Chapter 7

Winners & Losers

uring the Blitz in the Second World War there was a very strong feeling that there should be an award for people from all walks of life who had demonstrated great bravery. The armed services were already catered for with the award of the Victoria Cross for the most exemplary bravery in the face of the enemy, but this was not available to civilians. Therefore, on 24 September 1940, His Majesty King George VI instituted the George Cross and the George Medal, for conspicuous gallantry in the face of the enemy and brave deeds generally. Both awards could be conferred on service personnel or civilians.

The George Medal – awarded for ‘acts of great bravery’ – is a silver disc 36mm in diameter, with the crowned effigy of the reigning monarch on the obverse; the reverse shows St George on horseback, slaying the dragon on the coast of England. The ribbon, 32mm wide, is crimson with five narrow blue stripes. Bars can be awarded to recognise further acts of great bravery, the letters ‘GM’ follow the recipient’s name and, since 1977, posthumous awards have been permitted.

In the seventy years of its existence, over 2,200 George Medals have been awarded. Of these, eighty-four were awarded to members of the Metropolitan Police in recognition of their gallantry in connection with wartime activities. They were awarded sparingly enough, and the last was presented in June 1944; the next three, all at the same investiture, would not be conferred until seven years later. What follows is the story of how this came about.

Temple’s Store was first opened in 1908. It was constructed of sheds and tents and was situated at the junction of Polesteeple Hill and Stock Hill, at Biggin Hill, Kent. Shortly afterwards, Temple’s Store moved up to the top of Polesteeple Hill, at the junction with Hillcrest Road, and Valley Stores was established in 1914 next to it. A family home for the Temples was built next to the two premises, and their proud boast was they could ‘supply your every want’. During the early hours of 28 September 1950, William Edward McGuire, a young thug from Bethnal Green, and David Cooney, both aged twenty, put their own liberal interpretation on the company’s motto and broke into the premises.

For a twenty-year-old criminal, McGuire had an impressive pedigree; since the age of fourteen he had acquired thirteen serious previous convictions. Between the ages of fourteen and sixteen he was sent to Approved Schools; he absconded on seven occasions. Aged sixteen, he appeared at the Old Bailey charged with possessing an offensive weapon, assault with intent to rob, wounding and possessing a firearm. He was sent to Borstal, from where he escaped. During 1947 and 1948 he was convicted of other offences before again appearing at the Old Bailey, where he was convicted of robbery with violence, for which he was jailed for two years.

Impressive, yes, but this also demonstrated that in his short criminal career he had been caught on a large number of occasions. Unfortunately, his criminal enterprises had failed to imbue him with the resourcefulness of someone such as the gangland leader Billy Hill, who possessed a violent streak but also a great deal of criminal acumen. Vicious, McGuire certainly was, but what became clear was that he possessed a complete inability to see more than one or two steps ahead during the course of a criminal venture. After having been released from prison on 22 July 1950, McGuire was stopped by police in possession of some stolen cameras; instead of immediately making a dash for it, he handed over his identity card first, then ran. During the early hours of 21 September McGuire broke into a house in Northfields Road, Stamford Hill, where he stole £23 cash, plus a revolver and some rounds of ammunition. The same day, Cooney, his fellow shopbreaker in Kent, was released from a prison sentence – it will quickly become apparent to the reader that Cooney was as brain-dead as his accomplice – and six days later they decided to rob in broad daylight Laurence Joseph Doyle, an LCC rent collector, who, they had been told, would be in possession of £200. In the event, the robbery was so botched that had Mr Doyle not been knocked to the ground and kicked, the whole matter would have been hilarious. Attacked by dogs and chased by the occupants of a block of flats, the two young desperadoes scampered away, pausing only to pick up what they could of the rent collector’s takings: four half-crowns and two florins – in other words, seventy pence. However, all was not lost. They decided to carry out a break-in somewhere in Biggin Hill, an area which Cooney said he knew. They caught a Green Line coach, arrived there at ten o’clock in the evening and decided to break into Temple’s Stores. Billy Hill would have used a two- or three-car changeover to facilitate his getaway from a burgled premises, but an escape plan had not occurred to this witless duo. It was now so late that they had no means of returning to the East End of London.

The silent burglar alarm which fifty-three-year-old Thomas Temple, the company director, had installed in the shop premises sounded in his bedroom next door, and he immediately telephoned the police; then he telephoned his son and a relative who lived nearby. Just before one o’clock in the morning, the ‘P’ Division wireless car drew up outside the premises and Temple was there to meet them.

