’s. Mr Fisher was a headteacher at the local school, and they always seemed to have all the new technologies before anyone else in the neighbourhood. TV sets were still few and far between at this point, although a lot of people had splashed out on one just for this day.

  ‘Where shall I put this lot?’ asked Caroline, as we all trooped through the front door and into the living room. ‘Oh, how lovely. Sandwiches, and what’s this?’

  ‘My special apricot cake,’ Mrs Fisher told her. ‘I stayed up late last night and made two.’

  ‘Well, we’ve certainly got enough food in here to feed an army.’

  There weren’t enough seats in the room for everyone so the children, Carol and Bobby Fisher, and Lily and Katy, all sprawled out on the floor together. When we walked in, Carol was working intently with glue and brown paper, pasting in pictures of the Queen that had been in the papers all week.

  ‘I’m making a scrapbook,’ she announced proudly as we stepped over her. ‘I cut up this ribbon to make the flag. Look!’

  ‘Beautiful, darling, but can you move it for now, so our guests can all sit down? Sorry, she’s a little enthusiastic. She wants to be a queen herself, I think.’

  ‘Oh, my Lily’s the same!’ said Caroline as we all sat down.

  ‘No I’m not,’ said Lily, who was a little sulky that we had to spend the morning cooped up inside when she could just as well be outside playing.

  ‘We got given mugs at school. With a picture of the Queen on. Did you?’ asked Katy.

  ‘Oh yes, we got them too!’ answered Carol delightedly.

  I offered to sit on a small stool, while the others squeezed onto the sofa and chairs; it felt like quite a crowd in there.

  ‘Let’s get the beast started then,’ said Mr Fisher, wearing his slippers, and carrying a pot of tea.

  The television set was a large wooden box, with a tiny screen in the middle.

  ‘You know you have to wind it up, don’t you children?’ said Mr Fisher, winking at me and Caroline.

  ‘Really?’ said Lily, suddenly interested. ‘Can I do it?’

  ‘I thought it was a thing on the front,’ said Katy, going over to peer at it. ‘Yes. Here!’

  ‘Well. Yes, all right. You got me there,’ he said, his joke foiled.

  We all sat back and stared at the screen, and waited.

  ‘What happens now?’ whispered Lily excitedly to me, a little nervous.

  ‘I’m not sure. Watch and you’ll see.’

  There was a hushed silence, broken only by Mrs Fisher slowly munching on a sandwich.

  ‘You just wait,’ Mr Fisher said.

  So we waited.

  After a while, a small light began to appear in the centre of the screen, and then finally an image, in grainy black and white. We all gasped.

  ‘Ooh, look. It’s so clear!’ said Caroline.

  ‘Who’s that funny man?’ one of the children asked.

  ‘The newsreader. At the BBC.’

  ‘He’s so posh.’

  The coronation hadn’t started yet, and instead there was a news report of two men, Edmund Hillary and the Sherpa Tenzing Norgay, who had climbed Mount Everest as part of a British team.

  ‘Where’s Mount Everest?’ asked Lily. ‘Is it in France?’

  ‘No, it’s in Tibet, silly,’ said her sister. ‘It’s the tallest mountain in the world, isn’t it, Mam?’

  ‘Gosh, I don’t know. Yes, I think so.’

  ‘Why did they want to climb it if it’s so high? Did they get as high as the clouds?’

  ‘Probably.’

  ‘What’s it like in the clouds? Are they like ice cream or … what are they made of anyway?’

  ‘Water,’ said Katy.

  ‘Water!’

  ‘Well, steam or, you know, vapour.’

  ‘Be quiet, girls. It’s starting,’ said Caroline, settling in her seat with a big plate of sausage rolls and sandwiches.

  On the screen were images of people all across London, in the streets and along the Mall near Buckingham Palace. They were waving flags and were dressed up for the occasion. It was incredible to think it was happening right at that moment, while we were all tucked inside this small living room, hundreds of miles away.

  ‘It’s amazing, how they do it,’ I said, as the camera panned inside the interior of Westminster Abbey and the commentators spoke in hushed tones, awaiting the arrival of the Queen into what they grandly called the ‘Coronation Theatre’.

  ‘Where’s this now then?’ asked Mrs Fisher, her mouth full of pastry.

  ‘He just said. That’s Westminster Abbey. Don’t you remember, we went there once when we were down in London,’ Mr Fisher said. ‘You had an ice cream and we saw those horses.’

  ‘Oh yes. I see it now. It looks smaller somehow. Even the throne – is that the throne? It looks so small.’

