summer 2009 city police pensioners newsletter

Inside this issue:

Jan Jones 2

Dave Davies 3

The Senior Brigade 4

Friends United 4

Letters of Tribute 10

Pensioners ‘Down Under’ 11

Rob Gerrad’s Book Corner 12

Snow Admin Luncheon 15

London Marathon Results 16

Cloak Lane Association 17

Association Ex-CID Off 18

Dobar Dan from Livino 19

John Cardwell writes. 20

PENSIONERS

NEWSLETTER Welfare Uni t

C i ty o f London Po l ice

Walbrook Wharf

78/83 Upper Thames Street

London, EC4R 3TD

Summer 2009

Ok where do I start? Well that’s pretty easy initially. Welcome to the Summer 2009 Newsletter! Then it gets a bit more difficult. I will introduce myself in due course but first, I must pose the question: How does anyone follow on from John Hussey?

The answer is of course – they don’t. John has proved himself to be a most hard working and loyal member of the City of London Police family.

I know that many of you have first hand experience of John’s support and compassion during extremely difficult and tragic times and will join me in wishing him all the very best in retire-ment and a long and happy life draw-ing his pension!

John's post as the Force Welfare Offi-cer is still to be advertised and filled at the time of going to press. One of the new incumbent’s roles will be to over-see the Newsletter. Until then, I (as a newly qualified pensioner), have of-fered to help out.

In the absence of any other volunteer at this time, I am taking up the role as ‘Guest Editor’. This could be likened to the ‘Guest Host’ type of position that has formed part of the popular TV news quiz ‘Have I Got News for You’ ever since Angus Deayton was caught sniffing illegal substances and

cavort-ing with ‘ladies of the night’. Not of course, that I am suggest-ing any parallel in John

Hussey’s professional or private life! No, all I am saying is that I will proba-bly only be editing one or maybe two issues until a full time person is ap-pointed.

You will already have noticed the new format. This is just a trial and I would be extremely grateful of any feedback. For those members who are happy using computers and I know that won’t be everyone (how did we ever function without them?), but for those who are happy, this issue will also be available by email.

This should be a bonus to all those members who are now tippy tapping the old golf clubs or lounging on beaches in far flung corners of the world. You don’t have to wait weeks for the snail mail to arrive; you can keep up to date at the touch of a but-ton!

Happy days.

Chris Pearson

Guest Editor

Just a bit about myself for those of you who don’t know me.

I have been a retired officer since April 2009. I might just be a tad too young too hang up my boots for good so I will soon be joining the Civil Nuclear Constabu-lary (non Home Office force formerly known as the Atomic Energy Police), as a sergeant and by the time this goes to print, I will should have started my new career.

I joined the City in 1981 after five years service with the 1st Battalion Grenadier Guards.

FOLLOW THAT!

PS Chris Pearson

John Hussey

Me, me, me...

More inside

For the mathematicians

amongst you, I didn’t com-

plete 30 years service, well

spotted. I retired two years

early on a full pension due

to two years carried over

from the Army for good

conduct (I don’t know what

happened to the other

three years, I suppose they

must have been the years

when my conduct wasn’t

so good).I started as a

uniform PC on ‘D’ Group at

Snow Hill and my first

group Inspector was Tony

Beale (I hope you’re read-

ing this Guv’nor – I made

it)! I spent two years in CID

and made Detective Con-

stable in 1986. However,

being an ex Guardsman

my true vocation has al-

ways been uniform!

So I returned to Division in

a ‘big hat’ as they say and

soon joined the Force Spe-

cial Operations Group

(SOG’s). This was the be-

ginning of 3 long attach-

ments to the SOG’s and

many a happy day spent in

full public order kit whilst

highly excited people threw

bricks at me and rejoiced

in setting me aflame (and I

am not just talking about

John Cardwell here). I

have had the good fortune

to have worked on the Poll

Tax riot, J18, many

‘Mayday’ extravaganzas,

the Miner’s strike and even

the ‘Stop the City’ demon-

strations of the early eight-

ies.

I spent three years as a

Physical training Instructor

at Ashford Police Training

Centre and managed to

wangle a 6 month attach-

ment to the island of St

Helena in 1996.

Due to a lack of opportu-

nity for promotion in the

City I transferred to the

British Transport Police as

a sergeant in 2000. I

worked on their equivalent

FOLLOW THAT! (cont inued)

“I

hope you’re reading

this guv’nor—I

made it!”

EDITOR

of the SOG’s and man-

aged to find more people

to throw bricks at me. I

also attended the scenes

of three train crashes in

three years (Selby, Hat-

field and Potters Bar) as a

search officer.

In 2003 I transferred back

to the City, rejoined the

SOG’s and remained there

until retirement.

Chris Pearson

C I T Y O F L O N D O N

P O L I C E

Jan Jones

DEATH IN SERVICE

It is with great sadness that I have to report the death of PC 699CP Jan Jones who died of suspected heart complications. She passed away on 24th February 2009, aged 43.

Jan’s death has had a major impact on members of the Force. It was totally unexpected and came completely out of the blue, which has added to the shock and sadness felt by all those who new her. A small family service and cremation took place in Pembroke, Wales on Friday 27th March. Six uniformed officers and two mounted section represented the force on the day. The force also sent a wreath.

Instead of flowers the family asked for donations to the British

Heart Foundation.

Letters of tribute - page 10

EULOGY

represent the force, espe-cially after the first London Marathon in 1981, with whom Dave had close links.

He sold it to me after I lis-tened to his euphoric ac-count of the event, making it sound like the charge of the light brigade in trainers.

We all suffered the 26 miles in varying levels of pain, but he knew we were hooked, and would do it again.

Dave loved athletics, and loved to run. Long before we all had our first pair of running shoes, he was al-ready an established mem-ber of his beloved club Bel-grave Harriers.

Christine and I often re-ferred to Dave when speak-ing to our own running friends. They knew Dave quite well, although they never actually met him.

We enjoyed many social events together. I can espe-cially recall the time that

Chris, myself, Dave and Margaret went to Blackpool for the Marathon.

The night before the event, we all went to a quaint local dance at a hotel. Dave won the spot prize of a hair-brush,

We were all greatly amused when Dave demonstrated single hair separation!

Dave was our friend and inspiration. To me he epito-mised the spirit of athletics, and all it’s pleasures, and pain. Chariots Of Fire could have been written for him.

With all our memories of Dave Davies, he truly is for me, Legendary and Irre-placeable.

Bob Fox

Upon my retirement from the City of London Police, at which Dave and Judy were present, I talked at some length about my participa-tion in Athletics, and re-ferred to Dave as being “The legendary Dave Da-vies”.

Dave became the catalyst that encouraged me, and all the other budding athletes to run.

Dave made friends easily. I remember on numerous occasions attending the annual National Police Championships, and being introduced to others from different forces, It was easy to sense the respect and affection that they too had for Dave.

His limitless enthusiasm and gentle charm, persuaded even some non-believers to run.

It was because of this infec-tious enthusiasm and en-couragement, that he con-vinced so many of us to

“..he

epitomized

the spirit of

athletics and

all it’s

pleasures.”

Summer 2009

Dave as we all remember

him!


P O L I C E

It is with further sadness that I must report on the

recent death of ex Police Sergeant 72’B’ Dave

Davies.

Dave was one of my first Sergeants when I joined

the force and I will always remember him as a

true gentleman. The Eulogy from Dave’s memo-

rial has kindly been forwarded by Bob Fox.

