Who'd Be a Copper?

by Jonathan Nicholas

  I read more. RF Delderfield’s To Serve Them All My Days was a lovely book, as was his novel Diana. I listened to a lot of music, of course. Dire Straits were in the charts with Telegraph Road, and my old favourite, Genesis, with further commercially successful songs in addition to Mama. But Genesis had changed, and I started to feel old at twenty-three, when their music began to sound overly commercial, in my humble opinion, and I longed to hear them play more music like their 1977 Seconds Out album. I also read Dirk Bogarde’s novel A Gentle Occupation, which was wonderful. I continued to visit my favourite pub in Sheffield, The Hare and Hounds, but of course a lot of time had passed, and there were very few of my old friends still left who frequented the place. Our usual corner of the pub was vacant, and the emptiness screamed loudly as a stark reminder that my carefree youth was over. Then it occurred to me that it’s often not a place that is wonderful to visit or live in, but the people contained within.

  In the beginning of February 1984 I spent four hours at Nottinghamshire Police Headquarters. Compared to Epperstone Manor, Sherwood Lodge, as HQ is known, is in my opinion a hideous 1970s sectional concrete construction. It spoils some beautiful woodland seven miles north of Nottingham and looks as though it could have been thrown together by some idiot TV personality on Blue Peter, or a design student working through a debilitating migraine. It has recently been painted a deep blue on the outside in a hopeless attempt at smartening it up.

  As soon as I joined I was told that Sherwood Lodge was where all the chief officers and their hand-picked staff hid from police work and as such proper police officers below the rank of sergeant were not permitted to work there. I quickly learned that it was commonly known by front line officers as ‘Fraggle Rock’ from The Muppets, and also by some as ‘The Dream Factory’. This was due to the fact that some police officers apparently spent their entire careers there, climbing the ranks and then disappearing, fulfilling their own personal dreams, avoiding shifts and the thoroughly distasteful nature of proper police work. So I was told. At first I didn’t understand this level of antipathy towards others, mainly due to the natural deference in which I held those of a higher status than myself. I was still very naïve. So when you read the words Fraggle Rock you’ll know what I’m referring to. Senior officers above the rank of sergeant were also known as ‘gaffers’, and so I will refer to them as such from now on.

  Apart from the mounted section as was, with their stables in the woods, there was also a dog section, with their kennels. Uniform stores and the Scenes of Crime departments were also based there, as was the twenty-four-hour Force Control Room. In those days each of the forty-three forces in England and Wales were completely autonomous with all their own equipment and facilities. They also therefore had their own reputations, which were jealously guarded.

  I had an informal twenty-minute interview with the assistant chief constable, then almost immediately afterwards I was instructed to visit the stores department for a uniform. It seemed I had indeed been given the job.

  I was issued my unique collar number, which would stay with me for the next thirty years and by which I would be identified, very often without an accompanying name. I would be known as PC 512, a mere number, like Patrick McGoohan’s character in the ‘60s television series The Prisoner, known as Number Six, or Charlton Heston’s galley slave, number forty-one, in the movie Ben-Hur. I wasn’t sure of the reasons for having this unique number; I don’t think we were told. It could be in case I shared a common surname with another officer, which sometimes happens. It could also be in case of impropriety on my part, presumably if I swore at a member of the public – or worse – this number would be visible to all. It was part of being absorbed into the whole, like falling victim to the Borg in Star Trek. There is no human being attached, you are a number, and a resource. Resistance is futile, though quite how futile I wasn’t to know at the time. I should have realised that as with life among the Borg, independent thought of any kind is frowned upon, and expressions of it can cause serious problems. The same applies to common sense too, but I didn’t know that either.

  I was very slim in those days, almost six feet tall and my ribs were visible like those of a prize greyhound or a camp survivor. The brand new black uniform fitted very well. I looked and felt extremely smart, like an SS tank commander. There is definitely something psychologically affecting about putting on a smart, well-fitting uniform. The Nazis clearly realised this when they hired the German fashion designer Hugo Boss to create their uniforms. The silver buttons on the front of my crisp tunic sparkled in the bright lights of the fitting-room, and I could hardly believe what was happening. The smell of the new wool fabric filled the air and added to the pleasant atmosphere of the stores department. Several mature ladies were sitting in open offices quietly sewing uniforms with BBC Radio Two audible in the background. All was calm and clean, and it reminded me of a kibbutz clinic.

  I signed a huge sheet of lined card several times with my name and collar number to say that I’d received my great coat, two tunics, two pairs of heavy woollen uniform trousers (no concessions to hot weather in those days), five pale blue shirts, two clip-on black ties, a pair of black leather gloves, and a pair of thin white gloves for formal parades, funerals and other special occasions. I was handed a brand new wooden truncheon with leather strap, shiny with wood grain like a chestnut, and a pair of chain-link chrome-plated steel handcuffs. I was given the keys to the handcuffs along with a universal ‘police key’ which opened the doors to all police stations in the county. Finally I was given a helmet, with ‘Nottinghamshire Constabulary’ written in a circle inside the crest. I was told to buy my own boots from an army stores.

