The produce flooded in. George was overwhelmed with cabbages, carrots and broccoli, corn dollies, jars of strawberry jam and scrubbed potatoes of massive dimensions. In the week before the festival the pub’s appearance changed to resemble that of a fruit and vegetable stall. There were apples on his optics, rhubarb behind the till and celery in the lager glasses. Mushrooms filled ash trays, plums adorned the domino boards and sprigs of mint decorated the dart board.
Ladies of all religious persuasions came to arrange the produce in the most tasteful manner and, it is rumoured, even Miss Wisdom, the chapel caretaker, sampled one of George’s free sherries. Preparation for the festival was a jolly occasion in itself, and then the great night arrived.
The first noticeable fact was that the wives of the pub regulars turned up; the effect of this was to double immediately the number of early customers in the bar. Some of their older children came too because their mums and dads felt that, if mum was going to the pub, then so could Johnny and Jenny. Thus the evening was already guaranteed to be a success. George was beginning to think it was his lucky night and that his foresight in appointing two extra bar staff for the night had been wise.
Claude Jeramiah Greengrass turned up too, with Alfred on a lead and with an offering of parsnips tied to his collar. Then the church congregations began to arrive, accompanied by relations and friends. The pub-shy Methodists crept into this sinful place with eyes wide as they sought signs of the devil; the Anglicans came with slightly more bravado, while for most of the Catholics the pub was a regular haunt. Many of them came here on Sunday mornings straight after Mass. But on this night, the choirs came too and to avoid arguments as to who should play the pub piano during the service, (Anglican, Methodist or Catholic?), George said he would do so.
I was there, in uniform, to keep order should this crowd become over-enthusiastic for the fruit of the vine or the ears of the barley field, but there was no trouble. It was a most friendly and good-humoured occasion. The joint service, with the lovely, practised voices of the Methodists leading the singing, was a joy; everyone joined in. Even Alfred raised his voice to the heavens when the singers reached the higher notes, his lone wolf-like howling adding a touch of melancholy to ‘We plough the fields and scatter’, and also in ‘Come to God’s own temple, come; Raise the song of harvest-home!’ Alfred’s greatest moment, however, was in his accompaniment to ‘All things bright and beautiful, all creatures great and small’.
When the singing was over and sore throats had been eased with several drops of George’s finest ale, tomato juice, vodka, soft drinks, whisky with green ginger or other throat-relieving potions, it was time for the auction. The auctioneer was Rudolph Burley, whose fine bass voice could be heard over any other human din. After suggesting that the congregation gather in to their bosoms yet another drink or two to keep them going ‘Ere winter storms begin’, he began his auction of the vegetable produce. The resultant income would be equally divided between the three denominations represented here, and they could then allocate the monies to the charities of their choice.
With apples being knocked down for ten times their normal price, farmers buying back their own potatoes and beetroot, and jars of jam raising the cost of a meal of caviare, it was a very successful occasion. Well over £175 was raised, a large sum in those days, and everyone felt it was a success. Even Pastor Smith, with two malt whiskies, a pint of best bitter and a brandy beneath his belt, was beginning to appreciate the merits of singing hymns in a pub. Claude’s parsnips raised three shillings and some of my raspberries fetched half a crown.
The evening concluded with a famous harvest hymn but I’m sure that I heard George mispronounce one word. The harvest hymn ‘To thee, O Lord, our hearts we raise’ contains the line ‘The hills with joy are ringing’. As the massed choirs of Aidensfield raised the pub roof with their voices in a grand finale, and as Alfred’s dulcet tones drowned the accompanying piano music, I was sure I heard George’s fine voice singing, ‘The tills with joy are ringing.’
10. All Change
Fear of change perplexes monarchs.
JOHN MILTON, 1608–74
If the fear of change perplexed monarchs, then it most certainly perplexed police officers, especially those serving in the 1960s. In the years immediately following the turmoil of the Second World War, police forces had settled into a cosy routine laced with mutual respect between themselves and the public. They were quite content to potter along in their comfortable, old-fashioned way. Police officers had no false notions of their place in society — they sought not wealth but a means of providing an efficient if sometimes out-moded service to those by whom they were paid.
Modern contraptions like personal radio sets had not yet reached the rural beats — there is a tale of one sergeant being issued with twenty brand new radio sets for his officers whereupon he promptly locked them in a cupboard, saying to his men, ‘These things are too expensive and too good for you to use.’ Bicycles were quite suitable for patrol work, feet were even better, and if a constable wished to go somewhere at high speed he would commandeer a passing car or jump on to a bus. Ordinary constables were not expected to use cars and most certainly they were not expected to own a motor car.
In that leisurely era, crime fighting and crime prevention was done at a rather gentle pace. It is not surprising that there was some resistance to constables driving cars while on duty — hitherto, the method of patrolling a town beat had been restricted to a pair of whopping size elevens, although rural constables did have motorcycles and eventually minivans. But their town colleagues had to plod around the streets without a thought of the current concern about Incident Response Times, while motor vehicles were used almost exclusively by exalted ranks like sergeants, inspectors and superintendents. In the minds of those in authority over constables, there was something almost obscene in a constable actually being allowed to drive a police car, unless he was a member of the elite Road Traffic Division. Certainly ownership of a motor car by a constable was treated with some suspicion — questions were asked, such as where did he get the money to run a car? How can a constable afford such a luxury? And most certainly, police houses were never equipped with garages for one’s private car.