PS 72B DAVE DAVIES

‘THE SENIOR BRIGADE’

PENSIONERS NEWSLETTER


P O L I C E

80 or over on 31st June 2009 Age Joined Service Pensioned

1. Ex PC 633’E’ Bill WHITE 97 09.07.36 10.08.72

2. Ex PS 22’B’ Henry TYSON 95 17.01.35 01.09.62

3. Ex DS 903’E’ Wally HAILES 94 19.05.38 25.10.68

4. Ex Ass Comm Wally STAPLETON 93 28.05.36 01.07.76

5. Ex PS 93’E’ Bill GALLAFENT 90 22.08.46 01.09.76

6. Ex PC 404’E’ Dickie FARMER 90 10.10.49 01.08.65

7. Ex Det Ch Supt Phil COPPACK 89 26.09.46 30.05.78

8. Ex Ch Insp Eric ELLWOOD-WADE 88 13.02.47 28.04.75

9. Ex PS 23 ‘B’ Ted STUBBS 87 20.09.48 07.01.74

10. Ex Ch Insp Jimmy GREEN 87 27.02.41 09.10.72

11. Ex PC 700’E’ Fred CHAMBERLAIN 87 13.03.47 20.09.76

12. Ex Det Ch Supt Sid SMITH 87 02.01.47 02.20.79

13. Ex PS 75 ‘C’ Fred BUTTERFIELD 87 27.05.48 01.06.76

14. Ex PC 611 ‘E’ Jim MURRELL 86 12.05.52 12.02.73

15. Ex PC 172 ‘B’ George FELL 86 27.04.53 03.10.82

16. Ex PS 27 ‘E’ Laurie LACEY 85 12.05.52 23.01.78

17. Ex Insp Stan GEALE 85 10.04.47 01.07.77

18. Ex PC 274 ‘B’ John AITKEN 85 29.04.48 23.12.76

19. Ex PC 658 ‘D’ Cyril BREEZE 85 22.03.54 19.09.79

20. Ex PC 457 ‘C’ Bert HEAPS 85 27.04.53 01.09.83

21. Ex Ch Supt Ken SHORT 84 29.04.48 10.05.76

22. Ex PS 44 ‘E’ Albert PARRY 84 26.01.53 03.05.83

23. Ex PS 35 ‘E’ Cyril TOLHURST 84 24.01.55 28.01.85

24. Ex PC 729 ‘D’ Martin WALSHIE 83 07.08.47 01.10.76

25. Ex PC 678 ‘D’ Harry JORDAN 83 27.02.47 03.09.79

26. Ex Det Ch Insp Jack LEPPARD 83 26.02.48 11.01.82

27. Ex PC 709 ‘E’ W R WHITE 83 13.02.50 31.08.84

28. Ex PC 645 ‘D’ Ron EDRUPT 83 17.08.53 20.04.81

29. Ex PS 8 ‘B’ Ron GOLDSON 83 09.02.53 19.02.86

30. Ex Det Ch Supt Mark KIRKWOOD 83 21.04.52 12.11.84

31. Ex Insp Donald BULL 82 26.02.48 01.03.78

32. Ex PS 104 ‘C’ Gordon MUFFETT 82 08.06.53 13.06.83

33. Ex PC 477 ‘B’ John THACKER 82 20.01.52 04.07.77

34. Ex PC 606 ‘D’ Charles TORRANCE 82 25.05.52 06.02.78

35. Ex PC 425 ‘E’ Ted BUCKLE 82 27.02.50 03.03.75

as a security consultant to finan-cial institutions. Pauline was a stalwart of the church's amateur dramatics society, a part-time medical receptionist and still a full-time mother to her three chil-dren, though they were now grown up. The phone call came one Mon-day morning from the then boy-friend of their eldest daughter, who had been watching the news. The news item was about a group of tourists on the border of Uganda and Congo who, on a trek to see mountain gorillas, had been taken hostage and marched off into the jungle by Hutu militiamen, the Interahamwe, on the run from neighbouring Rwanda. The Friends' only son, Martin, aged 24, was in Af-rica on a belated gap year, and that phone call was to make sure that Mar-tin had not been in the wrong place at the wrong time. Julia Friend wandered into the kitchen to ask her mother where her brother would be, and after that nothing was

Ron Friend promised readers an update on the School he was raising money to build in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, in memory of his son Martin. Originally printed in The Observer Newspaper on Sunday 9th November 2008, it is reproduced here in full. In the heart of the bloodiest region of Africa's bloodiest war, a couple from Kent have built a school in memory of their murdered son. Tim Adams reports Ron and Pauline Friend are greeted by vil-lagers as thy arrive for the opening of their school in Mishashu, eastern Congo. Photo-graph: Andy Hall This is a story about the ways in which, for worse and for better, all the world is con-nected. It begins in Orpington in Kent in 1999 with a phone call, and it ends nine years later in the eastern Congo, one of the most remote and hostile places on earth, with the opening of a school. The phone call that began the story was made to the house of Ron and Pauline Friend, a couple for whom the term 'salt of the earth' might have been invented. Ron, a former commander of the City police force in London, was then semi-retired, working

ever the same again. Pauline knew that her son was in Uganda, she had his itinerary etched in her mind, she knew he had been planning to go on the gorilla trek, one of the highlights of the tour. She knew immediately, too, in the way that a mother knows, that he was one of those that had been abducted. Ron and Pauline Friend are explaining some of this to me as we are preparing to board a UN helicopter in Uvira, the easternmost town in what, over the past decade, has been the bloodiest place on earth. The Friends, in their