  My first full day in uniform soon followed, when I spent two weeks at the lovely Force Training School, Epperstone Manor, on an ‘Initial Course’. There were eleven of us, of which three were female, known in those days as WPCs. We each signed up for some small monthly pay deductions such as ‘Retirement Fund’, ‘Death grant fund’, ‘St George’s Fund’, and ‘Convalescent Home’, though I wasn’t sure what these were for at the time. To my pleasant surprise we were informed that our bank accounts would be credited with £163 advance pay for the latter half of the current month. I was delighted with this, as to me it was a small fortune. Three days later we swore an Oath of Office at the old Shire Hall Magistrates Court in Nottingham, which is now a museum called ‘The Galleries of Justice’:

  ‘Do you solemnly and sincerely declare and affirm that you will well and truly serve Our Sovereign Lady The Queen in the Office of Constable, without fear or affection, malice or ill-will, and that you will to the best of your power cause the Peace to be kept and preserved, and prevent all offences against the persons and properties of Her Majesty’s Subjects: and that while you continue to hold said office, you will to the best of your skill and knowledge discharge all the duties thereof faithfully according to Law.’

  I found it interesting that this oath was completely apolitical and we were not swearing any allegiance to the government of the day, or even to parliament. Her Majesty the Queen was therefore our ultimate boss. The Crown symbol was everywhere on our uniforms, on every button on the tunic, including the sleeves and the pockets, and of course the helmet. Take a few moments to look at a modern British cop and you will notice the difference. They all look like members of the SAS, without a crown in sight.

  The pub in Epperstone was called The Cross Keys, and we grew to know it very well. I was with a great bunch of people, and it soon became clear who was destined to achieve higher rank. Both Tony and Joanne always did very well in exams and written work, which they seemed to finish very quickly, while I struggled, completely unused to anything of this sort since schooldays six years before. Picking fruit in Israel and lying on Bondi beach for months did little to prepare me for the pressured training environment. I remember Tony was questioned as to why one of his exam results had slipped back to a disappointing 98%. “Where were the other 2%?” he was asked.

/>   At the end of the first two weeks’ residential course, we were given our instructions for the main block of training at the Regional Police Training Centre, starting the following Monday morning. At that time, for Nottinghamshire officers, it meant a two-hour drive up the A1 motorway to North Yorkshire, to a windswept military base called RAF Dishforth.

  TRAINING SCHOOL

  RAF DISHFORTH

  I shared a car with two Daves from my Initial Course. Tall Dave had a bushy moustache and smoked Embassy Number 1s, and small Dave, who was ex-Royal Navy, also had an enormous moustache with the addition of long sideburns. He was wiry and light on his feet like Burt Kwok, Peter Seller’s manservant in the Pink Panther films. He was therefore nicknamed ‘Dave Kato-sideburns’, despite not being in any way of Oriental heritage. I didn’t as yet own a car, so I was happy to travel in tall Dave’s bright red 1981 Ford Cortina Mark V with beige vinyl roof.

  I also had a thick black moustache at the time, so the three of us probably looked like extras from a gay porn movie or the campest half of a Village People tribute act, as we trundled northwards in our bright red Cortina. This first unfamiliar journey was incredibly tedious, and we all dreaded the prospect of repeating the same trip every week for the next thirteen weeks.

  We eventually found RAF Dishforth in the bleak emptiness of North Yorkshire, and Dave parked the car close to the main gate. We reported to the guardroom where we found a huge handlebar moustache with a man attached to it sitting at a table facing the door. He had great wads of printed lists in front of him and a fountain pen in his right hand. He was flanked on either side by men in police sergeant’s uniforms with stern faces like night club bouncers. A thick filter-less cigarette, probably a Capstan Full Strength, was perched on the rim of a near-full ashtray, burning away with a length of ash an inch long about to fall.

  We each volunteered our names and the huge moustachioed man behind the desk grunted unintelligibly, drew some squiggles on the papers in front of him then handed us a sheet each. These were our instructions with details of class numbers and accommodation blocks. It seemed we were being split up. I took my copy of the first week’s timetable and walked out the door with the Daves. I crossed a section of neatly cropped grass near the guardroom and suddenly I heard a loud screaming female voice from somewhere behind me:

  “Oy, you! Get off the grass!” I looked around to see a female police sergeant in a blue uniform, glaring at me and pointing in my direction.

  “Blimey, alright, sarge...” I replied, chuntering to myself, making an effort to clear the grass onto the car park.

  “Alright, SERGEANT!” she shouted in response, as loud as her first command. What a horrible woman! I thought to myself. I hoped I’d never see that particular person again, even if she did have an enormous chest.

  I found my billet, a building called Hurricane Block, located on Chantmarle Avenue. It still had faded camouflage on the outside walls like every other wartime RAF base. My iron-framed bed was in an open dormitory with a dozen others and on one side was a small chest of drawers, on the other a wardrobe. The furniture was functional if a little tired and was probably still RAF property. Having spent several week-long summer camps at various RAF bases in the air cadets, everything seemed vaguely familiar. If I’d fallen asleep and woken up suddenly I could have been forgiven for thinking I’d joined the air force, but the Spartan conditions were no real problem, having lived as a stateless vagrant for so long.