The driver was Police Constable 262 ‘P’ John Kerr McCallum, who had joined the Metropolitan Police in 1932. He served the first fourteen years of his service on ‘M’ Division, where after three short years he had been qualified to drive wireless cars and had collected a commendation for the arrest of three shopbreakers. Having failed the sergeant’s examination in 1938, he decided to concentrate on driving duties. Now, married with a child, the transfer to Bromley suited him, making travelling easier between the station and his home in St John’s Road, Petts Wood. Within a year of his arrival at Bromley, he had made his mark with a further commendation for the arrest of two men for larceny. At forty-five years of age, he was not quite the oldest of the three officers who attended Temple’s Store that morning; Police Constable 134 ‘P’ Owen Percival Ashwin was six months older and had fifteen months more service. Standing one-eighth of an inch over six feet, Ashwin had spent all but just over a year of his service at Bromley. Just prior to the Second World War, he had been commended for ‘close attention to duty and zeal’ in a case of officebreaking; married, he lived at East Drive, St Mary Cray. He was the wireless car’s RT operator, having passed the course six months previously.

The third member of the crew was the plain-clothes observer, Police Constable 404 ‘P’ Ivan Stanley King. He had joined the police in 1947, shortly after demobilisation from the Royal Navy, having served as a Petty Officer from 1943 onwards. Aged twenty-four, he was married with a son and lived in Bromley; all of his short service had been spent on ‘P’ Division.

McGuire and Cooney were completely oblivious to the fact that not only was their unauthorised presence known to the owner, but also the police had arrived. McGuire had already found two pens in a drawer in a desk on the ground floor and had excitedly pocketed his spoils, and Cooney had found a cheque; they now made their way to the first floor, where they ransacked the safe, greedily seizing the accumulated takings for the Greater London Fund for the Blind and the Biggin Hill War Memorial Fund, bringing the value of their spoils to £4 in total.

Meanwhile, Temple and Ashwin went to the rear of the premises and, having entered through the rear door, Temple locked the door behind them and switched on the lights. Meanwhile, the other two officers, together with two members of Temple’s family, Norman Joseph Gee and Reginald Alfred Temple, covered the outside of the premises. There were two staircases leading to the first floor, and Temple and Ashwin went separately up to the first level. As they met at the shop’s office, they saw the two men inside the office; the first, McGuire stepped out of the office, produced the stolen revolver and fired at them. The shot missed and hit the framework of a showcase. Both McGuire and his associate Cooney now ran to the other side of the building, closely pursued by Temple and Ashwin, whereupon Cooney suddenly turned and rushed at Ashwin. There was a struggle, and McGuire, who was at the top of a staircase, turned and at a distance of less than ten feet fired, hitting Ashwin just below his throat. Firing two more shots at Temple, McGuire turned and ran downstairs, pursued by Temple; as McGuire reached the ground floor, he picked up a wooden display stand, smashed a plate glass window, and climbed through it on to the street. Temple knew the outside perimeter was guarded, so he quickly retraced his steps, only to discover the true extent of Cooney’s stupidity.

Cooney had seen McGuire flee downstairs and must have heard the ear-splitting crash of the plate glass window being broken; therefore he might well have thought that (a) McGuire had escaped and (b) the escape route existed for him as well. Instead, he chose to believe that the sound of Temple’s running footsteps ascending the staircase belonged to McGuire. Consequently, he leapt on top of Ashwin, who was now unconscious and no possible threat to anybody, and started punching him in the face, excitedly calling out, “Come on Bill, I’ve got the bastard!”

He was speedily disabused of this notion after Temple picked up a wooden flooring batten and hit him in the head, so hard that the wood broke after the third blow, causing the gallant Cooney to squeal pitifully, “Don’t, Guv’nor – I ain’t got a revolver!” Temple told him to stand in a corner with his hands on his head and administered what first aid he could to the badly wounded PC Ashwin.

Meanwhile, McGuire, still brandishing the pistol, was tackled by McCallum but managed to free himself and ran off. King, who had been on the flat roof to prevent any escape of the miscreants through the skylight, now joined McCallum in the street and together with Temple’s two relatives they chased the gunman for a quarter of a mile. Just as the two officers had almost caught up to him, McGuire stopped, turned, and pointed the pistol at McCallum. “I’ve got a gun!” he shouted, “This is your lot!” and from a distance of just five feet pulled the trigger. There was a click – the hammer had fallen on a spent cartridge case – and McCallum grabbed hold of McGuire’s right wrist – his gun hand – whilst King grabbed him by the left. There was a violent struggle, but with the assistance of Temple’s relatives McGuire was relieved of his gun and his liberty. When searched, he was found to be in possession of seven rounds of .25 ammunition.