FRIENDS UNITED: HOW ONE BRITISH COUPLE ARE BRINGING HOPE

TO THE CHILDREN OF CONGO

Summer 2009


P O L I C E

80 or over on 31st June 2009 Age Joined Service Pensioned

36. Ex DC 458 ‘E’ Les HOLLETT 82 27.04.53 13.09.79

37. Ex PC 188 ‘E’ Francis McPHERSON 82 30.10.50 31.10.76

38. Ex Det Insp Gerald WALLACE 82 05.02.48 06.02.87

39. Ex DS 912 ‘E’ Bill WEBSTER 82 01.04.48 12.02.77

40. Ex PS 78 ‘E’ Ron SCRIVEN 81 29.04.48 05.11.73

42. Ex PC 468 ‘E’ John SHERLOCK 81 22.06.53 01.07.83

43. Ex PC 121 ‘E’ Ron PIPER 81 05.11.51 16.11.81

44. Ex PC 460 ‘E’ Denis EDWARDS 81 26.07.54 28.08.84

45. Ex PC 420 ‘C’ Andrew GRAHAM 81 05.10.53 05.10.83

46. Ex PS Dick JOHNSON 81 13.04.53 13.04.78

47. Ex PS 108 ‘E’ Eddie JONES 81 13.10.52 01.03.78

48. Ex Insp Geoff LORTON 81 25.08.52 21.03.83

49. Ex PC 644 ‘E’ Dave PRONGER 81 20.07.53 05.09.83

50. Ex Ch Supt Donald SMITH 81 11.08.52 29.02.83

51. Ex DS 904 ‘E’ Len WILSON 81 16.02.53 28.02.83

52. Ex PC 445 ‘E’ Bob WILSON 81 20.12.54 18.02.84

53. Ex PC 453 ‘E’ Stanley ROBERTS 81 16.03.53 01.09.83

54. Ex PS 61 ‘E’ James MILLER 81 25.04.55 28.01.85

55. Ex PC 192 ‘E’ Ron WESTGATE 81 25.10.54 29.10.84

56. PC 237 ‘E’ Brian GARRY 80 24.01.55 22.12.84

pressed hiking clothes, are an anomalous couple in this semi-militarised place. Uvira is part of the lawless Congolese province of Kivu, which has seen the worst fighting in the most anonymous war of our times - one that has claimed the lives of nearly five million people. It is a conflict that has been fought among the armies of three countries, Rwanda, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Uganda, and which has involved ever-changing tribal militias. The 'First African World War' is currently being prosecuted with most force by the renegade Tutsi General Laurent Nkunda, who with Rwandan government backing has vowed to protect the native Tutsis of the province from both refu-gee Hutu groups and the Congolese army. The war, which has displaced hundreds of thousands of people to the north of Uvira, was sparked ini-tially by the mass exodus of hun-dreds of thousands of Rwandan Hutus; millions of innocents have been caught in the convulsions that followed. One of those innocents was Martin Friend. Ron and Pauline have come to Uvira on a mission of sorts, one they are anxious not to describe as 'closure'. Waiting for the helicopter, they recall it took them three awful days to con-firm their fears of Martin's death - the news was eventually conveyed to them by a Daily Mail journalist who knocked on their door (Martin's best mate chased him off up the road) - but they have relived those horrors every day since. The English-speaking tourists, 16 of them, were separated from the French speakers by the Interahamwe (on the basis that the British and US governments had 'supported' the Tutsis of Rwanda). Of those 16, eight were inexplicably released unharmed in the forest, and eight were murdered by guerrillas armed with clubs and machetes. You didn't need to be a police officer of Ron Friend's experience to know that there had been little chance of Martin's killers being brought to jus-tice. Investigations suggested over a hundred Interahamwe had been in what is called the Great Impenetra-ble Forest that night. No forensic evidence had been taken at the scene before the bodies were repa-

triated. Scotland Yard sent a couple of detectives to go through the mo-tions - the FBI were far more rigor-ous and got close to a trial - but proper convictions, any retributive justice, were never likely. To begin with, Ron and Pauline and their two daughters were bitter about that fact; they clung to each other, and to whatever other comfort they could find. They sat up long nights talking about Martin. 'There isn't a mother who has lost a son who wouldn't say this,' Pauline tells me at one point, 'but he was a spe-cial boy, he collected people. One of his friends said, "Do you know, Pauline, we never really felt the eve-ning had started until Martin ar-rived." And that is how he was. He made me laugh all the time.' 'He had,' Ron recalls, with love, 'quite an evil sense of humour. He was a sar-castic sod, but caring, too. The num-ber of people who described him to us as their best friend was unbeliev-able, a dozen or more people.' One small turning point came for them some months after Martin had died, when Ron saw a documentary about the families of the victims of the Marchioness tragedy on the Thames. It was the 10th anniversary of that disaster and the families were still battling to apportion blame for the deaths of their children. Watching it, Ron called the family together. That should not be how the coming years would be for them, he suggested. They would not be eaten up by anger, they would find another way. Ron was not sure what that way might be. He was disturbed beyond measure by the fact that in his grief he could not recall his son's face, or his voice: 'There was just a great emptiness.' However, of all the con-versations he had about the terrible events in the jungle, one stuck with him. It was something that the tour guide who had led Martin's group had said to him at the inquest. What she remembered most about Martin was how excited he was about the prospect of climbing Kilimanjaro after Uganda; he joked about reach-ing the summit on the day that his beloved Spurs reached the Wor-thington Cup final, and of finding a radio so he could listen to their tri-umph on top of the world. Thinking

about that, Ron made a resolution: he would climb the mountain in memory of his son, make a new connection with him; and so the journey to Africa began. The Kilimanjaro climb took place in the millennium year. To help organise the fundraising side of it Ron approached a charity he had been involved with, Children in Crisis. ('We thought it was right,' Pauline explains, 'because though Martin was 24 when he died, he never stopped being our child.') Children in Crisis, founded by the Duchess of York, is run by Mark McKeown; it is dedicated, in an ex-tremely direct way, to bringing educa-tion to children in places where gen-erations have been lost to war or pov-erty. McKeown climbed Kilimanjaro with Ron and one of his daughters. The expedition raised £130,000; it also brought Ron back in touch with his son. It gave them a shared pur-pose. Over the subsequent years, Ron and Pauline stayed close to the charity, working on fundraising, and all the time an idea was developing to create a lasting memorial to Martin. In 2005 McKeown talked of work he was em-barking on in Congo, the result of a walking tour of the country's high pla-teau with an irrepressible local pastor called Samson. The more McKeown talked about those who had lived for a long time with the fallout of other peo-ple's wars, wars refuelled by thou-sands of Interahamwe refugees, the more resonance the stories had for Ron. With Pauline's support he de-cided they would raise the money to build one of four schools in Congo that Children in Crisis was planning. Over two years, through quiz nights and garden parties, sponsored walks and the generosity of friends and col-leagues, they raised the £39,000 that was required to build the first ever per-manent school building in a place called Mishashu. To begin with, Pauline recalls in Uvira, she had reservations about the plan; she wondered whether the family should not just look out for each other, hold on to memories, close in against the world. 'I have to confess that I did wonder: should we be doing all this for people in Africa, which is where we lost Martin? But Ron and I talked, and he said these people have got noth-ing, they are brought up as victims,



P O L I C E

Summer 2009


P O L I C E

banditry is their only way out, and nothing is going to change unless they are educated to see there might be another life.' That faith in change is one of the things they have come here to test, and to prove. Mishashu is a very long way from Orpington. But having raised the money for the school McKeown in-sisted that Ron and Pauline had to be there at its opening. Pauline did not think she could do it; her night-mares about her son were still too vivid. 'One of the hardest things for me obviously over the nine years has been to get the pictures of Mar-tin's death out of my head,' she says. 'I have absolutely no idea if the pic-tures are true, but they don't go away.' Her anxiety has not been helped by the fact that the original school opening in June was post-poned because the Nkunda forces in the area had been shelling the air-strip, and the one road, through the world's second largest rainforest, had been made impassable by un-seasonal rains. But still, despite her fears, Pauline was here now, in Uvira, waiting for a helicopter. The Democratic Republic of Congo is the size of western Europe. Uvira is as far from the capital Kinshasa as Moscow is from London. The high plateau is about as upriver as you can go, way beyond Conrad's Mr Kurtz country. Che Guevara was based up here in the mid-Sixties in his abortive attempt to spread revo-lution to Africa. He and 100 Cuban fighters were run out of the place by the government forces of Mobutu and the mercenary army of 'Mad Mike' Hoare. The place Guevara described in his diaries, however, is not much changed. 'Women here are treated as mer-chandise,' he wrote, 'objects to be bought and sold. Once purchased, a woman becomes the absolute prop-erty of the owner, or husband - who generally doesn't work. In the areas occupied by the Congo army many more women were raped, and more children were murdered. The farmers were forced to provide the soldiers with food and other services. And what were they offered? Protection: none was given. Education, which could be a vehicle: none was of-fered ...' Forty years later Mark McKeown had

seen such lives still being lived when he came up to the plateau for the first time with Pastor Samson; they took a walk together for 100 or more miles across the rolling plains that had become one end of the conti-nent's biggest battlefield. Flying up over these plains in the UN helicop-ter, McKeown tells a representative story of the cattle-herding Banya-mulenge tribe of Tutsi origin who, persecuted for decades, forced out by Mobutu, still live here. The women spend most of their days pounding maize. At a public meet-ing, McKeown wondered aloud about the possibility of getting a mechanised grinding mill so that more of the women's time would be liberated, perhaps for education. One village elder stood up to say that he had paid two cows to buy his wife, and had not done so to eat maize which has been ground by a machine. One of the virtues of the school that Ron and Pauline's money had built was that it had been constructed entirely by the parents whose chil-dren would attend it. The parents - mostly the mothers - had carried the rocks and sand and cement and water countless hot miles on their heads. The women had made the kilns that fired the bricks that made the school. They had been paid for their work properly, and many of them were using the money in turn to pay school fees (US $10 a year, from which teachers would be paid). The project has been run here for Children in Crisis by Sarah Rowse, a Yorkshirewoman in her 30s, whose presence - developing proper train-ing programmes for 400 teachers, instigating child-centred learning in places where there had been no learning at all - often in extremely dangerous circumstances, had been an inspiration. It is one thing to hear about all this sense of pride and empowerment in a place where previously there was violence and helplessness. It is an-other, though, to see it first hand. As the helicopter comes in to land at Minembwe, the nearest village to Mishashu, where there is a small UN base, the flat plains are covered with hundreds of people, mostly children, running from all directions; some wave home-made banners, 'Merci

Ron!', 'Merci Pauline!'. A group of five-year-olds hold up a placard that reads: 'Thanks to Mark and Sarah all your long walks have saved the future for thou-sands of our children!' Things are improving here. Up until re-cently, 80 per cent of the population of the high plateau had decamped, many to refugee camps in Burundi, to escape the killing. Pastor Samson, who accom-panies us, explains how the conditions described by Guevara still prevail, how-ever. Unpaid soldiers of the Congolese Army live off the local farmers. The people have been subject to terror raids by the factionalised 'Mai-Mai' groups, some of whom douse themselves in oil in the belief that it protects them from bullets. Nkunda's army progresses from the north. In the Minembwe area the incidence of gang rape, the most chill-ing characteristic of the long war, is currently down to about one reported attack per week. North of here towards Bukavu there is still at least one re-ported case every hour; this, despite the presence of the largest UN force - 17,000 troops - in the world. Despair and hope, you quickly learn, never stop doing battle here; one follows fast on the other. Hope is everywhere evident in the wel-come we are given. Pauline and Ron, both tearful, lead a procession up the hill from the helicopter to the place where we are to stay; every child wants to hold their hand, check out the white-ness of their skin; every parent wants to offer thanks. Music is provided by a wandering trio connected by cables: one man holds a solar panel, the next a car battery, the third plays an electric organ. Eventually, when the singing has stopped, and the speeches have ended, we get a chance to take in our surroundings. Ange's guest house, half a dozen rooms round a dirt yard, is as good as it gets in Minembwe. For Ron and Pauline they have pulled out all the stops: there are ancient blankets on the bunks. Ange herself has long gone, however, chased out by one militia or another. There is no water except that which must be carried from the stream half a mile down the road, and no food except boiled rice and chicken bones which Mark and Sarah supplement with tinned sardines and ferocious lime pickle. From sundown, at around six, there is no light and no sound in Minembwe. No fires in its mud houses,

no music, little movement. The nights are long. One morning I woke early and, with a torch, came face to face with a large black rat next to me on my bed, chewing through the cover of Blood River, Tim Butcher's recent book about a journey up the Congo river. Morning is slow in arriv-ing. For several hours before the sun breaks through, the whole plateau is sealed in a thick fog, which adds to its apocalyptic aura. Out of this fog men in the rough fatigues of the Congolese army, carrying AK47s, occasionally appear, trailing menace; sporadic refugees with bedding on their heads, who have walked from another place and time, trail across the valleys. The only lights to pene-trate this murkiness are from the UN camp and a new South African min-ing compound - devoted to the im-probable logistics of extracting gold from these hills (an activity that also keeps various militia groups occu-pied). In this context, the school built at Mishashu is something like an in-truder from a different world. There is optimism in each of its perfect right angles, and in its glass windows. Because the children had never seen white walls before, the white-wash was quickly covered in hand prints as the pupils tried to discover what magic might have created it. When we visit for the formal opening, the following day, it is a wonderful thing to discover that catchment ar-eas have suddenly as much of a grip on the anxieties of parents here on the high plateau of the Congo as they do in any postcode of north London. Since the beginning of term at Mishashu, 40 families have moved into the area in the hope that their children can sneak into one of the 300-odd places at the school. Fa-thers have brought sons and daugh-ters to lodge with friends and rela-tives in order to white-lie about their home addresses. Ron and Pauline had therapy after Martin died, as a family, which was mostly, they say, an opportunity to cry together. The opening of the school is therapy of a different kind. They sit in the sunshine under a re-cycled UN tarpaulin, and listen to speeches from all-comers in trans-lated Swahili. The village chief sug-gests with absolute conviction that

'since the beginning of colonial times, this is the first good thing that anyone has ever done for us'. There is cheering from his crowd. Sarah stands up and pays tribute to the women who did much of the work to build the school. She hopes that the school is a fitting tribute not only to Martin Friend, but to all those many thousands of lost sons and daugh-ters who never had a chance in this place. McKeown, looking squarely at the tribal elders, says that it is his belief that 'women always make so much more sense than men'. 'Work hard,' he says now to his audience of schoolchildren, 'build a better coun-try.' When Ron Friend himself stands up he expresses a view that has per-haps never been heard before in this place. 'I believe,' he says, 'that learning and schooling should be fun!' To this end he has brought six white shiny footballs and several bags full of balloons. To children used to playing with balls made of rags, the newness of these objects is revelatory. Much of the rest of the afternoon is spent watching the chil-dren chasing them, as if their lives depend on it, across the plateau. I sit in the shade with the new head-master and talk about what the school means. They had tried to keep some basic lessons for their children going through the worst of the war, he says, but they had no trained teachers, and those who taught were not paid. In 2002 the blackboard, benches, desks and doors of a mud-hut classroom they had knocked together were used for firewood by a Mai-Mai group; that makeshift school was destroyed; most of their families fled. Now they have teachers who are trained, and paid. They have teaching materials, 'a model of the digestive system! A skeleton!' that they can study. And they have this remarkable home-made building. We may, the head-master says, who knows, one of these days, produce 'a doctor, a politician, a president'. If the mood is one of celebration today, however, despair is not hard to find. I'm introduced to two men for whom Ron and Pauline's gesture is unbearably poignant. Ngirabaku Nzi Muharaba is 67, and has seen three

of his 10 children murdered. He lists them solemnly: 'Mande, Muharaba, Cadeau, aged 16, 14 and 12.' They were killed in Bukavu, having left to escape the war here; murdered by Congolese soldiers, he says, just be-cause they were Banyamulenge. Ke-nasi Runagana is 58. He has lost, he tells me quietly, five sons to the fight-ing. Rebels from Rwanda killed his children at refugee camps in Uvira. 'It is common,' he says. When he thinks about his sons, I won-der, how can he still find a purpose for himself? He thinks for a while and then through the translator he says, 'In my heart there is nothing.' He has no children of school age, but he wanted to come along today to show support for the idea of the school, for the idea of rec-onciliation. That Ron and Pauline should come all the way from England to do this for the memory of their son, he can barely comprehend. But in the school, he wants to believe, lies a pos-sibility of change. 'For me,' he says, gesturing toward the brick building 'this can be hope.' At the entrance to the school is a me-morial stone to Martin. Pauline stands in front of it for a while, alone in a crowd of children. 'It was so unreal,' she says to me later, 'just to see his name in this place.' The thing about it all was, Ron suggests, in other cir-cumstances Martin would have loved this day more than anything, kicking a ball around with 300 kids. On the me-morial stone is an inscription from Nel-son Mandela: 'Education is the best weapon you can use to change the world.' If that day was all about hope, the next is all about fear. It starts early. We set off at five in the morning to visit two other schools that Children in Crisis is building in the area. The fog is so thick that one of the teacher trainers has to walk in front of the Jeep to make sure it does not plunge off the track. We pass a point in the road where a cou-ple of weeks earlier a group of village women had been raped and murdered in the woods, a crime that is too com-mon to investigate. Further on, a group of dissolute soldiers mans Point Zero, a notorious checkpoint. The sol-diers, drunk or hungover, tote guns, but on this occasion wave us through. To get to the first school there is a walk of eight or nine miles across the



