CHAPTER 2

The Price of a Pint

At about 8.30am, as I was driving up Attercliffe Road on my way to work, I pipped and waved to Michael who, like me, looked as if he was just about to start work. He worked at Burton’s, the tailors shop situated at the bottom of Staniforth Road and, as he turned and returned my wave with a smile, it made me chuckle as I remembered how we had first met round about a year ago.

I’d been working the beat on ‘afters’, 3pm to 11pm, and at about 9pm I was walking up Prince of Wales Road when I heard, even before I saw them come into view, a group of about nine youths walking towards me. They were fairly boisterous and because they were spread over the pavement, people had to walk into the road in order to get past them.

As I got closer they saw me and I could see them sniggering as they spread themselves across the pavement. The odds of nine to one were in their favour but there was no way that I was walking round them and into the road. Without slowing my pace and with both my arms stretching out in front of me I walked straight into them, pushing them to one side as I did so – a bit like a game of skittles. I then turned round awaiting their reactions whilst waiting for the first one to speak. Past experience had taught me that whoever opened their mouth first was usually the ring leader. Turning to look at them, their faces were a study. They didn’t know what to do and everyone was looking at what looked like the eldest and biggest lad for inspiration.

You could see that as individuals they weren’t as brave and with a faltering voice the big lad said, ‘Do you know what time it is Mr Policeman?’

‘It’s time that balm-pots like you lot were in bed and ready for school in the morning,’ I replied. I was inwardly chuckling waiting for his anticipated reply.

‘I’m seventeen and the rest of us are sixteen. We don’t go to school now,’ he replied, indignantly.

‘Then in that case stop acting like school children and grow up. You’re lucky I’m busy right now, but you,’ and I pointed to the biggest lad, the mouthpiece, ‘yes YOU – you meet me outside the Industry Inn at 7 o’clock tomorrow night,’ I shouted.

‘Why?’ he stuttered.

‘You’ll find out tomorrow – now get off home and keep the noise down.’

I wasn’t busy at all and I had to smile as they went quietly on their way. They were just big daft lads, growing up and finding their feet. If there had been a scrap someone, possibly me, would have been hurt and they would have been locked up and taken to court resulting in a criminal record – not good when you are applying for work.

There are more ways to skin a cat than one, and almost 24 hours is a long time worrying about why the local bobby wants to meet you outside a pub.

After a week of afternoons I was ready for a few pints and a game of crib with some of my mates in the pub. Sure enough there he was, pacing nervously up and down outside the pub and looking as though he had had no sleep. He didn’t recognize me without my uniform and he nearly passed out when I tapped him on the shoulder.

‘What’s your name young man?’ I asked sharply.

‘Michael,’ and then as an after thought he said, ‘Sir.’

‘My name is PC Johnson. How old are you Michael?’

‘I’ll be eighteen in three months time – are you going to arrest me?’ he asked nervously.

‘No, much better than that I’m going to buy you a pint instead,’ I replied. His eyes nearly popped out of his head when I said this. It was obviously the last thing he expected.

‘I’m underage,’ he said with obvious relief at not being arrested.

‘So was I when I had my first pint, come on, in we go!’ So far so good but would my little plan work? In the pub Michael apologized for his and his mates’ daft behaviour the night before and in a quiet part of the pub I read him the riot act. I then stopped talking in the hope that he would ask me about my job, which he duly did.

After telling him a bit about the police force and a few funny stories, I decided that the time was right. ‘A few months ago, Michael,’ I said, ‘I had to deal with the sudden death of an old chap on Prince of Wales Road, which was very upsetting for his poor old wife as she was now left on her own.’

‘Poor lady, is she OK now?’ he asked.

‘No, not really Michael, I saw her the other day and she was crying and very upset,’ I replied.

‘Why, what made her cry?’ Michael asked naively.

‘She is very unsteady on her feet and has to walk with the aid of two walking sticks and when I spoke to her she was very upset because she can’t look after her garden like her husband used to do. The garden is now completely overgrown and to make matters worse, a couple of the fences have blown down in the wind,’ I replied. I crossed my fingers under the table and waited.

Ten seconds – twenty seconds – I could hear the cogs turning, thirty seconds and then:

‘PC Johnson I’ve got a great idea.’

‘Oh, what’s that Michael?’ I asked casually and at the same time uncrossed my fingers and gave a little chuckle.

‘Why don’t me and my mates do it for her, to save her being upset and all?’

‘What a brilliant idea Michael. She’d think that would be absolutely wonderful. Are you sure?’

‘Yes, I’ll have a word with the lads tomorrow,’ Michael replied.

‘You’ve made my night and the old lady will be thrilled to bits, thanks for that. I’ll tell her that you’ll start at the weekend. Is that all right?’

‘No problem PC Johnson,’ he answered.