Ashwin, who had been severely wounded, was admitted to Farnborough Hospital and remained there for almost three months before eventually being discharged. It really had been a case of ‘touch-and-go’.

The judge at Kent Assizes two months later obviously thought so, too. Mr Justice Travers Humphries was now coming to the end of his career as a judge, but it had been an illustrious one. In 1933 he had presided at the famous Leopold Harris fire-raising case, which lasted thirty-two days and was (then) the longest running trial at the Old Bailey. His summing-up had lasted three days and contained 100,000 words. The sentences he imposed ranged from nine months’ hard labour to fourteen years’ penal servitude, and the aggregate sentences amounted to 199 years. Then in 1949 he sentenced the multiple acid-bath murderer, John George Haigh, to death. The judge was no stranger to the imposition of severe sentences. He told McGuire:

You shot at a police officer and you very nearly committed murder. You shot him in the chest; he was very, very ill and might well have died. I am glad to hear that the latest reports say that in the course of time, he is likely to recover but it is no thanks to you that you are not now being charged with the crime of wilful murder. And if you had, you would have had no sort of defence. You were caught red-handed and you would have been hanged. At the age of twenty, it is a shocking state of affairs that all these things relate to you.

He then sentenced McGuire to fourteen years’ imprisonment and was told, “Thanks, judge. Aren’t you generous?”

Sentencing Cooney to a total of five years’ imprisonment, the judge said:

You have pleaded guilty to robbery with violence and it has been said that this is the first time you have been convicted of using violence. This is true, but there is plenty of evidence that you knew McGuire was armed with the pistol, although there is none that you took part in the shooting.

Ashwin gradually recovered and on 15 January was able to resume light duties. Two weeks later he and his fellow officers were all highly commended by the commissioner and each was awarded £20 from the Bow Street Reward Fund. Then on 16 March 1951 the three officers – plus Thomas Temple – went to Buckingham Palace, where all of them were awarded the George Medal. Norman Gee and Reginald Temple were each awarded the King’s Commendation for Brave Conduct.

In sentencing McGuire to a substantial (and well-deserved) stretch of imprisonment, Mr Justice Humphries made one small mistake; he also provided him with an identity by describing him as ‘a desperado’, and McGuire probably decided that he should live up to that description. Two years into his sentence he attacked a warder with an iron bar and was rewarded with twelve strokes of the cat-o’-nine tails, the loss of twelve months’ remission of sentence and thirteen days on No.1 punishment – a diet of bread and water. Later, he climbed to the top of a cell block and pelted the warders with roof slates; they turned the fire hoses on him, and after an hour and a half he returned to the ground dripping wet but not, unfortunately, very much wiser. As has already been suggested, McGuire had no conception of the consequences of his actions, but as he was led off to the punishment block he was undoubtedly comforted by the thought that he was indeed a ‘desperado’.

PC McCallum completed almost thirty-three years’ police service; he resigned in November 1964 and enjoyed almost twenty years of retirement before his death, just before his eightieth birthday.

A year after he returned to light duties, PC Ashwin was again commended, this time for ‘alertness and ability, leading to the arrest of four men for officebreaking’. He completed just under thirty years service and died two weeks before his sixty-eighth birthday.

Between being highly commended by the commissioner and his award of the George Medal, PC King was again commended by the commissioner, this time for ‘initiative in a case of shopbreaking’. And yet within eighteen months of his investiture, he voluntarily resigned. He had served less than five years, and whilst his conduct was, of course, described as ‘exemplary’, he did not receive a pension, just a gratuity of £79 6s 0d – by today’s standards, just over £1,600.

On the sixtieth anniversary of the break-in at Temple’s Stores, there was a ceremony at Bromley police station, at which Borough Commander Charles Griggs commemorated the gallantry of the three officers and Mr Temple. As well as his richly deserved George Medal, Thomas Temple also received the 1950 Binney Award. The building where Temple’s Stores stood was demolished in the 1960s and is now occupied by Roundway shops. But the thoroughfare where his stores once traded has been re-named Temple Street – a fitting epitaph for a very brave man.