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hills, and because of the welcome we receive there, and because there is another school to see, we are a little late getting back on the road, and when we do, night has fallen. The high plateau becomes a differ-ent place after dark. Once again we are lucky at Point Zero to be waved through without a bribe, but a little further on some teenagers have set up a roadblock at a broken bridge. The boys are drunk, and excited at the sight of a Jeep full of strangers; the exchange begins with smiles, but quickly changes in tone. Punches are aimed through the windows, and one of the boys, not much older than some of the children we had seen at the school the previous day, seems to raise a gun to his shoulder. In that moment the full force of the idea of being in the wrong place at the wrong time is brought home. Our driver moves away at what speed the dark and rocky track allows and for a long while the gang gives fren-zied chase. In the seconds that fol-low, when every rut of the road offers lurching disaster and each bend might offer up a new roadblock, we begin to wonder what it might be like to live here; to travel these roads where a gun can make every boy a boy soldier. Pauline leans her head on her hus-band's shoulder and talks for the first time of the need to be home. (Home suddenly means Ange's, and a stub of a candle in a black room.) When we do get back, the longest hour later, there is a welcoming party of villagers who have been anxious for our return. Some peace negotiations eight hours away - no one here talks in terms of miles, because everyone walks - have broken down; the Mai-Mai apparently opening fire on their opponents. The fighting is moving our way, some say four hours away, some say two, which, as we know, by now, in the context of this place, is a stroll in the park. With this news, all of the images that Pauline had at the back of her head, of how her son was killed, are now very much at the front. 'It's too close to Martin,' she says. 'It's too close.' Assurance is given by the proximity of the UN base, in which a troop of the Pakistani army are billeted. It is nonetheless a long night. At one point there is the sound of gunfire

that has me staring at the dark. I lie awake for a while with that famous quote from Conrad in my head: 'The belief in a supernatural source of evil is not necessary; men alone are quite capable of every wickedness.' The next morning, we are due to fly out but the helicopter does not come, so we do what everyone does in Minembwe - sit and wait in the fog. If the weather does not improve we are faced with a drive of 24 hours through the forest, partly on the road we had just about navi-gated the previous night. While we wait, we talk, about the fighting, about teacher training, about the uses of theatre in education up here. Pastor Samson, with his ministry Eben-Ezer, has instigated a process of reconciliation on the plateau. At the first mass meeting 11 years ago, after another tentative peace had been negotiated, thousands of peo-ple from warring factions turned up. It was a biblical scene. The plane carrying a delegation from Jerusa-lem, however, that was to lead the gathering, crashed into the moun-tainside killing the 20 people on board. The plane's wing still does service as the main bridge across a river. Pastor Samson had been due to be on the plane but had given up his seat at the last moment. He had taken it as a sign that his work must continue. The schools programme has be-come the vital part of that reconcilia-tion process. One of the teacher-training programmes delivers 'lessons in peace', exploring the possibility of breaking the cycle of violence and retribution that has been the way of life here for longer than anyone can remember. Ron and Pauline stop short of talking about forgiveness for the death of their son. They see the school as one way of preventing their hearts hardening against Africa. But here their gesture is clearly taken as a lesson in reconciliation, perhaps even as a contemporary parable. 'I got that feeling,' Ron says, 'that it is not just a school but a turning point.' It sounds a fragile hope, but it is the best one around. While we talk, news arrives from Samson of one of the fathers from Mishashu who has been shot and killed by Congolese soldiers the

night before. The man had been asked to get the soldiers food, and because he was slow, or because he stopped to put on his shoes, or just because, he was killed kneeling down outside his house, while his children, who had, per-haps, that afternoon been chasing bal-loons across the plateau, looked on. In the absence of newspapers or televi-sion the people of Minembwe rely on what they call Radio Mouth, the gossip that tells them day-by-day whether fighting is moving toward them, or away. At Ange's, though, Pastor Sam-son fiddles with his real radio in order to try to get some local news. All he gets through the static is a speech from George Bush. It is the anniversary of 9/11. 'Freedom and fear are even now at war in the world,' Bush declares. In the eastern Congo you don't for a mo-ment doubt it. The following day, our prayers are an-swered: the fog lifts, we are airlifted out by the UN helicopter. I've just finished Butcher's rat-chewed Blood River. Congo, he concludes, is the ultimate example of the triumph of despair over hope. Over the plateau, the most fragile of safe havens from the most unrelent-ing of wars, with the brick-built school of Mishashu in the far distance, three more schools nearly completed, and Ron and Pauline Friend on their way back to Orpington, it is tempting to be-lieve that there might still, however, even in this place, be one or two excep-tions to this rule. Children in Crisis (020 7627 1040; chil-drenincrisis.org) This article is reproduced with the kind permission of The Observer Newspaper

LETTERS & TRIBUTES

MRS WENDY HARMER



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Dear John,

It is with the deepest sadness and sorrow that I have to inform you of the death of my beautiful wife Wendy. She passed away at 10pm on Wednesday 26-11-08 in the Royal Marsden Hospital at Sutton, Surrey having bravely battled against breast cancer for 4 years.

Although we had been together for 9 years, we had only just celebrated our 2nd wedding anniversary last month.

She was an incredible woman and I am so proud to have been her husband. I don't know how I'll go on without her.

Ian Harmer

(Ex PC781A)

PC 699CP JAN JONES

All the staff in Ops Planning have known Jan for a long time and are deeply saddened by the loss of a friend and colleague. Jan worked for the force for 19 years and I've known her for over 15 years of them, since she was attached to the Support Group on Operation Argus.

Jan and I came from similar backgrounds, both coming from South East London/Kent suburbs, starting our working lives in banks working in central London. Jan's personal life has been intrinsically linked with the City with husband Andrew working within the Square Mile.

Jan was a private person who was intelligent, diligent and thoughtful. Recently she went to see a colleague who had recently come out of hospital. Before going she bought a gift for the colleague's young daughter which was incredibly thoughtful.

Being a small team we all get to know what is going on in each others lives. Jan was always planning trips or holidays, having been skiing only last month or taking her husband to the Italian Grand Prix in September as a birthday surprise. My sympathies go to her family at this sudden and tragic loss."

Harry, Wood Street

I would first like to express my shock and sadness on receiving the news about Janet, I have known her for nearly twenty years and worked with her on division at Snow Hill and in the Command and Control Centre at Wood Street.

She was a genuine fun loving person and I shall miss our banter regarding premiership football and her beloved Chelsea.

My thoughts at this time are with her family, her colleagues and friends.

She will be much missed by all that knew her.

PS Des Knox-CJU, Bishopsgate

"My Dear Janet

It is so hard for me to write this but I have to as a tribute to my best friend Janet who was so loyal and kind-hearted. She was always Janet to me - she said the only people to call her that were her Mum and me, and that was the way it was.

I first met Janet 18 years ago when I went on the "rounds" from C Group at Snow Hill to Bishopsgate. We came from such dif-ferent backgrounds, I was a former RAF Telecommunications Operator from the West Coast of Scotland and Janet was born and brought up in Sidcup, Kent and had worked in one of the City banks. We got on so well together and had such good times over the years.

Janet was devoted to my two daughters and watched them grow up to become the fine young women that they are today. Janet was so proud of them and their achievements and will be sorely missed.

I am heartbroken at losing my lovely Janet so suddenly with no chance to say "Goodbye" but the memories will last forever.

Will miss you always."

Norma Limond, Wood Street

The following was received from Sandy Pelling and the COLPASC News Australia.

I have made a New Years resolution to try and re-instate our quarterly get togethers instead of twice a year as I have been do-ing. But I think our Presi-dent Keith Cronchey will have to keep a close eye on me so that I don't lapse like in the past.

We certainly started off well this year with a visit in January, from Peter Ray who had travelled to New Zealand to see his brother, who unfortunately passed away before he arrived. I think meeting friends and former workmates cheered him up a lot. Ann Merry flew down from Mildura and stayed with Dick and me for a few days so that she could join us on the day. Our thanks go to Peter Murray and Zsuzsi for letting us gather at their house for a BBQ, and for turning on a perfect day. Unfortunately the only photo we have of our host is Peter's corpulent stomach, which even he would agree is hard to miss. Many of you would have had your ears burning as tall tales were told and photos brought out. The only people missing were Gordon and Pat Sidnell who had been sick.

Peter Ray and Brian Garry

We have had a couple of visitors from the City recently that have kept

Jill and Keith Cronchey busy. Janet Golds stayed with them, and they made sure she had a good look around Victoria. Keith took Janet up to Swan Hill, a 4 hour drive from his place, to meet with Ann Merry who trav-elled down from Mildura. They all met for dinner and stayed the night. By the looks of the photo Janet has been converted to a drop of 'Aussie' Red. A small group of us caught up with Janet at our favourite COL-PASC restaurant, Barbarinos and Wong. 'El Presidente' Keith, presented Janet with our City badge then the rest of the evening was spent reminding each other of inci-dents past. Not sure if it was the stories or the wine but we all had a great time. Stan and Joyce Newell have also been visiting their son and family who now live in Australia. Keith and Jill were the only COLPASC mem-bers able to see them, but sent our best wishes. We wonder if Stan is deciding to come over and join the family permanently? He should feel at home, after all we do have a good cricket team here, and our COL-

PASC numbers could do with a boost.

Back row. Ralph Peter, Ann Merry, Brian & Edna Garry. Front Row. Profile of our host Peter Murray, Dick & Sandy Pelling, Keith Cronchey and Peter Ray

Unfortunately Gordon and Pat Sidnell have been unable to join us for any of our gatherings this last 6 months due to ill health. Gordon has recently had to have his right leg amputated below the knee, due to complications with his diabetes, and Pat is undergoing Chemotherapy for cancer. Pat says she feels well and Gordon does not seem to have lost his sense of humour. He is hoping to get a prosthesis as soon as possible. They both hope to come along in the near future to another of our meetings. We all look forward to seeing them again, and wish them well.

Dick and I have managed to keep travelling. We have been IPA (International Police Association) members since our time in the City Police. We have home hosted visitors from overseas and have taken IPA visitors around Melbourne. Last year we decided to combine a trip to Europe with the IPA International meeting in Mos-cow. We had two weeks and were taken around the sights of Moscow and then St Petersburg. We met many delegates from around the world and made some, I'm sure, lasting friendships. We were amazed at how many business cards and bits of memorabilia were being given out and swapped between everyone. We will definitely go prepared if we join in an event like this again. We stayed on after the group broke up and had a few more days travel in the two cities, before, moving on to Austria, Paris and London.

Just prior to Xmas a small package arrived from the USA. You can imagine our surprise when on opening it out fell American IPA Pins, and two, very smart 'I Survived the Hell Train Moscow to St Petersburg 2008', Lapel Pins. It was sent by an American Cop who had also attended the Russian IEC Friendship week. I had a chuckle when reading his letter but started to wonder if

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we were on the same train. Dick and I shared a sleeping cabin with Colin and Carol a couple from Western Australia. We boarded the train at 8pm and for the next 4 hours we had a great time with international members popping in for a chat and a night cap. At some stage we named it the Vodka Train. It was a rude awakening at 4.30am the next day when 'she who must be obeyed', our Russian carriage captain, switched on our lights and started to pull the sheets off of Colin. We got the message. Per-haps Kevin was actually dragged from his bed.

I am sure all those who received the pins were equally surprised and pleased.



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ROB GERRAD’S BOOK CORNER Ex Police Inspector Rob Gerrard

Has sent in the following book

Reviews. He says “Can you Mention me and my website www.rjerrard.co.uk\law\policela\police.htm

This is "Internet Law Book Reviews".

Publishers send books but no money Changes hands, the site provides academic independent reviews of law books, but these are more general of interest.

The street to qualify as the ‘worst in London’ is the former Dorset Street, a stone’s throw from Spitalfields Market and the City of London boundary. It was renamed Duval Street in 1905, in an unsuccessful attempt to rid the street of its dreadful reputation. In the second half of the twentieth century developers moved in and razed the remaining buildings to the ground. The grim, non-residential replacements make any hope of a further ‘history’ beyond the second half of the twentieth century a forlorn one. Today the ‘worst street in London’ is a mere quarter mile stretch of tarmac and scant evidence remains of its former notoriety.

Few streets have a ‘history’ other than that connected to their original naming. Any history that arises tends to come about as a result of the activities of people who construct, frequent, reside or do business in them. The history of Dorset Street was further affected by a mixture of events arising from the behaviour of individuals who lived or owned property in it. Sometimes the history itself was affected by people and decisions made well away from the area. In some cases by Parliament and, more distant still, by governments in foreign countries, driving sections of its citizens to escape persecution by moving elsewhere. It was a street for the poor and throughout its history attracted the disadvantaged for whom it, and the neighbouring parts of East London, became a fa-voured destination.

None of these points is missed by Fiona Rule in her first published book. She traces the history of Dorset Street throughout the ages from promising beginnings in the 17th century as part of a silk-weaving industry, through the decline of the silk industry, fol-lowed by years of poverty, the lodging house industry and a general exploitation of the poor, before becoming a hotbed for criminal activity and finally to the present day.

Ms Rule examines the issues which brought groups of people from overseas to seek sanctuary or employment and the eventual recognition that the area had become ‘a problem’. She also points to the sometimes futile attempts of parliamentarians to ‘do something’, usually achieving nothing, and the efforts of philanthropists, which at least had some impact. The illustrations used throughout, are, on the whole, well-known to any London historian or Ripperologist. None the less they give a fair indication of the area and the problems it experienced between the sixteenth to the early twentieth centuries in general and to Dorset Street in particular.

It is not often that a reviewer feels driven to comment on covers of a book, but this one is worthy of note. The bottom third of the front cover is taken up by the title and author’s name. The top third comprises a picture, circa 1900 of Dorset Street, including some of its inhabitants. The central portion is taken up by an 1890s map of the area. The map itself then merges in with both the picture and the title in a most effective way. The final touch is a faint trace of blood droplets and smears hinting at the violence throughout the street’s history and which eventually contributed to its downfall. Those who consider that covers should indicate the content will be well-pleased.

