Life in the ‘Met’ started off with the usual short-arm inspection and about six months of training at Peel House. This training school was in Rochester Row off Vauxhall Bridge Road in London. After having our hair removed — except for an eighth of an inch on top — we settled down to learn ‘Primary Objects’. “The Primary Objects of an efficient Police are the prevention of crime. The next, the detection and punishment if crime is committed. To these ends, all efforts of Police must be directed . . .” We were each given a copy. We were told that if we wanted to do well on the course we must learn the whole thing off by heart. It was packed with vital information, legal definitions, Acts of Parliament, affrays, riots, nasty crimes of which I had never heard, and powers of arrest and detention. The 1930 Road Traffic Act was particularly interesting for it seemed that after reading it, every car on the road was committing at least half-a-dozen offences before it even moved.
There were 20 Acting, Temporary, Probationary Constables on my course. We were given instruction by Sergeants and Inspectors. This was mostly on real-life situations, enacted in the classrooms or in the yard.
During my training, the threat of war became very real. This added to our training syllabus. It included instruction on gas precautions — phosgene and mustard gas — and we were issued with tin hats, gas capes and gas masks, in addition to whistles, notebooks, truncheons and a book on first aid. The Country had been misled by pacifists into believing that war could be avoided by non-involvement, by disarmament and by appeasement. So that, when preparations were at last begun in London, late in 1939, they showed all the signs of panic.
After completing the training course, I and a fellow-embryo named Ralph Kirker, were posted to ‘C’ Division. Our Sub-Division was based at Vine Street police station off Piccadilly, covering the central part of the West End of London. We lived at a police section-house — number 82 Charing Cross Road — a Victorian workhouse of a place, still there, by Cambridge Circus.
Being a country boy, I consulted Ralph Kirker about girls. He said that only a very small outlay was required if you chose the right kind of girl; a suit, perhaps, and at the very most, a car. To start me off on the right foot, he agreed to take me on a fact-finding sortie, providing I paid for the beer and he could choose the girls.
A few evenings later, after loading up with the remains of my £3.19s pay, we went to the Palais de Dance up Charing Cross Road. Dancing was the quickest way, Ralph said. A quick whip round the floor and you could assess the chances of further delights without any complication or expensive outlay.
I admired the confidence of the man. I was more worried about whether the girl would like me rather than whether I would like her. They all looked absolutely delicious to me, anyway.
“Now remember,” said Ralph, “I’ll do the choosing.”
We paid our shilling and walked on to the dance floor. After five minutes, I had chosen mine, so Ralph had to have her friend. With our partners we made a few circuits. Presently, Ralph overtook me on the inside track and said: “Mine’s a bloody ‘pro’ you idiot!” He then went back to the bar alone, finished his beer — and mine, and left.
So I had to force on alone. Mine looked a sweet girl to me and could not possibly have been a ‘pro’.
After a few more dances we walked out into Shaftesbury Avenue. As by now I only had a quid left I wondered what we could do at about midnight in the blackout. However, she said she knew a nightclub where you didn’t have to be members. So we went there. I knocked on the door and was allowed in.
The man brought me a bottle of White Horse whisky — very scarce indeed at that time — and he only charged ten bob (50p) for it, too. About half an hour later we were both sitting down at a table and I looked across at my partner. Whatever I did and however hard I tried, I could not get both of her to form a single image. I had met this optical effect in the physics labs at school but this was the first time I had met it outside. I must be drunk, I thought. So this was what it was like. I asked the girl how she felt — as she was getting a bit quiet. She didn’t reply and soon afterwards fell off her chair in a heap on the floor.
The doorman helped me to carry her to the outside air and after a half-crown (12½) tip he got us into a taxi. As I could not get my partner to tell me anything of interest, let alone where she lived, apart from something that sounded like Brewer Street, I got the cab driver to drop us off there. We shambled onto the pavement and made for a doorway. Here we stayed, sitting down in the pitch darkness. If we could remain unseen for a bit, I thought, then the mists would drift away and the girl would once again become intelligible, and perhaps say where she lived in Brewer Street.
It was no good. Things got worse, if anything, and she went to sleep. While I was looking down at the pavement with half-closed, crossed-eyes, I noticed four polished boots no more than a few inches from my nose. I followed up the trousers and my eyes came to the unmistakable black belt of a night-duty policeman. A voice from above said: “Hallo Maisie. What are you doing here? This isn’t your regular, is it?”
Things would still have been alright had Maisie not lost control at the appearance of the policeman. Her whole attitude changed and the effects of the wood alcohol that we had doubtless been given took charge. There was only one thing for it, the Black Maria. I was dropped off at ‘Number 82’ and, if Maisie had given someone the chance, she would have been delivered to her flat in Brewer Street. However I afterwards found out that she had tried to fill-in the constable in the Black Maria and was put in the cells at Marlborough Street police station. Here she spent most of the night shouting for PC 447, my number, to come and let her out. It took me some time to live this down at Vine Street, and Ralph would not lend me his suit again for months afterwards.
On 3 September 1939 I was having some eggs and sausage before going on ‘late turn’ at 1400. We had just heard Neville Chamberlain, the Prime Minister, regretfully tell us that we were at war with the Germans. Suddenly, the siren went off directly above us. Trust the ruddy Germans, we all thought.
We immediately put on our blue enamelled tin hats labelled ‘Police’ and went out. None of us had any clear idea of what to do, so we just watched.
