Constable Through the Meadow (19 page)

The rest of us echoed those thoughts and pressed Justin to try on his new suit. In the face of such demands, he disappeared down the cell passage to change.

A few minutes later, he emerged in his new outfit. In a handsome dark worsted, it was a three-piece in the very latest style and it was a perfect fit. Justin was the epitome of a smart and successful City gentleman.

There was a stunned silence from his audience.

‘How about that, then?’ he beamed, doing a twirl. ‘This is style, gentlemen,’ he said. ‘I never knew such clothing was obtainable in the north.’

‘Bloody hell, you must be deformed!’ laughed Vesuvius, going across and tugging the jacket. ‘It’s perfect …’

And so it was. We admired the suit; it was superb in every sense and the quality and fit was undeniable. Justin was so proud and, to be honest, we were all pleased for him. Looking back, it would have been a tragedy if it had been a gross misfit, and so later that afternoon he hurried away to travel down to the wedding in London.

Our joke had misfired, and perhaps it was a good job it had. But later that evening when I was relaxing at home, the
telephone
rang. It was John Golding.

‘That suit you picked up this morning, Mr Rhea,’ he began. ‘Have you still got it?’

‘I haven’t, John, no. I delivered it to my colleague.’

‘Where is it now?’ he asked.

‘In London, I’d say,’ I told him, and explained the reason.

‘Oh, crumbs,’ he said. ‘That’s torn it!’

‘Why?’ I asked, wondering what John’s problem could be.

‘Well, it was the wrong one,’ John said. ‘That should have gone to a chap in Thirsk, and I reckon he’s got that ’un your friend ordered. He reckons it doesn’t fit him.’

‘I think he’s mistaken, John,’ I said, trying to cover for Justin. ‘Justin’s was perfect, he’s gone to a wedding in it and he was delighted. I saw him wearing it, he got the right suit, I’m sure. Maybe you could alter the Thirsk one and say nothing about the possible mistake?’

‘Aye, mebbe I should. I’ll tell yon Thirsk chap he’s got the right ’un, they’re t’same cloth. Thanks, Mr Rhea.’

I never told Justin he’d been given the wrong suit, nor did I tell Vesuvius and the other constables. I let Justin think we could produce the finest suits, and it was several weeks later when there was another repercussion.

‘How did the wedding go?’ I asked Justin one day when we were chatting.

He told me all about it and then, as an afterthought, he
added, ‘Oh, by the way, that suit you helped me with. You should have seen the admiring looks I got; my family and friends were most impressed, Nick, most impressed. In fact, several of them are ordering suits from Mr Golding. I can’t wait to see their faces when they receive them.’

‘Neither can I,’ I said with some honesty.

One of the funniest jokes was the one played upon poor Douglas Gregson and his girlfriend Deirdre. Douglas was a farmer’s son who lived in Crampton with his parents.

Aged about twenty-five, Douglas was not the brightest of lads; in fact he was very simple-minded and worked as a labourer on his parents’ large and busy farm. He was capable of doing as he was told, and his physical strength enabled him to undertake most of the tasks about the farm. A very good worker, he was not mentally ill, but merely rather slow when it came to using his brain.

He was strongly built with powerful shoulders and a neck like a bull, although he was very gentle-natured. With his short brown hair and big brown eyes, he was a fine-looking lad, but as his father said, ‘Oor Douglas was at t’back o’ t’queue when God was dishing out brains.’

His parents were ordinary hard-working farmers, and his father enjoyed working with horses; indeed, he kept several on the farm, as well as a collection of fine horse-drawn vehicles including a stage coach and several traps. He would take these to local agricultural shows and galas, where he would provide rides in them for charity. Douglas was quite a capable driver too, and would often take the reins of his father’s coaches, carts and traps.

Then Douglas found a girlfriend. Deirdre was the niece of a couple in Crampton and she came to visit them from time to time. She was not too bright either and was a plain but pleasant girl a couple of years younger than Douglas. She wore her dull brown hair in a bobbed cut and had pretty pink cheeks and grey eyes. Heavily built and somewhat slow in her movements, her surname was Wharton.

Deirdre lived in Middlesbrough where she had a mundane job with the Corporation and she loved to come to the
countryside
.
Her long-standing, platonic friendship with Douglas meant she paid regular weekend visits to Crampton and there is no doubt the couple were ideal for one another. She loved to go on outings alone with Douglas and they were sometimes
accompanied
by his family or her aunt and uncle.

It was during one of those outings on a lovely summer day in June, that someone played a prank on the happy pair. Douglas had been allowed to take a pony and trap for a drive and this delighted Deirdre. With her sitting in the trap like a lady, Douglas had driven along the lanes until he had found a place to halt. It was a field through which a footpath led to a lovely walk along the banks of the river to an old mill, and then across the water via a footbridge and back to this field over another
pack-horse
bridge. The local people enjoyed this as a Sunday
afternoon
walk, for it took a little over an hour.

At the entrance to the field, Douglas had tied the horse’s long reins to a small tree beside the five-barred gate and had then escorted Deirdre upon this delightful stroll. The horse could move around and was able to munch the grass, even though it was still between the shafts of the trap. But a prankster saw a wonderful opportunity for a joke upon Douglas. This unknown person had discovered the unattended pony and trap and had clearly known it belonged to Douglas.

He had unhitched the pony and, with considerable skill, had manhandled the light trap. This was really a governess cart of the kind used for taking children on outings; it had two seats facing inwards, mudguards over the wheels and a low rear door. Ideal for country lanes, it was very light and manoeuvrable, even by hand. The prankster was able to place the tips of its twin shafts between the bars of the gate and the gap between the bars was sufficient for the entire length of the shafts to go through. Thus the front panels of the cart were tight against the gate, with the shafts protruding at the other side, and then the joker had backed the pony between the shafts and had
re-hitched
it.

When Douglas and Deirdre had returned, this sight had baffled them. Neither could understand how the pony had somehow caused the gate to become inextricably intertwined with the shafts of the trap. And Douglas, not being the brightest
of lads, could not see a way to undo this problem. His answer was to use his strength. The space between the bars allowed him to lift the gate off its hinges, then he put Deirdre aboard the trap and jumped up himself.

And then he set a course for home with the gate still fastened in position; its width filled the lane and provided the wonderful sight of a mobile five-barred gate being carried between a pony and trap. And that’s how I found them. I was driving my mini-van towards Crampton when this sight confronted me. I could not get past on the narrow road and pulled on to the verge where I signalled Douglas to stop.

‘Now then, Douglas,’ I said. ‘What have we got here?’

‘A five-barred gate, Mr Rhea, from yon field down by t’beck.’

‘Ah.’ I knew the field in question. ‘And how’s it come to be here? Did you run into it or something?’

‘Nay, I didn’t, but how it’s come to get tangled up with my cart is summat I shall never know, Mr Rhea,’ he said with all seriousness.

‘Why, what happened?’ I was now very curious about it for at this stage, I did not know what had occurred. As he pondered aloud, Deirdre sat silently in the trap, frowning as she puzzled over the answer.

‘Well,’ he said slowly. ‘I got into t’field, tied up my awd pony and set off walking. I mean, we didn’t crash through t’gate or owt like that. It was in t’field by this time, safe and sound, Mr Rhea, both t’pony and t’trap. And when we got back, yon pony must have got loose or summat, because it had got itself tangled up like yon. Now how it managed to do that, I’ll never know, so I thought I’d take it home and get yon gate off. I might have to saw it off, it looks fairly well fastened on, eh?’

‘If we unhitch your pony,’ I said. ‘We could slide that gate off, eh? And then we can put it back before somebody thinks you’ve stolen it.’

‘Stolen it? I’d never do that, Mr Rhea.’ He looked very worried at this suggestion.

‘I know you wouldn’t, Douglas, so let’s get it off.’

I felt that the best way would be to drive pony and trap back to the field, for this was the easiest way to carry the gate to its
former position. To manhandle that gate off those shafts as the trap stood here on its two wheels wouldn’t be easy, so I jumped aboard and Douglas drove us back to the field. There, he skilfully positioned the trap into the space between the hedges and we inched the gate into its former position. There was sufficient room for me and Douglas to manipulate it back on to its hinges while still resting upon those shafts, and when it was secure, we unhitched the pony, withdrew the trap from the gate, and re-assembled the unit.

‘There,’ I said to Douglas and Deirdre. ‘Now you can go home without this gate.’

‘By gum, Mr Rhea, that was a clever move. Who’d have thought of that, eh?’

‘Who indeed?’ I wondered who had done this to Douglas and guessed that, sooner or later, the culprit would approach him to find out how he’d coped with the gate. Maybe I would never know of that discussion.

But the happy couple then drove home and I heard no more about the prank with the five-barred gate. I’m still convinced, however, that neither Douglas nor Deirdre thought it was the work of a prankster. They thought the pony had done it.

Prominent among the wonderful aspects of welfare within the police service are the police convalescent homes. There are two in England and they provide facilities for serving or retired officers who are recuperating from sickness or injury.
Supported
by voluntary contributions from every serving officer, they are havens of rest for those who wish to recover quietly from a serious ailment or injury. Many officers make use of them, for it is here they can enjoy a relaxed and cheerful atmosphere coupled with the undivided attention of dedicated staff. These are not hospitals; their function is to consolidate the work of the doctors and hospitals by providing after-care
facilities
for rest and recuperation away from domestic and
professional
pressures. And most certainly, they do a fine job.

The following account is not mine, therefore, because it comes from a friend who spent some time in one of the
convalescent
homes, and I feel it is worthy of inclusion at this point as we are discussing practical jokes.

I will call my friend Dave; after a serious illness he was advised to spend some weeks in the Northern Police
Convalescent
Home in order to encourage a full recovery. Once inside, he was one of a group of about thirty officers, men and women of all ranks representing most of the northern police forces. The friendly atmosphere was evident from the moment he stepped inside, and one of the things he noticed, as a constable, was that the rank structure was abolished.

In the workaday routine of the police service, especially among the provincial forces, ranks are strictly honoured, with sergeants always being called ‘Sergeant’ by the constables. Sometimes, very unofficially, they would be called ‘Serge’, but the lower rank must never address anyone of higher rank by his or her Christian name.

Sergeants and constables then address inspectors and anyone above that rank as ‘sir’; inspectors call chief inspectors ‘sir’; both call a superintendent ‘sir’, and so forth up the scale. Chief superintendents, assistant chief constables, deputy chief constables and chief constables are all ‘sir’ to those who are subordinate to them. In the London Metropolitan Police, the higher ranks include commanders, deputy assistant
commissioners
, assistant commissioners and a deputy commissioner with, of course, the Commissioner himself, all of whom are addressed as ‘sir’. In the case of lady police officers, sergeants are called by that name, whereas inspectors and those of senior rank are addressed as ‘ma’am’. Within the CID hierarchy, the ranks are the same, i.e. detective constables, detective
sergeants
, detective inspectors, detective chief inspectors,
detective
superintendents and detective chief superintendents.

Throughout the service, this hierarchy is strictly honoured because police officers are members of a highly disciplined body with an enormous amount of formality; inevitably, this leads to a powerful consciousness of rank through every aspect of a police officer’s life.

For officers of all ranks to be thrown together into a common pool can be a traumatic experience, especially if they are
supposed
to be off duty and recovering from sickness in a friendly environment. No one wants his boss breathing down his neck when he is recovering from sickness. This was recognised by
those in charge of the convalescent homes, and it was felt that, within those walls, all distinction between ranks should be abolished. After all, a constable could hardly feel relaxed if his table companion or snooker partner was known to be a deputy chief constable, albeit from another police area.

When officers were admitted therefore, their ranks were not known to the other residents. They were simply Miss, Mrs or Mr. Obviously, instances did occur when one officer was known to another which meant that his rank was also known, but this was a comparatively rare event because of the huge catchment area. Many officers found themselves sharing their convalescence with complete strangers, and this was the ideal situation. The decision whether or not to reveal one’s rank rested with individuals.