  As the camera panned back outside the abbey and across London, we saw shots of schoolchildren and ordinary people, women in headscarves and men in caps, swarming up the streets in their hundreds, dressed up in Union Jacks; even some dressed as television sets, so momentous an occasion was it.

  After a while, the bit we’d all been waiting for arrived. The Queen, riding in an enormous golden carriage with horsemen in plumed hats, and the horses all decked out in splendour. The crowds erupted into a giant roar.

  ‘The picture’s so clear, isn’t it? Amazing.’

  ‘Yes. It’s just incredible. Just think what they can do with this. You’ll never need to leave the house!’ said Caroline, then she sighed. ‘Oh, doesn’t she look beautiful? So … regal.’

  ‘How much do you think that’s worth then? That hat?’ said Mr Fisher, as the shot followed them into the abbey.

  ‘It’s a crown. Who knows? Priceless, probably. Or at least a million, I should think.’

  It was pomp and ceremony, an almost tribal display, like I had never seen before. Hundreds of officials in grand coats and cloaks, fur-lined and gold-trimmed, carrying objects like ‘the orb’ up to what they called ‘the great altar’. It was like something from a past age, King Arthur or a giant real-life fairy tale. Pages, admirals, earls and then Her Majesty herself, gliding up the nave in a great long cloak.

  Carol jumped a little and smudged glue from her scrapbook all over the carpet when the choir suddenly burst loudly into a chant of ‘Vivat Regina’.

  ‘That’s scary,’ she said, looking warily from behind her book. ‘What are they doing?’

  ‘It’s part of the procedure. It means something. In Latin. I don’t know. Long live the Queen, I think.’

  Then she sat down and swore to do her queenly duties, like a kind of wedding ceremony to protect all the countries, including at that time Canada, South Africa, Pakistan and Ceylon, as well as Britain itself. Her voice sounded quiet, and when she signed an official document she was a little conspicuous as a woman among men, before she was led away on a great big chair, covered up like a four-poster bed.

  ‘The ensign of kingly justice and the rod of equity and mercy! What’s that when it’s at home?’ asked Mr Fisher.

  ‘Who knows, but it’s all part of it, isn’t it? To make sure she does her job properly, I suppose.’

  And there the Queen sat, looking small and slightly vulnerable in a great big wooden throne, wearing the crown and holding up a giant object that looked like a golden broomstick.

  ‘I’m hungry,’ said Lily suddenly. She had seen enough.

  ‘You’ve been eating all morning!’ said her mother.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ Mrs Fisher told her. ‘That’s what it’s there for. Go and help yourself, love.’

  Once the ceremony was complete the atmosphere relaxed
, and Lily and Carol began sticking pictures into the scrapbook together, while Bobby went outside to play. Mr Fisher showed Katy the back of the new television set, and Caroline and Mrs Fisher started clearing away the plates. I looked at the clock on the mantlepiece. It was time for me to get on the beat, and back to reality.

  That evening, as I walked through Market Place, the town was abuzz with excitement. There were parties in houses, one at the Town Hall, and the remnants of a few street gatherings scattered along the roads. Children walked across town dressed as pirates, cowboys and gypsies, and I even saw one pair of adults dressed up as the walking wounded, all wrapped up in bandages, as a kind of parody of all the people who had been injured in the crush when crowds tried to get a glimpse of the Queen. ‘Was it all worth it?’ a sign on their bandages asked. I think most of us agreed that it probably was.

  Soon after the coronation, another news story hit the headlines again. The trial of John Christie had begun. Just weeks after we had huddled round the television set watching the Queen in all her finery, we were gripped by another national drama. At the station, opinions were running high on what the outcome would be. The case rested largely on the definition of insanity.

  Christie himself took the stand and gave a blow-by-blow account of the murders, agitatedly pulling at his ear and rubbing his chin. His defence argued that no sane man could have done what he had done to all those women. The prosecution argued that he was sane, as he knew what he had done was morally wrong, because he himself admitted it was unlikely he would have committed the acts in front of a police officer.

  After four days of trial, and the jury deliberating for four hours and twenty minutes, they found him guilty. There was no appeal and he was sentenced to death, hanged at Pentonville prison on 15th July 1953.

  After the drama of the trial died down, the public soon moved on from the national hysteria of the past few weeks, and life in the little market town returned to normal. I continued to make my points as dutifully as I had for the past two and a half years. I was sent to the local hotel about a theft; I reported a woman for leaving her car unattended with its engine running; and I served a summons. We had a visit from the Inspector of Constabulary. It was as though nothing much could ever really change in Richmond. Would I be here for ever, I wondered, walking up and down these streets?