I saw people running up one side of Charing Cross Road and down the other side. Most of them had tin hats on with various initials, saying what they were. As the skies were expected to open at any moment and rain down bombs, the officials were telling people to take cover.
As nothing happened after an hour or so, the public started to come out of the shelters and ask what was going on. We told them there had been a short-circuit in the local siren. Several people believed my story of an electrician finding a fused caterpillar. The warning was, in fact, caused by the unscheduled return of a diplomat from Europe in a small, light, plane — a fine test for the new radar defences.
Our duties, for the first 11 months of the war, were remarkably boring compared with what was going on over our heads. Night duty had its moments, however. Our main task in the ‘phoney’ war was to preserve the blackout. When the bombs started, the strictness of its observance tended to be in proportion to the tonnage of bombs dropped. The more bombs, the more summonses.
We were warned against accepting invitations into flats and houses to check on blackouts, particularly if these belonged to a lady. The Sergeant urged ‘perspicacity’ in all our dealings. The expensive flats and houses in Mayfair were often on my night-duty beat and some of the occupants were beautiful, lonely and rich. The minimum number of officers allowed to investigate such flats was two, one to check on the lady’s blackouts, the other to see that there was no hanky panky.
It was often both frustrating and dangerous for coppers in London during the summer and autumn of 1940. Furthermore, we and the whole country expected to hear each day that Hitler had at last landed on the south or east coast at the head of his troops, and was heading for London. There were no plans on what we should do when this happened and it was worrying.
One night I was, as usual, at Vine Street Police Station on standby, when I was told to go to Piccadilly tube station to deal with a ‘disturbance’. A few fire bombs had fallen on the roof of the Criterion restaurant and had set a part of it alight. As the flames could act as a target for more bombs, the Londoners revelling in the vicinity, queued to get down the underground to use it as an air raid shelter for the night. The ‘regulars’ resented having to move up a bit along the platforms, and blows were exchanged. By the time I got there, it had of course subsided and everyone was all smiles and co-operation, or fast asleep. I enjoyed an hour talking to them, everyone in high good humour, before returning to the Station. Some were sailors. I wondered how long it would be before I too, was in the Navy.
On the way back, having once more become accustomed to the blackout, I noticed a shaft of bright light shining skywards and a few flashing torches. This was at the junction of Swallow Street with Piccadilly. I could hardly ignore such serious offences, so I advanced, black notebook at the ready.
A 1930 Austin Seven Saloon had been demolished by hitting one of the bollards on the pedestrian refuge islands in the middle of Piccadilly, one headlight sending a shaft skywards. A crowd of people around were watching four or five Army officers emerging, with difficulty, from the remains.
“Who is the driver of this vehicle?” I said.
This had absolutely no effect at all, and the occupants propped themselves up, one by one, against the bollard and tried to light each other’s cigarettes. This process took some time — as either the fag would not stay in, or the match would go out. It could have gone on for hours until one or two of the onlookers took a helping hand.
As it was Friday on the morrow and my long weekend, I had no wish to run any of them in for being drunk-in-charge of a motor vehicle — which they all were — for I would have to appear at Bow Street Court on my day off. However I had to do something, as the Sergeant would be coming round shortly.
As most of the occupants seemed to have tried to pass through the windscreen when the car hit the bollard, there was a good deal of blood about. So I settled for an ambulance rather than a Black Maria. While I was waiting for this to turn up, I had another go at trying to get some particulars, but their replies were unintelligible. They sounded like strange Celtic incantations — Urquart, Farquhart and Colquohoun — names which neither I nor even they could spell at that time of night.
Next morning I visited the soldiers in hospital at Charing Cross for ‘further particulars’. They told me that they had been going back to their hotel after a party to celebrate their safe return from France. The driver told me that the accident happened when the red light he was following suddenly stopped. I told him that it was a red light marking a bollard. He said that that would account for it.
During August and September it was very hot in a copper’s uniform. Ralph and I watched the sky, envious of the RAF above us in the summer sunshine. One day — 15 September — we saw two or three Hurricanes making quarter attacks on a German Dornier bomber over Shaftesbury Avenue. We could see and hear everything, the roar of the Hurricane’s fire and the bright sun flashing on the shattered perspex of the bomber’s cabin as the bullets hit it. We were both sure that we could drive an aircraft, for we could drive cars quite dangerously at times. We applied to join the RAF at the nearest recruiting station at Putney, passed the medical and then waited impatiently for our call-up papers.
After two or three weeks, these had not arrived. On telephoning the aircrew recruiting office at Berkeley Square, we found out that the RAF already had enough pilot volunteers to last them for the next six months, but “would we like to be rear gunners on Halifax night bombers?” We dropped the receiver with a clang. We heard even worse news at about this time. The Police was now a ‘Reserved Occupation’; that was to say that we could not leave the Force even if we wanted to.
Both of us submitted requests to resign from time to time on Form 728, to see if the rules had altered. One month later — it seemed an age — we were told we could see the Chief Constable. He told us that as we were still Probationary Constables we could now volunteer for the armed forces. Better still, we could have our pay made up to copper’s pay while we were being trained*.
So I gave up asking the RAF and changed to the Fleet Air Arm. I was immediately accepted. I returned my ‘accoutrements’ to the stores at the new West End Central police station and the same day I drove down to Gosport in my father’s spare car, a 1934 Morris Minor two-seater. Within two days I had started my training as a Naval Airman Second Class. It was the 11th of November, 1940, the night of the Fleet Air Arm’s first major success, Taranto night!