The Worst Street In London

Fiona Rule

Published by Ian Allen 2008

Price £19.99

ISBN 978 0 7110 3345 0

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The book as a whole is an excellent dissertation on the social history of this part of London. In covering the lodging house land-lords, frequent mention is made of the Crossingham and McCarthy families of ‘Jack the Ripper’ fame. Ripperologists will find much of interest in the book. A summary of the Whitechapel murders is included and the text includes some facts about the area not mentioned in most standard books on the subject and which will be of considerable interest. The work as a whole, brings vividly to life the environment in which the victims and witnesses eked out a precarious living.

To sum up, an entertaining and most competent social history of the area and extremely well-researched. Fiona Rule is to be con-gratulated on such a fine first book. Readers will look forward to a series of other similar books by the same author.

PR

The Unequalled Self

by Claire Tomalin

Published by Penguin Books 2003 ISBN 0-140-28234-3

Price: £8. 99

A common perception of Samuel Pepys is that of a man from relatively humble beginnings who made good, mixed with the highest in the land and, in the course of it, produced a famous set of diaries. While that may be an accurate summary of the position it is, unfortunately, an incomplete one - for Pepys was a complex character living in exceptional times.

It is not simply that his diaries gave us a picture of life under Cromwell, the Restoration, the Plague and the Great Fire. It is the fact that, squeezed into those aspects of English history, he also paints a picture of himself as a man concerned with his own well-being, often at the expense of those nearest and dearest. The interests of his wife and his servants, for instance, appear to have been subservient to his own desires to succeed in public life, amass a fortune and own a home to be proud of. Pepys was clearly one of the most upwardly mobile men of his time.

This is not intended as a criticism of Pepys, merely an observation of the picture created by his own writings. From a moral view-point, he was no better, and no worse, than most men of the time. The great diarists of the past have provided an insight into events behind history, but rarely have they opened up their hearts and exposed their vulnerable underbellies and weaknesses as did Pepys. The man, in his journals, happily related private insecurities, which most would prefer to keep hidden.

Any man who lived through a Royal beheading, life under Cromwell and later through the Plague and the Fire of London, clearly lived in exceptional and turbulent times. As Claire Tomalin puts it, his life was ‘played out against the most disturbed years in Eng-land’s history’. Add to this the fact that he rose from relative obscurity, to occupy an influential position as a naval administrator, found himself under suspicion of treason and even spent a short time in the Tower, one is clearly dealing with a man who has an exciting historical tale to tell. He clearly had an interesting private life and at one stage underwent an eye-watering operation to remove a stone from the bladder. This exceptional man living in exceptional times had a truly exceptional private story to tell. Claire Tomalin gets behind the facts and reminds us how Pepys, in recounting his story, had a knack of always managing to place himself at the centre of most things. He tended to create a drama of events, portraying himself as the ‘hero’.

This brilliant biography, so well-researched and so well-presented without a hint of sensationalism, provides a near-complete pic-ture of Samuel Pepys. It takes us behind the ‘facts’ of recorded history and beyond the diary entries. One cannot fail to be im-pressed to an extent where one would not only immediately wish to re-read the diaries, but would be able to do so with greater un-derstanding.

At the beginning of the book, no less than twelve pages are taken up with an introduction to the principal characters. Yet the author weaves these with great clarity into the story in the 400 or so pages which follow.

Those who are fascinated by the history of the Cities of London and Westminster will find both the diaries themselves, recording the inner thoughts of a man actual living there through that period of history, and Ms Tomalin’s book, revealing a further wealth of previ-ously uncharted material, absolutely fascinating.



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This is an excellent source book for those who wish to make an in-depth study of Pepys. Max Hastings, writing in the Sunday Telegraph, took the view that ‘Tomalin’s book should sit beside the peerless ten volume edition of the Diary’. For the newcomer to the life of Samuel Pepys, the only question that remains is whether the book or the diary should be read first. PR

NORFOLK MAYHEM & MURDERNORFOLK MAYHEM & MURDERNORFOLK MAYHEM & MURDERNORFOLK MAYHEM & MURDER Classic Cases Revisited

By Maurice Morson

Published by Wharncliffe Books 2008

Price £10. 99

ISBN 978-1-8415630-49-2

The author describes twelve murder cases covering the period 1829 to 1909. Each is dealt with in some detail and good use is made of contemporary statements and depositions. These serve to illustrate the way evidence came to light and the poverty and squalid living conditions in which most offenders, victims and witnesses lived.

The first four cases are set in the pre-constabulary era when such policing as existed relied upon the Night Watch and ward or parish constables. The remainder span the period of the ‘New Police’ up to 1912. In both cases the active role of magistrates comes to the fore as does that of the grand jury required to find a ‘true bill’ prior to defendants appearing for trial. Justice was swift in Georgian and Victorian times with the guilty often executed within a matter of days of the death sentence being pro-nounced. At the same time there are some instances of a degree of ‘compassion’ being shown when prisoners were found to be insane, their lives being spared, and of not guilty verdicts being returned in the face of apparently compelling evidence.

In some of the cases the Chief Constables of Great Yarmouth and Norwich were themselves active in the investigations. This was a time when chief officers were often in charge of the local fire brigade as well. It followed that they could arrive at the scene of an arson and murder wearing both hats! In other cases the Home Secretary acceded to requests for Metropolitan assistance. This resulted in a fresh viewpoint being brought to an investigation and enabled enquiries to range from Norfolk to London, and even further afield, as the evidence dictated.

It is worth observing that in the early Victorian era policemen were rather thin on the ground. Formed in 1836, Great Yarmouth began with 18 men and Norwich 80. Norfolk did not have a police force until 1839 when it initially had 133 officers. Strangely, in the absence of telephones and motor vehicles, when crime occurred local inhabitants did not seem to have difficulty in locating a constable when they needed one!

In cases where things ‘went wrong’ resulting in criticism from the presiding High Court Judge it is interesting to learn how the mag-istrates were quick to blame the police and how, equally quickly, the press were ready to join the bandwagon and blame every-one.

The book is well illustrated with sketches of individuals and murder venues. For those who take the time to study drawings of venues produced for newspapers and broadsheets of the Victorian era, it is interesting to note how accurate sketches of venues turn out to be. The validity of portraits tended to be rather inconsistent – but better than nothing. In the case of the photographs, some are the author’s own handiwork or those of modern photographers and others from archive sources. All serve to bring to light the environment, character and individuals to whom each story relates.

Maurice Morson was a career policeman who headed the Norfolk CID and is the author of several books with similar themes. Although he does not set out to closely review each case from a modern viewpoint, as the commentary on the back cover sug-gests, his stories are interspersed with interesting and telling ‘asides’ which give a modern day perspective. But it is the Georgian and Victorian settings that set them apart and make them absolutely fascinating reading.

Norfolk Mayhem and Murder should have a wide appeal. Local historians, police historians and those with a general interest in true crime, will find it a definite page-turner. One constructive comment. There may be a commercial reason for it – but a slightly increased font size would have been advantageous to the more ‘mature’ reviewer!!

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SNOW ADMIN LUNCHEON CLUB 2008

It has been a good year for the Club, with the members fitting in a lunch meet, in between their SAGA cruises!

The Club has been going for some 37 years and it is great to see that we are still supported by some of our more Sen-ior Members, George Fell, Alan Aitkin, Stan Wiseman and Eric Newton to name a few. It was a pleasure to wel-come four new visitors to our Christmas lunch, John Maclean, Eric Locke, Micky Finn and Darryl Every and we look forward to having their company in 2009.

In 2008 the Luncheon Club raised £626 for charities. The Christmas Lunch being the icing on the cake, with 36 members in attendance we raised £210 for Cancer Research. This brings our total raised for charity to £6485.70.

The lunches are not only about raising monies for charity, which is something the members are more than happy to do. They are about meeting old and making new friends and at the same time having a drink and enjoying a good meal.