‘She’ll be over the moon with that Michael,’ and I shook his hand. ‘I’ll call and see her and tell her the good news. That’s worth another pint young man – but on another day, tonight’s my night off.’

The day after, I went to see the old lady and explained the situation and she was chuffed to bits and over the weekend I called to see Michael and his mates. When I saw them with their spades, forks and rakes they reminded me of the seven dwarfs in Snow White and I felt like singing, ‘Hi ho, hi ho, it’s off to work we go with a shovel and a pick and a walking stick. Hi ho, hi ho!’

Over the next few months the lads transformed the old lady’s garden and once again it became her pride and joy; and she loved the company of the lads who took to her, they even did her shopping and looked after her in general. The garden also became the pride and joy of the lads. At the end of the day they were all good lads really and, like all of us when we were that age, they just needed a bit of direction and somewhere to channel their youthful energy without getting into bother.

That was about a year ago and now here he was, dressed in a smart suit ready for work, whilst here I was ready for work but wearing a second-hand suit. The difference was that Michael was a single young lad whereas I was married with a mortgage of £32 a month around my neck and an old car on the ‘never, never’.

It was my second day in CID and when I got to the station I could see that it was a little quieter than the day before. The large kettle was on the boil in the kitchen and one by one as the lads arrived, they each filled proper pint pots with tea. Armed with a bunch of crime reports, which ranged from a stolen wooden gate to house burglaries and theft from different places. I took my place at the desk and grabbed my pot of tea and an ash tray – time to think and try and work out how to solve some of the crimes that were now recorded in my crime diary, which meant that it was my duty to try and solve them.

Every complaint needed a statement taking from whoever had made it and with only the brown-coloured Morris Minor CID car between John, Rick and me it was to take several hours for us to do just that – what a ‘balls-acher’!

I’d forgotten to pick up my snap that morning before I’d left for work so, after taking the statements, the lads dropped me off at the Copper Kettle Café so that I could get a sarnie, I was starving and could have eaten a Skegness Donkey.

I said good morning to Helen, the owner, and ordered a bread cake with four rashers of crispy bacon, sausage, egg and black pudding to keep me going – just what the doctor ordered and I wolfed it down in minutes.

There was only one other person in the café, poor old Cyril who was a big chap and about 50 years old. I had known him for a long time and a couple of years before he had lost his mum and dad in quick succession which had absolutely devastated the poor man. He had no other relatives and was reclusive, a bit like his mum and dad. Cyril was highly educated and could tell you anything you wished to know about the world, politics, the war and anything you cared to mention. He was like a walking encyclopaedia. For this reason, I suppose, he’d never had a girlfriend and just read books all day. About a year after losing his parents he started to go a bit odd, wandering about through the night and doing things that were completely out of character. He couldn’t stand being in his empty house.

One day I saw him at the bottom of Staniforth Road and he was pulling a shopping bag on wheels (the first one I had ever seen) with a small suitcase on it. He had grown a beard and looked very unkempt.

‘How do Cyril. How are you doing these days?’ I asked him.

‘I’ve had to move out of the house Mr Johnson, I can’t cope with the memories and I’ve decided to live on the road and I keep my belongings in the little trolley,’ he answered.

I thought, at first, that he was kidding but over several years I saw him decline and he used to sleep on park benches and covered himself with newspapers, even in the bad winters. He never went far from the Attercliffe area and was quite content with himself and his chosen lot. He wasn’t without money either, having sold the parental home in Chippingham Street. When the café was quiet Helen didn’t mind him being in and as I spoke to him, I watched him put at least a dozen teaspoons full of sugar into his tea and this, I realized, was to give him energy.

Over the years Cyril went on to become a very well known sight travelling between Attercliffe, Darnall and The Wicker, where he used to sometimes sleep in the old tunnels off Saville Street. All the local bobbies knew him.

A few years after I’d left ‘The Job’ the local paper, the Sheffield Star, was appealing for anyone who knew Cyril’s background, as he had been found dead – of natural causes. Nearly everyone knew of him but no one knew his background or the reason why he chose to live rough. I contacted the newspaper and told them what I knew about Cyril and the fact that I had known him almost 20 years.

I often think about him and his sad demise but he wouldn’t accept any help off anybody and he just wanted to do his own thing.

It was a warm day and after thanking Helen at the café I walked the 100 yards back to the Victorian nick. I could see that the windows of the CID office were open and small clouds of smoke were coming from them. Most policemen, in those days, including me, smoked either fags or a pipe. I have to laugh when I think back 50 years ago, it was estimated that hundreds of tons of pollution a year fell on the Attercliffe area. The steel smelting furnace, just across the road from the nick, was belching out orange sulphur smoke and we were all breathing it in on a daily basis – and they say smoking is bad for you! It’s a wonder we’re here to tell the tale.