  The first afternoon was not particularly taxing. We were herded like sheep into a large room while frequently barked at by various angry sergeants. The man with the handlebar moustache appeared, now looking as though he’d stepped off the set of the film Carry on up the Khyber. He wore a sergeant’s uniform, must have been at least fifty, and was wielding an army sergeant major’s yard stick with polished chrome at both ends. He told us we couldn’t walk on any of the grassed areas and that we were to march everywhere when in uniform, rather than “walking about looking like Saturday night Jessies out on the piss...”

  He told us we had to salute everyone above the rank of sergeant, and we were not permitted to shout or otherwise bring ourselves into disrepute in the eyes of the RAF personnel with whom we shared the camp. It was their home, and we were their guests. Someone should have reminded the RAF of these rules; only a few days later as our small group marched quietly past the canteen block a member of the RAF leaned out from a window and shouted at someone in the near distance: “You fucking cock-sucker!” The window slammed shut and we all burst out laughing.

  The elderly sergeant told us that we were to stand up immediately when anyone above our lowly rank of constable entered the room, wherever we were. Male officers were strictly forbidden from entering the female dorms, and any sexual fraternisation between males and females would result in serious trouble. It was assumed the female candidates would not wish to enter the male dorms, so a warning against this was never given. Neither was a warning about males becoming amorous with other males or any other same sex encounter. I think it was just assumed this wouldn’t happen. He then went on to inform us that just like him we would all most likely acquire stomach ulcers and gout later in our service, an inevitable result of being on your feet all day and breathing in fumes at busy road junctions while directing traffic. He said all this in-between long pulls on a Capstan Full Strength, which he cupped inside one hand, the smoke curling around his sleeve as it rose up his arm. His health problems were apparently not connected to drinking and smoking.

  We then had a welcome briefing by the camp commander; a man who looked and sounded very similar to the empty-headed Captain Ashwood in the comedy series It Ain’t Half Hot, Mum. He wasn’t particularly camp, and he didn’t look like a commander of any sort. He was a superintendent, apparently, and I never saw him again.

  In the evenings, a routine developed which became an integral part of life at Dishforth. We all gathered around in groups ‘bulling’ our boots and discussing the day. Spit and polish was whirled around endlessly with clean yellow dusters in fine circles on the toe-caps of our boots which eventually caused the surface of the leather to shine like glass. The thick woollen uniform trousers were pressed repeatedly, with some students rubbing soap down the inside crease to gain a sharper line. The air in the dorm became heavy with a nightly mix of Kiwi polish, cigarette smoke and ironing. I really did feel as though I was back at an air cadet summer camp.

  There wasn’t a lot of individual privacy, and it soon became clear how many lads supplemented their diet with what they could harvest from their nose, chewing loudly as they did so, licking their lips for more, and disposing of unwanted excess on the bedclothes or smearing it onto nearby furniture. Quite a few snored like walruses from the minute they were asleep until they were awake the next morning.

  Nudity was something I had to get used to, and I am always surprised by some men’s obvious pride when displaying their genitalia, wandering about the dorm completely naked or naked from the waist down, rather than the waist up, their parts flopping about all over the place. Was this never done deliberately I wonder?

  Just before lights out, the chap in the opposite bunk placed his sweaty socks over the iron radiator next to his bed. The musty, cheesy aroma of this man’s feet then drifted around the room like a pernicious cloud. According to him they would then be fresh again for the morning. I noticed he did this every night with what appeared to be the same pair of socks, for the entire fourteen weeks.

  A thin, pale-skinned lad from Yorkshire in the bed diagonally opposite seemed to have trouble gathering his thoughts every morning. He’d sit on his bed, both feet flat to the floor with his head in his hands completely immobile until the very last minute when he would quickly get dressed without any kind of wash, then run down the stairs with the rest of us.

  Day and night I heard some astonishing farting and belching, some of which seemed to be generated on command with tonal qualities and pitch control. Bearing in mind it was mid-winter, so there
wasn’t a single window open. “Breathe it in, quick! Get rid of it!” was the usual cry. It’s not entirely true that ‘all coppers are wankers’, but in the middle of the night when they think everyone else is asleep some clearly are. Such was life in a men’s dormitory.

  A good deal of mutual piss-taking and towel-slapping took place, but there was generally a good atmosphere and I don’t remember any of us falling out or even arguing about anything. We became a cohesive unit, living and working together and borrowing one another’s kit, right down to blobs of toothpaste and squirts of shaving foam. I slowly began to feel part of something that was much bigger than me, and I think we all felt the same.

  There was a very nice bar on the camp, known as The Packhorse Club, and it was clearly once a full-time air force NAAFI pub. It was large, welcoming and very well stocked. There were strict opening times of between 8pm and 10.30pm daily. We all made great use of it that first Monday night and indeed most subsequent nights, perhaps far too much.

  Reveille was at 6.30am every morning, and you couldn’t miss it. Numerous loud bells were set off throughout the block like a fire alarm, and a sergeant came stomping into the dormitory prodding each bed with a long stick, shouting the same endearing cry: