THE DAY I GOT AN OFFICE JOB

THE DAY I GOT AN OFFICE JOB

It suddenly dawned on me in late 1969 that my efforts on Crewe Traffic Unit were not so well appreciated as I had imagined. This had been brought to a head when our leader, Inspector 'Bomber' Brown, produced my annual appraisal from his brown cardboard folder from his insecure desk drawers.

It had been a considerable shock to read this stuff about me, particularly as I genuinely thought it was untrue, unjust and mightily underhanded. I no longer wanted to be part of this jaundiced set-up.

I recalled that Winston Churchill had once risen during a debate in the House of Commons and during his response to an awkward question had drawn on an old Arabic Proverb:

“The dogs bark and the caravan moves on”, he proffered to the assembly.

The packed house, on both sides, rose as one to their feet and waved their order papers in the air; whilst a concerted roar erupted with cheers, with 'here-here's' in profusion. Few, if any, of those members of parliament had the slightest idea what the great man meant by it but it went down resoundingly well.

I was reminded that, as the brown dog had barked, metaphorically speaking, it was time for me to move on too. By some coincidence force weekly orders had published a notification of a vacancy on a training course for operators in the Force Information Room, or Control Room as it is now known. I applied for the vacancy there and then, the traffic inspector and those above recommended the placement and I secured this rare opportunity.

It meant that I would have to travel in my own time and at my own expense working shifts on a daily basis but I judged that this would benefit me in the longer term, if I successfully completed the course, of course. Anyway, I now had my new shiny primrose and white 'Angela' to convey me back and forth; there was just the question of purchasing sufficient fuel for me to resolve.

I had consulted Lorraine about my plans, actually I'd floated the idea to test which way the wind was blowing, but it is fair to say that she was not terrifically ecstatic. Given that we were now nicely settled in our cosy home, we had another baby on the way and success on the course would inevitably mean uprooting the family and moving to Chester. I think that she understood why I wanted to grasp the opportunity and gradually she came round to the idea.

On my first day of the secondment I left for Chester and the Headquarters building in good time so as not to be late and give a poor impression to the bosses. It's a good job that I did because the traffic in the city was horrendous, I circumnavigated Grosvenor roundabout twice before finding the right exit and entrance to the HQ building; only to find that there was nowhere to park.

I found myself on the lower level of the car parking area and left 'Angela' behind a dust and guano laden, tatty Austin 1100, one of about fifty 'confiscated' vehicles stored there, the total value of which was marginally less than £10. Years later, I recommended to the then Chief Constable David Graham that the lot of them, except those kept essentially for evidential purposes (two cars and a motor bike); should be sold for scrap and any proceeds banked, on the off-chance that someone from one of the city's 'sink' estates should make a claim.

Anyway, it was now ten to ten and I was about to arrive late if I didn't get to the third floor pronto. There was a queue for the lifts at the crowded ground floor reception area so I sprinted up the stairs, losing count of the levels and ended up on the executive fourth floor.

“You lost?” enquired Henry Watson, resplendent in his full ceremonial uniform, “You're in the wrong place”. His words were slightly softer than his first utterance to me, “Get back”, when I invaded his personal space in his office during my job interview back in 1964.

I glanced to my left as I approached the entrance to the Information Room and through the glass partition I could see a male police officer standing beside a telex machine manipulating long ribbons of white paper, punched with thousands of holes in rows.

A youngish lady dressed in civilian clothing was sitting at a teleprinter machine

typing furiously away, oblivious to the noise created by the several pieces of machinery, rattling away as they received and transmitted messages and converted them to paper copy. Wow, I thought, this really is the cutting edge of technology and I'm going to be part of it.

The plate on the door at eye height, if you were average height that is, announced that this was the 'Force Information Room' and warned off anyone other than 'Authorized Personnel' from entering. I hadn't yet received any authorization to enter personally but I pushed the door open with my right hand defiantly. I stood in the open doorway and tried to take it all in. The room seemed much bigger than I had remembered from a previous visit and it was buzzing with activity.

The headquarters telephonist was stationed on top of a dais type installation to my left, to the right was a large map table and county map.

Beyond the map table was a row of integrated operator consoles, with three male operators busily answering telephone calls and every so often speaking over the force radio channels to patrols across the county. Every so often a paper message form, white for general stuff and pink for emergencies, would be placed on a conveyor belt on top of the consoles by the receiver and it would trundle along noisily to be delivered to the supervisor.

Clem Squires at the Motorway Control

The Sergeant supervisor had his own console strategically placed at right angles so that visual and verbal contact could be maintained at all times; and with a clear sight line through a glass partition to the two female radio operators in their enclosed bubble.

Ray Hewitt, John Durban and Pete Shaunessey were on duty, together with Sergeant Bill Boyes at his designated station. Standing alongside was a shortish, portly, uniformed officer with his back towards me. He turned and fixed me with his eyes for what seemed an age. This was an incredibly important moment, I was later to find out.

Self-styled senior constable Alan Danson, his thick, black, curly hair, like a newly ploughed field, his amply proportioned black 'Village People' moustache and gleaming gnashers; had just made his decision, an irrevocable decision.

From a distance of several yards and in an instant, 'Corporal' Danson had made up his mind whether or not he liked the cut of my jib; and more importantly whether he was prepared to spend the next three months providing the intensive training necessary to equip me, the raw student standing in the doorway, to become a competent Information Room operator. A thumbs down at this stage would make a quarter of a year sitting in the end console seat, gazing out over the Roodeye, watching the prairie dust and tumble-weed drift past; a bloody long time.

“Come over here”, he said, “introduce yourself...are you any good at making a decent brew?”

So began a very enjoyable period of on-the-job training, in a really pleasant place and with a melange of nice, interesting and talented people. Alan Danson took me under his wing and taught me the A to Z of modern communications, how to deal firmly with the public (“that's more than enough, press the destruct button”) and how to integrate in a mixed office environment, a first for me. He was good at his job and generally well respected for it, inside and outside the building.

In 1968, following Local Government boundary changes, Cheshire inherited all of the Wirral, including Birkenhead and Wallasey Borough's, as well as Stockport Borough. Overnight it became a big sprawling urban and county force and control room staff had to learn the intricate differences, especially language and urban workings.

As a traffic officer in Crewe Division I had noted subtle differences when we swapped two patrol cars with the now defunct Birkenhead and Wallasey Borough forces; two patrol cars were exchanged, our nimble Zephyrs for lumbering Austin Westminster's, one complete with a bell at the front. Rocky Mountain, a big man, loved driving them but I tried to avoid them whenever possible on account that I had to sit on my briefcase so that I could see through the steering wheel and out of the windscreen.

Vittoria Vaults Birkenhead

Information Room staff had to learn instantly different idioms, dialects and accents. For a Stockport 999 call a degree of “Manc” was useful and Merseyside callers fully expected to be understood in their guttural “Scouse”. And when someone wanted a police presence in 'Vittoria' Street the patrol may well end up in 'Victoria' Street.

Sometimes I found situations difficult to contain my enthusiasm, especially when directing resources to a job that, truthfully, I wanted to be at myself. But having been at the sharp-end it was always satisfying when I could bring my local knowledge into play.

For example, one Saturday afternoon two Crewe traffic vehicles were in hot pursuit of a stolen mini car towards Wheelock and Sandbach. Although I was still fairly new in the job I automatically assumed control of the chase giving direction and trying to anticipate the next move of the fleeing driver. I was so engrossed in the action that I failed to see the other information room staff sitting back and enjoying the fun of the chase.

The stolen mini-car turned into Middlewich Road and after a mile or so into a side road and onto a football field. Just before half-time the referee found himself in charge of twenty-two players, two linesmen, the driver of a stolen mini and two police officers, together with their patrol cars. The thief ran, followed closely by the officers and half the home and away teams, in true Benny Hill fashion, until he gave up.

I was reminded of an incident a couple of years earlier when Crewe Division 
football team played host to Northwich in a cup match on the Rolls Royce ground in Pym's Lane. The Northwich centre half made a despicable tackle on a Crewe player, leather studs skywards, over the ball and onto the padded shin.

The reckless challenge could have been devastating but after a few minutes and a few sponge fulls of freezing water the Crewe star stood up, limped about for a bit, then set chase after the offending Northwich player. The chase went all the way up Underwood Lane, on to West Street and was heading for the Three Lamps at Hightown when the two merged, clashed and rolled over in the street, to the consternation and amusement of passers-by.

Where was I? Travelling back and forth between home and Chester wasn't much fun but 'Angela' performed well throughout, a testement to my engineering skills and Ken Broomfield's welding. Often after a night shift she would pick her

way along empty roads with the driver on auto-pilot. The times I went through the junction at Tiverton and in half a mile questioned if the lights had been on green. They always were of course.

I took to picking up Alan at his home in Tarvin to alleviate the stress of finding two parking places at headquarters. One afternoon I met with a really charming traffic officer at Vicars Cross when we were en-route to HQ. Constable Ray Rowe was operating a radar check on vehicles entering the city and felt it necessary to remind me of the speed limit at that point.

Raymond was a real gentleman, a handsome bloke, always immaculately turned-out and a terrific policemen. He was the son of a wonderful family from Wrenbury and his younger sister worked as a seamstress in Nantwich. He had attended a primary school in the Beeston area that traditionally taught their pupils to write longhand in copperplate text, a really stunning art-form that ran through all his paperwork. How dreadful then, that he was one of those fine officers taken from this life at such a young age.

My tutor continued to give me the benefit of his extensive knowledge in the various aspects of communication techniques. It felt really good to use the Telex machine and be able to converse with establishments around the globe via the Post Office satellite earth station at Goonhilly Downs in Cornwall, bouncing signals to and fro in almost real time, give a dozen seconds or so.

I recall exchanging niceties with an officer in the Northern Territories police in Australia and discussing the weather in the Northern and Southern hemispheres, how wonderful this modern technology!

It's really strange but within weeks I became competent in reading a series of punched holes in paper tape rolls simply by their configuration, tear the strip in exactly the right place and retransmit the message around the county and to other forces. It all became second nature and so convincing that Ronnie Porteous once transferred a colleague to the dog                                                                      section in Macclesfield. 

To the officer's dismay, as he was allergic to all things hairy.

Idle time during quiet periods conjured-up many hilarious pranks and wheezes, if you weren't on the receiving end, that is. Such as when someone dangled a resusci-Annie manikin, dressed in fashionable 'shell-suit', on a rope around the neck from the floor above and banged it against the

window of the female radio operators cabin.

“Tango-Foxtrot One to BA....six..i.n.c.h.es”.

“I'm sorry Foxtrot-One, repeat please, I'm only getting six-inches”.

Oh, such mirth.

I was warned that if ever I considered using the millions of paper dots produced in the punching process as confetti, don't. Someone once did at a posh wedding and half the bridal party ended up in A & A when the concave discs had attached themselves to their eyeballs like limpets.

It beggars belief but if a patrol wanted to discover the owner of a Cheshire registered vehicle out of office hours an officer would have to take the keys for the vehicle registration office in Pepper Street, Chester, and trawl through card indexes to find the answer, which was probably out of date anyway. It was a routine that sometimes took an hour or so.

And it was the same in the Information Room with the stolen vehicle index. Small blue cards were alphabetically indexed with Cheshire's stolen vehicles, updated manually as and when information about the status came in. The national situation was indexed on white cards updated from the Metropolitan Police Gazette data sent out by snail-mail several times a week.

Incorrect and outdated information was commonplace and led to many embarrassing situations, especially when a card had been miss-filed.

Tuesday evenings were always good fun for that was when we played host to various groups and organizations as part of an educational tour of Constabulary Headquarters. The tour started at the top of the building and worked downwards, as it would have been perverse to expect elderly people to climb up seven floor levels. The tour was usually conducted by an inspector, who would hand over to the Information Room sergeant for the highlight of the evening, the Force Information Room.

Bill Boyes, Harry White, Brian Jones, Steve Jones, Alan Blair
Misses McCready, Morris & Williams

As soon as they appeared the whole room suddenly erupted in frenzied activity with operators ringing each other, red emergency lights flashing, notes being passed to and forth, all orchestrated by Corporal Danson. Altogether, an exciting environment to witness, making the long charabanc trip and braving the winter elements well worth the effort.

Sergeant (later Inspector) William 'Bill' Boyes relished the chance to conduct the tour of this scintillating hive of activity. Once, whilst demonstrating the efficiency and state of the art card indexing system, he regaled the Group from Saint Bartholomew's church womenfolk's league of the cunning and initiative of modern car thieves.

“Nowadays”, he said, “Thieves are so well organized that they will steal a blue Hillman Minx put it into the back of a pantechnicon, drive it down to London and when it gets there and they take it out,it's been changed into a red Hillman Imp”.

"Tell us again Sergeant, it went in as a Hillman Minx and..."

“Good heaven's, gracious me”, chorused the visitors, “What criminal bounders abound, whatever next?”

Satisfied with his convincing performance, Bill returned to his stash of bananas, selected a ripe one and peeled it expertly before consuming it with gusto. Incidentally, he is the only person I have known to peel a banana correctly, pointy end first.

The current thrusting analogue communication technology took a astonishing leap forward when the boss, Inspector Geoff Herron, proudly introduced us all to the new facsimile machine. A black box, into which you jammed a bone shaped telephone handset wired into the telephone system, in turn wired into a small printer system.

The sender would do much the same at the other end and introduce a hard page copy of the urgent missive. Slowly, as if by magic, a reproductive copy would emerge onto a roll of flimsy special paper, which often began smoking with the heat generated. The output was barely legible, on par with the third carbon copy from a Remington typewriter, but just imagine what a demonstration of this smart-technology did to the senses of the men and women from the visiting church ensemble.

Except for weekends, the second half of the night was usually quiet and I developed another fine skill. Ping-pong. Together with John Durban we became HQ doubles champions on several occasions, due to many practice sessions. And it was the same on the snooker tables on the seventh floor, access of which was via the senior officers' mess.

Ray Hewitt, who I had first met at Central Garage 'police office' in Gatley, regularly showed off the fruits of his misspent youth on the green baise. He would smash the cue ball off six sides of the table, missing everything, until is slowly connected with the black, his nominated colour, and send it into the pocket.

“How very fortuitous”, he would say, a term that I'd never heard before. Jammy bugger was perhaps more appropriate. Alas, poor Raymond was caught short in the dead of night relieving the light meters of shilling pieces and was dismissed the force as a result. He later committed suicide. How sad is that?

Alan Danson treated me to several tours of Headquarters during the dead of night. He would take the keys to the roof skylight and from the top floor we would scale the metal ladder, open the hatch and climb through onto the roof. What a magnificent sight is the city of Chester, lit up at night, and on a clear night the surrounding areas could be seen for miles.

I wasn't to know it then but many years later, when I was patrol sergeant, I would access the roof around five o'clock on weekday evenings and from a vantage point on the north-west corner, direct police officers and traffic wardens by radio on the Grosvenor and Northgate roundabouts, instructing when precisely to hold or release traffic queues.

Some senior feckwit had decided it was a good idea to commit scarce police resources at the busiest hour of the day to facilitate the exodus of County Hall pen-pushers, so that they wouldn't be late home for dinner. What a scandalous waste of time.

Chief Constable George Fenn

I invited the Chief Constable, George Fenn, to join me on the roof one evening and he accepted. He asked me what was the answer to all this nonsense, what alternative was there?

I put my view to the chief, “The solution is very simple Mr Fenn. Write to the chief executive and councillors at County Hall and tell them that the current police practice would be stopped and that county officers should consider introducing more flexible working hours for their staff to lighten peak traffic movement and facilitate their journey home”.

He did write to the executive in almost exactly those terms and the pompous lot were predictably enraged but, to his great credit, he stuck to his guns and braved the inevitable flack. The roundabout soon reverted to function in the way it was designed, admittedly drivers did take marginal risks by nipping into the flow and the whole process visibly speeded up, without the distracting presence of uniformed officers. The police personnel, meanwhile, got on with their proper jobs. Some even took the opportunity to have their refreshments!

Not only did Constable Danson take me up to the dizzy heights of the roof-top but also deep into the depths of the building's bowels. Well below ground level, beneath Chester Division's cell block complex and Jim Fryer's clothing stores, lay a labyrinth of storage facilities mainly of five drawer metal filing cabinets. They were spread out in rows almost as far as the eye could see, hundreds of them. The juicy ones, Danson declared, are at the far end and hold the personal files of serving, deceased, retired and otherwise ex-Cheshire police officers.

“Look here”, he said, tearing open a large brown paper envelope clearly

 marked, 'To be opened only by the Deputy Chief Constable'.

“Well there you are, I always thought that's what happened”, he observed in his strangely high pitched, nasally, affected voice.

“Look, here's another one for the eyes of the chief constable only”.

Good grief man.

And so my education continued until my three months long secondment expired and I was officially declared fit for purpose. On the 3^rd August 1970, I transferred to full Information Room duties as a fully fledged operator.

The next trainee was a really good mate of mine, Constable David Say. He too was given Danson's 'eye' and passed muster but soon after his arrival a really strange thing happened. Now don't read anything untoward into this but Dave's voice suddenly changed. It went overnight from a mid-Cheshire, Welsh tinted, earthy sound to a really weird adenoid, tonsilly, nasally, Dansonite drawl.

Kenneth Williams

Some of you will still remember his radio voice, in true Kenneth Williams style from the 'Carry On' films:

“ErmnnBehaye to Tangenhew Bnwarvo Wohnne, are yuw free, mne”?

Dave was a motorcyclist in Northwich Division and our paths had often crossed when we escorted wide loads. Some years later he moved to Chester Traffic we became close friends and when Lorraine and I moved into our first owner-occupier home, he and his lovely wife were guests at the house warming party.

I was dancing with his wife to 'Y.M.C.A. or something suitably 70's when she casually announced that on this very day she had been diagnosed with multiple-sclerosis. What a shocker. What a bummer. What a terrific husband she had chosen, together they dealt with everything that this often unfair life threw at them. And they did it with great humour and dignity.

Dave Say, as many of you will know, was taken from us at a disgustingly unfair young age, just after his retirement from the force. He had secured a part time job with a mutual friend, David Lightfoot at Ben Whitehouse's Parkgate Road Garage, the main Vauxhall dealers. Dave was relocating a new vehicle one morning when he suffered a massive heart attack and died. Strewth!

I can scarcely believe it even now, but throughout my secondment, in close contact with Alan Danson, not once did I suspect that he was gay. Everybody else working in the room did, for that matter everyone working at Headquarters knew. Except me, apparently.

Lorraine and me once went out with Alan and his wife socially, leaving his young daughter with a baby sitter.

“He's gay”, said Lorraine afterwards, “Not that it matters”.

“Nah. He's a right flirt with the girls, you should see him”.

“Take it from me, he's gay”

“But he's got a wife and child...”. Stupid me.

Waters Green Tavern with Electricity

Alan Danson left the job and took over the licence at The Water's Green Tavern in Macclesfield. At that time it was notorious for being an unruly place, it was a complete dump, as was made clear by the 999 calls received in the Information Room.

On his first day he threw out the fruit machines, swept the sawdust from the tap room floor and had the decorators and carpet fitters refurbish the place. He spent his first week in charge standing at the front door barring most of the regulars, just by weighing-up their appearance; as he had done with me.

Miners' Strike before it got rough

It was 1972, the time of the miners' strikes and power cuts. From February a 'power' rota operated throughout the country with frequent electricity cuts between seven in the morning and midnight, lasting between six and nine hours. I took Lorraine and her Dad to Waters Green to see how my old tutor was getting on in his new profession.

We strolled to the bar and ordered drinks, served with a smile by Angela Danson. Alan was at the other end of the bar gazing into a young man's eyes. He knew we were there alright but chose to ignore us, still he had other things on his mind and better things to do. Mrs Danson shook her head and nodded towards them, “It's his latest boyfriend”, she said, in a matter of fact way.

Atmospheric

Just then all the lights went out, blackness everywhere inside and out, except the odd glow given off by drawn-on cigarettes from each corner of the snug. The new licensee gaily swished and pranced about the the bar, snug and tap rooms holding up a hurricane lamp and lighting strategically placed candles in wine bottles. The atmosphere was electric. Well it would have been had there been any but soft candlelight suited the mood for now. 

Slightly exaggerated

In the half light, with 'mine hosts' glistening black curls, sporting an exaggerated 'Village People' moustache, Doctor Scholls and paisley patterned flowing shirt: the belated realization of Alan Danson's gayness suddenly hit me. Hard.

I enjoyed my time in the Information Room and worked with some really great people, both service and civilian. There were moments of domestic strife, like when Constable Pete Shaunessey ran off with Wendy, a civilian radio operator and convinced County Hall to send his pay cheque to his new 'digs'. And they did.

On designated nights Ronnie Porteous brought in from home fantastic curries for us all and by some coincidence the traffic lads from Wallasey and Birkenhead would arrive to share the grub. I think there may have been a mole in the room. Bill added sliced banana to his and it instantly set a trend.

We could have checked the tape recording system to identify the treacherous source but it would have taken half a day. The Room later had a multi channel tape system installed that recorded everything, 24 hours a day, but at that time voice conversations were recorded on individual cassette tapes with a machine for each operator. When the tape ran out and the operator eventually realised, that was the signal to eject it, label it and replace it. Nobody had the slightest faith in the system and I cannot remember it ever being referred to.

The room gradually became more technologically based with the introduction of central control of the Matrix systems on the county's motorways. All calls from the motorway emergency telephone boxes sited at mile intervals came into the dedicated motorway control area in the room and the electronic wall maps must have looked like something from NASA to the Tuesday evening visitors.

Old Pale Delamere

But the systems were analogue and unreliable and dependant on engineers at Old Pale in Delamere or Gwynescor in North Wales to climb masts and 'tweek' the aerials. It would be many years before the advent of digital technology.

After my transfer to Chester I was still travelling from our home in Crewe and it was an absolute bind. One morning I was passed a teleprinter message, we had been allocated a police house in Blacon and I was to get three estimates for the removal. Blacon? I was forever answering emergency calls from the residents of the Blacon area and although I'd never been there I had a mental picture of the place. That vision was confirmed by the laughter of my colleagues and the look on Sergeant Harry Waddilove's face.

“Don't take it”, he said, “the place is like the bloody wild west”.

Just then Chief Superintendent Desmond Southwell head of Traffic Operations, walked in and enquired what was causing the general mirth. He was handed the message, took one look at it and said, “Follow me”.

On the way up to the fourth floor he reminded me that we currently occupied his old house in Moreton Road, Wistaston, and there was no way that 'you and your young family' were going to live in some kind of third world hovel in Blacon. Blacon, tcsh!

We arrived at the office of Chief Superintendent Tommy Carter, Headquarters Administration, and he barged straight in.

“Tommy”, he said, “ This officer has been allocated a police house in hell forsaken Blacon and I'm telling you it's just not on. He's got a young family and I don't want him to leave a decent house in Crewe and downgrade to a shit-hole in Blacon”.

He thoughtfully blew his cigarette smoke away from the desk in a defiant manner.

“You don't know what your talking about, Mr Southwell”, the chief superintendent retorted in his angriest version of a whining administrative voice, “it's a perfectly good house, I'd live there, if I was made to”.

He spoke to his secretary on the intercom and demanded the file for 2 Cairn's Crescent be brought to him immediately.

File..How we saw it

The green file was laid on his desk and he opened it. On the inner cover was a large black and white picture of a brand spanking new detached house with garden and garage, one of two on a corner plot. It was upside down but as Des Southwell and I craned in for a better look it was clear that Mr Carter was right. It was a dream home, the sort the likes of me could only aspire to.

“Well”, said Desmond, nonchalantly, “We'll get the keys and go and have a look at it. Then we'll probably still have to refuse it”.

2 Cairns Crescent nearly 50 years on

As we turned the corner it was exactly as shown in the photograph except that now it was in full colour and the right way up. The modern house was on the edge of a new estate of houses and low rise flats, with a park area complete with children's swings and roundabouts on one side and the other, identical house, on the other. In between there was a purpose built single story police office.

Des Southwell grinned knowingly and I offered him a replacement cigarette.

Where I once 'cut mustard' they now cut hair

The police houses are now owned privately and the little office in between is a thriving 'Village' Barber's shop. The sergeant's office where in the mid-seventies I 'cut mustard' with the locals is now a 'salon' for cutting their hair.

Des Southwell was a real asset to Cheshire Constabulary (he would never
countenance anyone calling the force Cheshire Police) and a life-long servant of the Boy Scouts Organization as it was then known, annually putting on a production of The Gang Show at the Gateway Theatre.

He was the enemy of 'elitism' of any sort and banned the formation of 'elite' squads. For some reason that only the highest echelons of past senior ranks will ever know, when Chief Superintendent of Traffic Operations, he and his charismatic deputy, Superintendent John Mason-Brown were unceremoniously given the chop, in what became known as 'The Night of the Long Knives', an act of supreme treachery by anyone's standards.

John Wynn and Des Southwell
Leading from the front as usual 

And just a final word about Des. He was the most convivial of people in any social situation, a delight to be on his side in high falutin' meetings and a real grounded individual with the sharpest mind-set. He was also the most difficult person to have a one to one conversation with on any subject. He would always take the lead, argue the ins and outs of a mouse's ear from every direction and angle; and leave his 'opponent' floundering with nothing to contribute or add value to the discourse, except froth and drivel.

