CHAPTER 15

Bob’s Your Uncle

‘Looks like another one John,’ I said, as I recorded the details down in my large crime diary – which was getting fuller by the day. Monday mornings were normally busy in the CID office after the weekend, but this last few weekends Burglar Bill had been working overtime and we were all stretched to the limit.

Attercliffe was a huge division comprising thousands of houses, shops and small to very large businesses. Most people know the area because of the Meadowhall shopping centre and a lot of the scenes from the brilliant film The Full Monty were shot in the area where I worked.

The M1 from Sheffield to Leeds had not been open long, leaving us, as a division, wondering if the opening of the motorway was the reason why so many house break-ins were taking place within half a mile of each side of it – not just in our division but also in Rotherham.

People were ringing in and within half an hour John had five and I had four burglaries to investigate and they were all near the Tinsley Viaduct of the M1.

We grabbed a load of statement forms and a car key and we were off on enquiries.

After parking the car we made our way to the respective complainants’ homes, which were all within a few hundred yards of each other, in a heavily-populated street of terraced houses.

All the complainants had been told not to touch anything in order to preserve the crime scene until we arrived to check it out. Normally this would be good advice but on this occasion I wasn’t so sure that it was necessary and thought that maybe I could tell them what had happened because we had been to so many similar incidents before.

The door of the first house opened to reveal a lady of about fifty and the poor lass was obviously very upset and crying. After showing her my warrant card and introducing myself, I entered the off-shot kitchen and then went into the small dining room. Everything looked neat and tidy but the two top drawers of the sideboard were open just as she and her husband had found them when they returned after a weekend visiting their daughter’s house. The small living room was also tidy and the usual TV was on top of a cabinet. The cabinet also had its drawer open. Two small and one large fishing trophies were proudly displayed on the mantelpiece.

Obviously something had been stolen but I didn’t need to ask what – I already knew.

‘I take it that they have been upstairs?’ I said, and the lady nodded and sobbed.

Upstairs in the main bedroom was a pine chest of drawers with two small drawers at the top and four larger ones underneath – all of which were fully opened. On top of the drawers was a white linen runner with a silver photo frame on it and a couple of cheap ornaments. The white runner had got black finger marks on it. I could also see an open wardrobe with a fully extended drawer sticking out of it.

Time for some questions!

‘When did you return home from being at your daughters?’ I asked.

‘Late last night, my husband had to be at work for 8am today.’

‘Were there any signs of a forced entry to the house?’

‘No, that’s why we didn’t think anything when we came in,’ she said.

‘Did your husband miss his cooked breakfast this morning?’ I asked as I looked round the kitchen.

‘Yes, but how do you know that?’ she asked in shocked amazement.

‘I noticed the partly cooked bacon on the cooker. Did the gas run out?’ and her eyes opened even wider.

‘How could you know that?’ she said as she nodded her head.

‘Did the house lights work last night when you came in?’

‘Yes, but this morning I went to put the wireless on when Tony went to work but there’s no electricity either.’

‘Have you got a torch I can borrow please love?’ I asked, ‘I just want to check the cellar.’

The door to the coal cellar was in between the kitchen and the living room. Not many years before these incidents, everybody used coal to heat their houses and also to cook with; and some people still did. Modernization had brought the gas fire, which made a lot less mess than when the coal man opened the cellar grate outside the house and tipped the load of coal down the short chute and into the cellar.

Shining the torch along the usual whitewashed walls I could see a few tools hung on hooks, a wooden work bench and on the brick floor at the bottom of the coal chute was a wooden stool.

On the wall nearest the bottom of the steps was what I was looking for, the gas and electric meters.

Back then things were very different to what they are today – if you wanted gas or electricity you paid for it there and then on a pay-as-you go basis. To pay for it you would put one or more shilling pieces (same size as our 10p these days) into a slot on the meter set on the wall, one meter for gas and one for electricity. Having placed your 1/- (one shilling/5p) in the slot you turned a butterfly key on the meter and you could hear the coin drop into a metal tin which was secured by a small padlock. Every week or so either the gas or electricity man would come and empty the tins, which could hold probably the equivalent of half a week’s wages at that time. (The shilling coin was called a ‘bob’ and twenty ‘bob’ made one pound or a ‘nicker’.)

Looking at both meters I could see that the padlocks had been forced open and the tins, minus contents, were empty and on the floor of the cellar.

As I’d said to John earlier, ‘It looks like another,’ and it was. It was exactly the same MO (method of operation) that was used at the other incidents. A small pair of bolt-croppers was used to cut the padlock on the cellar grate outside the house then Burglar Bill would take the grate off and slide down the short chute and into the cellar, go up the cellar steps, rob the house, gas and electric meters, climb back out the same way and gone – on to the next one.