What the hell’s going on here, I thought as I pushed open the front door of the station. Standing in front of me was Inspector Gribben and when he saw me he looked both agitated and surprised.

‘Oh, it’s you Martyn. Get up stairs to the CID office,’ he said.

As I passed the main police station office you could have heard a pin drop and I couldn’t reckon up what was happening. At the bottom of the stairs leading to the CID office was a couple of uniformed lads and at the top of the stairs were Rick and John, my partners. Climbing the stairs I said, ‘What’s going off, what’s happening?’ At which point the Detective Inspector shouted, ‘You go and stand in front of that door Martyn,’ and he pointed to the door leading to one of the CID offices.

This must be something serious, I thought, what the hell is going on? The inspector looked nervously towards the top of the stairs and then turned to me, saying ‘One of our lads has arrested a young chap for burglary, he’s a juvenile and we can’t interview him until a parent is here, so we’ve sent for his dad.’

‘Well that’s nothing new Sir, but why all the melodrama?’ I politely asked.

‘You’ll understand when I tell you the lad’s name,’ he replied.

‘Right Sir,’

‘Young Albert Bloggs has been arrested and his father is George Bloggs, now you know why all the melodrama,’ he told me.

‘Bloody hell, Sir, now I know what you mean.’

The inspector went back to the top of the stairs and I could understand his reticence. George Bloggs was a giant of a man. One of the most powerful and hardest men I have ever met. Any time he was arrested it took about a dozen coppers to restrain him and he used to throw the first half a dozen that approached him to one side as if they were confetti. He had been to prison many times for violence and was a pure fighting machine; and now here we all were waiting for his imminent arrival, no wonder everybody was on high alert – getting ready for some fisticuffs. Now I knew why there was so much cigarette smoke blowing out of the windows, everyone had a fag on resulting from nervous tension.

Suddenly from the bottom of the stairs I heard the unmistakable bellowing of George.

‘Where the bleeding hell is he? I want to see my lad,’ he shouted and as he climbed the stairs he yelled to Rick and John, ‘Has he admitted owt?’ and Rick replied, ‘He’s not been interviewed yet George we’ve waited for you.’

‘You bastards ’d tell me owt. Where’s my lad? I don’t want any bother as long as I see him, where is he?’

The inspector walked him to the door where I was standing, opened it and shouted out the detective who had arrested him, leaving Albert on his own.

‘Right George, you can have two minutes chat with him and then we’ll interview him in your presence. All right?’ said the inspector and George entered the room and closed the door behind him. There was a sigh of relief that we had actually got George into the room without any of us suffering any broken bones – very odd.

You could hear him shout at his son, ‘Has tha admitted owt?’

‘No Dad,’ came the answer.

‘Has tha don’t job?’ and you could hear Albert stuttering and stammering. ‘No dad’ – he finally managed to get the words out of his mouth.

‘Don’t give me any f… bullshit, these lads haven’t arrested thi and sent for me for nowt! Tha must have don’t job. I’m gonna ask thi again and this time I want ’t truth. Has tha don’t job?’

‘Yes dad, I have,’ we could hear Albert say sheepishly.

‘You must be f------ crackers. You’ve had everythin you want in life ‘cos I didn’t want thi to end up like me, in an’ out o’ prison all mi life and nah tha’s gone an’ done somethin’ stupid, but the most stupid thing tha’s done is to tell your own dad a lie.’

All of a sudden you could hear banging from within the room and the crash of furniture. Everybody looked at each other and then we dashed into the room. George was angry all right and he’d thumped his own son in the face. There was blood everywhere. He held him by the hair, looked at us and said to his son, ‘I hate these bastards but now you tell ’em ’t truth or tha’ll get some more.’ Finishing with the words, ‘Don’t get like me, lead a respectable life from now on, tell these lads everything they want to know,’ he said with tears in his eyes. He turned to us all and said, ‘I’m very sorry about this, I’ll make sure he doesn’t do it again. I know you were expecting a scrap when I got here, maybe next time! But for now I apologize for my son. Can I please go home?’ and with that he left for home, much to the relief of everyone in the building. Nobody could believe it.

Young Albert had a broken nose but he was basically okay and didn’t need an ambulance. He was later charged and bailed to appear at court where he readily admitted the offence and, because he had no previous convictions, got away, more or less, with a slapped wrist.

It was a complete turn up for the books for all of us, not one of us could have anticipated that George would react in that way and we felt a bit guilty about Albert’s nose. I must have known both young Albert and his dad for fifteen years after that day and Albert never, to my knowledge, got into any further bother and, funnily enough, neither did George, his dad. He seemed to change and even when I saw him after he had had a few beers, which was normally when he would kick off, he was always polite.

After all that, paperwork and solving crime had been forgotten for a while and we just chatted and shook our heads in total disbelief at George’s reaction to his son, something that none of us there would ever forget.