As the 1960s progressed, however, police constables could afford to buy motor cars, and this coincided with rumours of massive changes within the police service. Sergeant Blaketon had already had a whiff of change, but that whiff was soon to turn into a gale of impressive power. The oncoming changes were not contained in the proverbial breath of fresh air — they were to be borne upon typhoon-style gusts.
For example, new ranks were being created — there was to be a new rank of chief inspector (between inspector and superintendent) and another new rank of chief superintendent which would be higher than a superintendent. In addition, a rank of deputy chief constable would be created and this would be higher than the existing assistant chief constable. With the arrival of a deputy chief constable, there would be two assistant chief constables who would function at a lower level, one being responsible for the administration of the force and the other supervising operational matters. To cater for this influx of senior officers police divisions were to be enlarged to accommodate the new chiefs and to give them something useful to do, and so the new top brass would be able to spend more days driving around in expensive cars with a sense of importance. In the terminology of the force at that time, the changes meant there were going to be far more chiefs than Indians.
With these rumoured (and eventually imposed) developments, rural beats were to be enlarged with inevitable changes to the boundaries of sections and sub-divisions. There would be fewer sections, sub-divisions and divisions, but the new ones would be far larger than the old. It was probably the advent of motorized constables that was the basis for these changes.
There was no doubt that these developments, when they arrived, would affect rural beats like Aidensfield. The village constable (me, in other words) would, if the rumour
s were correct, be expected to operate in areas previously covered by neighbouring constables. Rural constables might even be drafted into the local towns to perform duties — not a very nice prospect. That notion was even worse for sergeants like poor old Blaketon — if he was ordered to patrol the streets of a town he would be subservient to the local hierarchy, not king of his own midden as he was at Ashfordly. There is little wonder that these moves were resisted, if only for personal reasons. It could be argued that they were necessary for the efficiency of the force and our service to the public but the personal trauma they created might even be counter-productive. Good man-management was not a strong feature of the service at that time — we simply obeyed orders.
If the trend towards wholescale modernization was adopted, then some rural police houses would close and be sold, their occupants being moved into town for routine patrol duties. Areas hitherto policed by, say, three or four constables could now be made the responsibility of only one. In some cases, it was rumoured, village constables would work as a team, three or four of them covering an increased area in a motor vehicle and having their day’s duty divided into three eight-hour shifts. In this way the rural bobby, with his twenty-four-hour responsibility for a handful of small communities, would disappear. Instead, he would work eight-hour shifts, like a town officer, but over a wider patch with more villages. His colleagues would work similar shifts, thus ensuring that all communities, however small, were served twenty-four hours a day by a motor car containing a police officer. That’s how the theory was explained but the system rarely worked in practice because one constable can only be in one place at any one time. If he was dealing with a traffic accident on the outskirts of Ashfordly, he could not be expected to supervise the pub at Elsinby.
I could see that the public would begin to believe there were fewer police officers, and indeed these projected changes did mean that a rural constable’s proud commitment to his very own rural beat would be reduced or even eliminated.
But perhaps the most awesome and threatening of all these rumoured changes was that police forces themselves were to be altered. During the 1960s the Boundary Commission was in the throes of examining the geography of the British counties, county boroughs and cities with a view to reshaping them. It was said that city police forces like York, Leeds and Hull would vanish upon being absorbed by their neighbouring counties. The counties themselves would change too, with the famous Yorkshire Ridings being abolished in favour of new counties with names like North Yorkshire, West Yorkshire, South Yorkshire, Humberside and Cleveland.
The East Riding of Yorkshire would vanish without trace, becoming the northern part of Humberside. Rumours of this kind of ‘progress’ produced horror stories among police officers who realized that if new counties were created with their new county councils and new police authorities, then new police forces would also be formed. There would be new procedures, new bosses, new demands and lots of new problems.
During my time at Aidensfield, however, all these changes were little more than rumours but some rumours have a habit of becoming fact. It is fair to say that many of us did worry about our jobs because the amalgamation of police forces would inevitably mean that some top jobs would be lost. And if the top jobs were lost, then the chances of promotion were reduced. For example, if three police forces were merged to become only one, then at least two chief constables would lose their posts. The same would apply to the lower ranks but none of us felt this would affect mere constables. Any police force could function without superintendents but none could function without the humble constables on the beat.
But if the authorized establishment of a new police force was, say, 1,500 constables and the amalgamated constituent forces between them had 1,700 constables, then two hundred constables would have to disappear. Admittedly, this would be done by natural wastage such as retirements or resignations, so there would be no redundancies or sackings.