This guy was no dumpling. He must have done it loads of times before. If you open a set of drawers at home it’s natural to start with the top drawers – but our guy had opened the bottom drawers first, then worked his way up. That way he didn’t have to waste time closing the top ones before opening the lower ones. A good professional burglar is in and out of a house in minutes and will only steal what he can dispose of quickly, which is why the bulky silver trophies were left behind.

Back upstairs I told the poor woman the situation and took a statement listing the stolen jewellery, including her husband’s gold half-hunter watch and chain (which had belonged to his dad), three rings and a cameo brooch. I advised her to phone the gas and electricity company who would need to change the meters and I also arranged for a fingerprint man to see if he could find any ‘dabs’. None had been found at any of the other burglaries and, looking at the dirty finger marks on the linen runner, obviously made by coal dust, he must have been wearing gloves.

My other three house enquiries were the same and when John and I met up later it turned out that his were also the same – electricity and gas meters robbed and small bits of jewellery taken. This guy was a pro all right and he’d been giving us grief now for weeks. We were pretty sure that he worked alone and, because of the width and length of the coal cellar chutes we assumed him to be, maybe, six foot tall and of a fairly slim build.

It’s a bit of a bugger when you can’t go out for a day, only to come back to find that your house has been burgled. People graft hard all their working lives, only for some idle, uncaring, scheming pillock to frighten the wits out of their victims. It’s not just the things that they steal, it’s what they leave behind as well – trauma.

A lot of the people whose houses had been burgled were ordinary working-class people who owned very little; and what valuables they owned were being saved for any emergency that might crop up such as illness or injury whilst working in the steelworks or down the mine. Family heirlooms such as granddad’s gold watch or grandma’s engagement ring would be taken to one of the pawnbrokers in order to raise a few quid to tide them over a rough financial period.

Pawnbrokers or ‘swap shops’ were also called ‘uncles’. People would take their valuables to the pawnbroker and exchange them for cash. They would then be given the chance to pay back the money the pawnbroker had given them, in return for their precious goods. However, if poor people couldn’t afford the repayment within a specified time then ‘uncle’ could sell the goods on, which left them with nothing to fall back on in the future – further trauma still, poor things.

Local enquiries drew a blank and when John and I got back to the office and checked the crime records we were shocked to find out that over the last few weeks he’d committed about 60 burglaries across the Attercliffe and Rotherham divisions – enough was enough and we went to see the boss.

The following Saturday evening as it got dark John, Ricky, myself and several of the uniformed staff, who were now in jeans and jumpers, spread about in the Tinsley area. We’d all brought a flask and in my pocket were a few sarnies, two bananas and a torch. All of us had picked a spot from where we could see as many houses as possible and mine was in the vicarage garden at the top of St Lawrence Road, where I positioned myself behind a large privet hedge.

At about 11.30pm I saw a few stragglers who had obviously left the Pike and Heron pub and were making their way home. After that, it all went quiet. By the time it got to 1am my legs were killing me and to make matters worse the spiders in the hedge were trying to spin a web round my head and face. As I tried to brush them off I kept swearing and kept looking behind me in case the vicar had heard me.

By about 3am, after being stuck in that bloody hedge for four hours, I could have screamed but then I saw old Charlie, the fox, walking on the pavement just in front of the hedge. Why was he making a squeaky noise though? Just then he started to run off. ‘How odd?’ I thought. Then in the same second a squeaky push bike came into view under the gas lamp. It was being ridden by an old chap of about 60 who had a sweat towel round his neck and tucked into his old work shirt. I watched him as he joined Bawtry Road and rode off towards the steelworks.

As I finished my last banana I could see that the sun was about to come up. We’d all agreed that when that happened we’d call it a day and meet up at the old police box on Sheffield Road.

After finally getting my legs to move again I met up with the other lads for a short debriefing. Rick took charge and asked if anybody had seen anything unusual. Everybody, including me, shook their heads. It was then that I thought about the old man on his push bike, which I’d not thought anything of. I mentioned it to the group and told them what I’d seen. One of the Rotherham lads, who was about to leave, turned and said, ‘That’s funny, I saw him as well, he was riding on the pavement across the Tinsley Viaduct bridge from the direction of Droppingwell but it can’t have been him, he looked about 60 years old if he was a day. What time did you see him Martyn and where?’

‘Oh let me think, yeh it would be roughly 3 o’clock. He rode up St Lawrence Road and then joined Bawtry Road; and just slowly rode off towards Brinsworth. I assumed he was going to work,’ I replied.