So within a week or so we had flitted to our new home and settled in. Our new neighbours, Constable Ray Hall, his wife Angela and their two children in the mirror image house, welcomed us warmly.

Constable Richard Adderley, his wife Mary and son Nigel (now a well known sports commentator) lived just around the corner in Melbourne Road and beyond them, Detective Constable (later Superintendent) Deryk Farmer.

It was Ray Hall that had introduced us to an insurance salesman, of whom we took an instant dislike. Incredibly he later he became an integral part of our family.

AMP Headquarters in Perth Australia

Many police officers in Cheshire, Merseyside and North Wales will remember Colin Morris of the Australian Mutual Provident Society, with great affection and appreciation for his assistance in enabling them to purchase their first homes. Colin operated in a small 'syndicate' with Eric London of the Yorkshire Building Society, David Morris a solicitor from Heswall and himself. Somehow between them they managed to secure up to 100% 'endowment' mortgages so paving the way for police officers to get onto the housing ladder, us included.

Colin Morris and pipe

As 'the insurance man' settled into the comfiest chair in our lounge, cup of tea at hand and lighting his gnarled pipe of 'Aintree Mixture' for the umpteenth time, he rudely enquired if we were saving to buy a house of our own and if so, how much did we have? Cheeky bugger, the answer is no, we have hardly enough to get through each month.

“Right”, he said, “It's your pay-day next Tuesday, so write me a post dated cheque for say, thirty pounds and I will bring you a Yorkshire Building Society pass-book with it credited. Every month without fail I'll come and collect your savings”.

What a face this bloke had. Nevertheless, I wrote the cheque immediately and handed it to him. Three days later he returned with our shiny new deposit book, credited with £30 and nestled in a real plastic wallet. He called every month from then on and collected our donation to the 'Yorkshire' housing fund.

So began our first savings account since we were married and our first meeting with Colin Morris ignited a close friendship and bond that lasted until his death.

During our long lifetime I have met and associated with thousand upon thousand of individuals but only a few, a very small number that you can count on one hand, have made such a difference that my direction in life has consequenly shifted course. Think back, I just bet that you recognize this too?

Colin Townsend Guy Morris was one of those people. Jean Paul Satre and his coterie would have called this phenomenon, 'existentialism'.

Commodore George G. Morris CBE

Incidentally, Colin was the son of an illustrious father, George Guy Morris. George Morris had run away to sea at the age of fourteen and embarked on a career in the Merchant Navy running with the White Star Line and then, in the nineteen-twenties signing up with Cunard. He worked his way up the ladder and eventually became captain of passenger liners, their names always ending in 'ia', Mauretania, Carpathia and Etruria for example; on the transatlantic route between Liverpool and North America.

During WWII, operating his ship as a troop carrier, he diverted in mid Atlantic and rescued the whole crew of a stricken American navy vessel that was sinking and for his endeavours, was awarded a distinguished order of merit by the American President Franklin D. Roosevelt.

Entertaining Royalty

He was captain of RMS Queen Mary and RMS Queen Elizabeth at the absolute zenith of luxury cruising, when everyone of note; royalty, film stars and the movers and shakers of industry travelled, not by air but in great style by sea. He mixed with the great and the good as required but he would always prefer beans on toast in his cabin.

An AWOL New York Tug

He once drew the wroth of Cunard's owners and the powerful American stevedore unions at the same time, to the sheer delight of his affluent and influential passengers. Half way between Liverpool and New York he was ordered to turn around and return to base as the New York harbour tug-boat men had gone on strike. He continued to his destination, passed Ellis Island and lined-up to dock without tug assistance. Gradually, Queen Mary eased into her berth by manoeuvring backwards and forwards, whilst the crew dropped slips of paper overboard to monitor the swell. All hell broke loose afterwards.

His escapades and antics didn't damage his career because he later became Commodore (Chief Captain) of the Cunard Fleet. Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth awarded him with Commander of the British Empire for his services to seafaring. By contrast, I once spoke with a retired steward on Queen Mary who described his captain as the most fearsome man to encounter in you didn't perform your duties consistently well, despite Morris' diminutive five feet six inches stature.