None the less, I do know that the constant rumours about such far-reaching changes did create a cloud of worry among a lot of officers, old and young, in high ranks and low ranks, in town and country. Another of the horrors awaiting officers in ancient cities was that they would have to patrol rural areas and deal with ghastly things like swine fever, sheep pox, epizootic lymphangitis, glanders or farcy. These were all diseases of animals, something of a problem for a city-bred officer who couldn’t distinguish a pheasant from a ferret or a Friesian. And to patrol a lonely moorland road at night, without the benefit of street lighting and with an owl hooting in the distance, was something not relished by townie constables.
While long-serving officers like Sergeant Blaketon were fretting about their careers due to these threatened changes, young whizz-kids like Inspector Pollock were not. The highly educated, police college trained Pollocks of the police service saw themselves as the new wave of senior officers; they regarded themselves as the chosen few, men charged with the duty of modernizing a stagnating service and bringing to it all the techniques and skills of those trained in skilled man-management and organizational efficiency. Pollock saw himself as a future chief constable in a most modern and efficient police force; in fact, he saw himself as something of a saviour to the public he had sworn to serve.
I felt he would never achieve very senior rank because he was something of a twit; one of his failings was that he could never remember the names of his subordinates. This became apparent to me when, for some reason, he began to call me PC MacTavish.
This was something of a departure from the normal. Many senior officers referred to constables by their surnames — I was just Rhea. The force was full of Smiths, Jones, Browns and Greens in addition to some more colourful names like Fox, Hare and Fowler, Martin, Swift and Swallow to name but a few. But, as constables, they were known by their surnames to all ranks higher than their own. Sergeants and above called constables by their surnames. Sergeants were addressed as sergeant by all ranks, while inspectors and all higher ranks were called sir by their subordinates.
In some smaller forces, however, particularly in cities and boroughs, the constables were known by the numbers they wore upon their uniforms. Thus PC 6 Brown would be known simply as ‘Six’. One would therefore receive messages like ‘What duty is Six working this weekend?’ or ‘Has Six been seen since 9 a.m.?’ This was even carried into off-duty periods so that news came along that Six was getting married, or his wife had had a child or that Six was sick with influenza. I’ve attended many social functions where officers called each other by their official numbers; quite literally, therefore, some officers were mere numbers in their force. Some police officers went through their entire service not knowing the real identity of Six or Ten or Ninety-Nine. In similar vein, one of the best-known fictional police constables just after the Second World War was widely known to the public as simply PC 49.
Some recruiting officers had great fun allocating numbers to police officers — we had a PC Walls who was given the number 4, one called Fawcett who was given 444, another called Goode who was given number 2, one called Green who was given number 10 and one called Steeples who was given the number 200.
Thus we had Four Walls; Four, Four, Four Fawcett; Two Goode, Ten Green (who was nicknamed Ten Green Bottles) and Two Hundred Steeples as members of our constabulary. I was the very ordinary PC 575 Rhea. Later, when the police forces did amalgamate, one unfortunate officer was given the number 999 — his name was Ward. Thus he became known as Emergency Ward and another, with the number 1001, became known as the Carpet Cleaner because of a popular advert for a fluid known as 1001. The advertisement, sung to a jingle, said that you could clean a big, big carpet for less than half a crown. That is 12½p in modern money.
To be called by someone else’s name, however, was somewhat unusual, even by police standards. It was especially unusual if this was done by one’s local inspector. I had met our new senior officer, Inspector Pollock, on several occasions while I was at Aidensfield and in each case he had addressed me as either R
hea or PC Rhea.
But one Saturday evening I was patrolling Ashfordly during a shortage of officers when Inspector Pollock arrived by car. He climbed out, as smart as ever, and I saluted him.
‘Good evening, PC MacTavish,’ he said. ‘All in order?’
‘Yes, sir, all correct,’ I informed him, wondering if I had heard the name MacTavish or whether I had misunderstood some other word or phrase. I did not correct his error on that first occasion and he joined me in a short patrol around the streets with me indicating pubs where trouble might spill on to the Saturday night streets. He asked me several questions about the town, its local people and problem areas, and I got the impression he was quizzing me about my knowledge of Ashfordly.
He spent about fifteen minutes with me before departing. As he was leaving I slung up a departing salute and he said, ‘Carry on, PC MacTavish.’
‘I’m PC Rhea, sir,’ I corrected him as he was entering his car, but he didn’t hear me as he drove away. I puzzled over his error but thought little more about it until I was on early morning patrol about a week later. I had to make a tour of my own beat, in my minivan, between 6 a.m. and 9 a.m., making points outside the telephone kiosks of Elsinby at 7 a.m. and Briggsby at 8 a.m. These were check points in case anyone wanted to contact; it was a daft system because I had a police radio fitted to my vehicle. Through it, I was in constant contact with my sectional, divisional and headquarters offices.
However, as I was standing outside the kiosk in Elsinby, Inspector Pollock hove to in his smart official car. He climbed out, slung up a salute and asked, ‘All correct, PC MacTavish?’
‘It’s PC Rhea, sir,’ I told him.
CONSTABLE BENEATH THE TREES a perfect feel-good read from one of Britain's best-loved authors (Constable Nick Mystery Book 13) Page 19