‘That’s weird, it was about 2 o’clock this morning when I saw him, so that means he was missing for an hour before you saw him,’ said Jed.

‘Bloody hell; don’t tell me I’ve missed something. Surely it can’t be him we’re looking for. He looked about 60 years old like you said. I hope nobody wakes up in the morning after having had their house burgled.’

At that point we all left to go home to bed and arranged to meet up on the following night at the same time, which was Sunday.

The following evening we all met up again and the air was blue when I was told that sure enough, last night ‘Mr Cellarman’ had been at it again, he’d done two houses at Droppingwell and another one at the bottom of St Lawrence Road. I was livid with myself but it slowly made sense. The M1 motorway at Tinsley crossed the River Don which gave access to Droppingwell and Kimberworth about two miles away, whereas previous to that it would have been perhaps a 5-mile journey – but being on a push bike it sounded feasible and both me and the Rotherham lad were cursing ourselves. Where would he strike next? We just didn’t know and we placed ourselves, this time, at the other side of the River Don, near Meadowbank. Nothing happened during the night and no one saw a man on a push bike. Sadly, the following morning (Monday) there had been four more house burglaries where the coin slots had been emptied and jewellery taken. We were fed up to the back teeth. But there were thousands of houses in the area and you just couldn’t cover them all.

The following weekend was the same and yet more burglaries were committed and put down to Mr Cellarman. But even though the push bike and the old man had been mentioned at the CID conference no one had seen any sign of a bike and, in any case, a bloke of 60 was hardly likely to be our man.

The following week saw me on ‘afters’. I couldn’t wait for the end of the week as we were going on holiday and staying with an aunt and uncle in Hexham, Northumberland, for the weekend. I was so excited at the thought of having a good look at Hadrian’s Wall and the old Roman fort.

I desperately needed a haircut and after making yet more enquiries drove down Bawtry Road, where I spotted Marlene just going into her hairdressers’ shop. I stopped to say hello just in case I could ‘blag’ a free haircut. The shop was empty and Marlene’s mate made me a pot of tea whilst we were chatting.

‘Is there any chance of a quick haircut while I’m here, love?’ I asked. She nodded and just as she was putting on the cape to cover my suit I told the girls the story of the assault that had taken place in another hairdressers not long ago when a man ended up in hospital with concussion. Their eyes were wide open and they couldn’t believe their ears and were in absolute hysterics. Thank goodness the lady who was about to cut my hair hadn’t a pair of scissors in her hand, she was bent double laughing.

Marlene then asked me about the burglaries in the area which had been in all the newspapers and which was the topic of conversation locally. She told me that local people were afraid to leave their houses. I told her that they were emptying gas and electric meters and just stealing jewellery; and they were getting in and out by opening the coal cellar grates. Whoever it was only stole small things that they could carry in pockets, leaving their arms free to climb back out of the cellars.

Out of the blue, Marlene’s mate, who, as far as I can remember was called Sarah, laughingly said, ‘I bet its Bobby.’

‘Why do you say that – who’s Bobby?’ I asked, ‘Is he someone you know?’

‘No.’ she replied, ‘Bobby’s a woman.’

‘Well I’ve never heard of a woman called Bobby before.’

‘No, that’s what we have nicknamed her because she always pays for her hair do with shilling coins but we call them bobs. That’s why we call her Bobby.’

‘You’re joking,’ I said and I sat bolt upright in the chair.

‘No I’m not joking, she comes in every couple of weeks for her hair doing. She must be well off cos she wears loads of jewellery.’

I did my best to be nonchalant about it and a couple of minutes later, I casually asked, ‘Where does this Bobby live then?’

‘Somewhere out Brinsworth way I think,’ and Marlene nodded in agreement. ‘I think they’ve rented a house from what she said. She’s only been coming in to have her hair done for about a year. My mind was racing and at that point Marlene started laughing, ‘Don’t get excited Martyn, I can see your mind working, it’ll not be them – Bobby and her husband are about 60 years old – and anyway if you do get excited I might have to hit you over the head with a hairdryer,’ and we all cracked out laughing, thankfully the tension had been diffused but my mind was still working overtime.

After having my hair cut I took Marlene outside and asked her discretely to see what she could find out the next time ‘Bobby’ came into the shop. I went back to the nick and told Rick and John what had transpired.

‘Sounds good,’ said Rick, ‘we’ve nothing else to go on at the moment. But surely, a bloke at 60 – never. Anyway you go and have a good weekend off and forget about it for a few days.’