RMS Queen Mary
Long Beach California

RMS Queen Mary is now berthed in Long Island, California and is preserved as a hotel and visitor attraction. If you climb to the captain's cabin, on the wall outside you will see portraits of all her captain's and there is George, resplendent in full uniform, as in this photograph above.

Captain's cabin, RMS Queen Mary

Toward the end of his life I would spend hours with George Morris fascinated by tales of his adventures and encounters, which he retold in finite detail,

“I remember in 1929, it was a Wednesday and it had been raining all morning when...”.

I still have his sea chest and treasure the letters written to him by his passengers and colleagues in the most affectionate terms, the likes of the American industrialist Mr Johnson, of Johnson and Johnson fame and Captain Robert H. Monks of the White Star Line; sent to his accommodation address, "Commodore G.H. Morris, RMS Queen Elizabeth, 365 Broadway, New York".

A truly great man who spent his last days in his basement flat, provided by the Charitable Freemasonry organization, of which he was a lifelong member.

Our new luxury police house at 2 Cairns Crescent had been previously occupied for a few months and there were some snags and bits of decorating that required attention so I ask that they be fixed. To my surprise they agreed to have the whole house redecorated, top to bottom. The work took a full week and it wasn't until Friday tea-time that the decorators collected their tools and left, the fresh paint still wet.

Lorraine made tea for us, chips and egg as it happens and as the house was still a bit of a tip we ate it on our knees in the lounge, whilst we watched Hughie Green's talent show on the television. When the adverts came on I got up and filled the kettle to make a cup of tea, placed it on the gas cooker and lit the gas ring.

When I returned to the lounge there was a really talented magic act on so the four of us sat and watched it, enthralled. How the heck did he do that?

The loud banging on the window behind us gave us all a right fright. The neighbour from across the road, Ginger, a plucky fellow, was ranting something like, “Get out, get out, your house is on fire”. Apparently thick black smoke was billowing out of the open kitchen window, alerting the neighbours opposite.

I knew instantly in my mind's eye what had happened. I grabbed the two kids and frog-marched them to the front door and pushed them outside. I couldn't get to the kitchen to deal with the situation with a wet T towel because every time I got the kids to safety, one or the other kept running back inside. It was a nightmare.

Eventually, I broke free and ran back through the lounge and diner and opened the kitchen door, to be met by a wall of flames and smoke. The chip pan was well alight, flames licking the ceiling and curling towards the door. Meanwhile Ginger entered through the back door, smothered the flames with a towel and threw the flaming pan through the open window. Not the recommended way such fires should be resolved.

The fire brigade were there eventually but not before the kitchen was pretty much destroyed and the rest of the house, every room, upstairs and down, smoke damaged.

It wasn't easy explaining to Mr Carter that it was I who had been responsible for setting fire to his newly decorated, top spec police house that he had so recently, kindly loaned to me and my family. It's fair to say that he wasn't greatly impressed either when I 'coughed' that it was actually me who had lit the gas ring under the chip pan by mistake but judging by his face I didn't think that he had anticipated any admission of guilt at all anyway. His eyes rolled-up when I tried to mitigate the offence by saying we had now got rid of the offending chip-pan for good.

It was several weeks before we got the house re-re-decorated and back to normal. When I close my eyes and think about the unfortunate episode I can still smell the permeating fatty smoke damage. We've never had a chip pan since.

In September 1971 I went before the Promotion Board to qualify for promotion to sergeant and came away with an endorsement to progress to the next rank, not that I expected any progress to happen anytime soon. Despite my earlier distinct lack of ambition in the promotion stakes, I was now firmly aboard the roller coaster of rank indefinitely.

I did realize that, after three years in the Force Information Room, I would need to return to operational policing and get my head down again at the sharp-end of the job. I had been in the Information Room just over three years.

So I applied to return to traffic duties and June 1973 and was transferred to Chester Divisional Traffic Unit based at Chester. Quite a slick move really as I was expecting to have to move our home yet again to some far flung division perchance and uproot the kids from their school and nursery, where they were settling in well.

So, once again, it was time for me to move on...

Next time:

Back to traffic patrol policing...

It had taken ten long years but, newly promoted, I'm back in at the deep end; how proud my Dad would have been if he'd lived to see it happen...

And a new challenge, appointed by Superintendent Peter Annals as 'Sheriff of the Wild West of Chester'.