The Luncheon Club is open to ALL Retired police officers, no matter what Division or Depart-ment you came from and it costs nothing other than your time and the price of a meal. Lunches are held four times a year at Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese, Fleet Street, so you can choose which one or all to attend. If you would like any information please contact me on the numbers below.

Attendees:

John Aitkin, Dave Ashley, John Ayers, Ian Bartlett, Harry Bastable, Eddie Botham, Eric Cattermole, Mick Coles, Sam Coster, Pe-ter Cruickshank, John Cubbon, Dave Davis, Ken Dodsworth, John Elliot, Paul Eskriet, Darryl Every, George Fell, Brian Field, Micky Finn, Jim Foran, Alan Francis, Robin Francis, Lionel Godfrey, Tony Herbert, Ray Holland, Ray Kalbfell, Mike Kenney, John Lancaster, Eric Locke, John Maclean, Colin McIntosh, John McLeod, Peter Miller, Eric Newton, John Ormes, Ernie Plum, John Rew, Jack Savill, Martin Spencer, Mike Surgett, Ron Tomkins, Dave Turpin, Tony Wallis, Brian Whittington, John Wilkins, Stan Wiseman.

I would personally like to thank all Members for their continued support and generosity.

Dates for 2009: Tuesday 2nd June Tuesday 2nd September Tuesday 1st December

.

Mike Surgett

Hon Sec.

Contact: 07939499905 or [email protected]



P O L I C E

2009 FLORA LONDON MARATHON RESULTS

Benedict Whitby 2 hours 18 minutes 14 seconds

Ryan Shipman 3 hours 8 minutes 20 seconds

Trevor Holden 3 hours 24 minutes 8 seconds

Kate Swanson 3 hours 24 minutes 40 seconds

Virginia Sherriff 3 hours 44 minutes 17 seconds

Alexander Robertson 4 hours 7 minutes 41 seconds

Richard Fullbrook 4 hours 8 minutes 13 seconds

Julian Goodchild 4 hours 21 minutes 23 seconds

Paul Claydon 4 hours 21 minutes 35 seconds

Jonathan Gilbert 4 hours 25 minutes 10 seconds

Terry Hunt 4 hours 26 minutes 14 seconds

Rhea Evans 4 hours 26 minutes 17 seconds

Jonathan Witt 4 hours 31 minutes 59 seconds

Joanne Rinn 4 hours 39 minutes 14 seconds

Scott Reeves 4 hours 39 minutes 14 seconds

Scott Fisher 4 hours 40 minutes 42 seconds

Samantha Garwood 4 hours 48 minutes 55 seconds

Elise Eaton 4 hours 49 minutes 40 seconds

Philip Corcoran 4 hours 56 minutes 1 second

Claire Shilling 5 hours 4 minutes 46 seconds

Kevin Blower 5 hours 16 minutes 28 seconds

Adam Priestley 5 hours 17 minutes 47 seconds

Ford Keeble 5 hours 18 minutes 8 seconds

Dave Carter 5 hours 18 minutes 10 seconds

Daniel Piper 5 hours 19 minutes 23 seconds

Paul Major 5 hours 22 minutes 9 seconds

Alison Harle 5 hours 25 minutes 21 seconds

Joanne Baxter 5 hours 33 minutes 12 seconds

Richard Herbert 5 hours 43 minutes 2 seconds

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CLOAK LANE ASSOCIATION ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING

Friday 27 March 2009

The stalwarts of the Cloak Lane Association defied gravity once again to gather for what is widely recog-nised as one of the foremost social events of the year, namely the Annual General Meeting. If you missed Ascot, didn’t get to wear your blazer to Henley and the Buck House Garden Party seems to have passed you by again, then never fear. THE place to be seen is the CLA AGM. Which is ironic really, as most members can’t see that much, if at all.

Tickets for the event are highly prized and many were seen changing hands for ludicrous amounts, and in fact if rumour is to be believed, three voucher copies of the Sun seems now to be the going rate. That would have got you a lot of bread and milk a few years ago.

I’m sure you’re all fed up with the stories of sleaze and intrigue amongst our political masters, so nothing saddens me more than to have to tell you that even the CLA cannot escape these murky dealings. You’ll need to promise keep this to yourselves, but I can reveal that your honoured Chairman Richard Keating, the artist formerly known as Dick, was blatantly seen to be guilty of electioneering. Just before the formal proceedings started, when the existing officers are required to stand down, Dick said to me that he won-dered if it was time we didn’t stand for re-election, and give someone else the chance for glory. I took him at his word, and applauded his magnanimity, so it was to my utter shock and dare I say it, disbelief, that I clearly heard him going from table to table, drumming up a fervour with the electorate with his mantra ‘yes we can – yes we can…….’ Of course, he was re-elected with a landslide vote, but I suspect it was only due to Chairman induced mass hysteria

For myself, I was duly re-elected as your faithful Secretary, without any of the razzmatazz of the Keating camp. But then I know the value of a well turned out sausage roll with your average hungry voter. I like to call it Back to Basics.

The thankless task of Treasurer remains in the hands of Jean Keeble. She must be immensely popular with the Association, as without even attending the meeting she was unanimously re-elected to the post. She was suffering from a bad back, no doubt from lifting all those money bags. We wish her well.

Can we yet again remind Troggy that these meetings are not, nor ever have been in fancy dress. Please stop doing it.

Finally, the dates of the next meetings were agreed and are as follows:

Friday 26 June 2009

Friday 13 November 2009

Friday 19 March (AGM)

Cliff Rowlinson

Secretary



P O L I C E

ASSOCIATION OF EX-CID OFFICERS The Association of Ex-CID Officers held another very successful Christmas Lunch on the London Regalia presided over for the first time by our new Chair-man Fred Simmons. It was good to see such a large (133) and happy crowd and once again Commander Pat Rice was present to referee the jousting be-tween former and current CID officers.

A few members travelled some distance to enjoy the occasion, Mark Shields came the furthest from Jamaica and it was good to see Joyce Chandler over from Belgium again and not forgetting Andy Day from Northern Ireland – plus of course those that travelled in from the far corners of the mainland – some com-menting that it cost more and took them even longer!

Roy Wilson was at the Lunch and in good spirits, despite not feeling too well. Shortly after Roy was diagnosed with cancer and died less than three months later. How we all wish we’d had a longer chat with him that day, although we weren’t to know, a lesson for us all, to make the best of our friends and colleagues while we can. Anyway the funeral went well – if that’s the right thing to say and Roy’s wish to have a piper play “Black Bear” at the funeral was fulfilled – and played by a City PC as well. Sheila was very touched by all who attended the funeral and made it such a spe-cial day for her and the family. Sheila also thanked all those who gave so generously to Roy’s collection, over £1,000 was raised for Macmillan Nurses and £500 for the Demelza Children’s Hospice in Eltham. We will miss him.

Although we only worked the Square Mile, we have members all over world and we are always pleased to hear from them. Doug Bird is very happy in the sunshine in Plymouth, New Zealand and Paul Radden keeps us in touch with his Dad Morry – also out in New Zealand. Tony Drain is living life to the full in the Algarve and David Glassock en-joys some of the year in his house in the Philippines. Brian Eager has been backwards and forwards between the UK and Bosnia where he is a keen bee-keeper – so any advice on bees, give Brian a call.

We’ve had a lot of contact about that subject we don’t want to talk about – our prostate! James Hart wrote to us a very thoughtful and personal note about his prostate cancer and the real importance of medical screening (PSA blood test). James is fully recovered, but we have heard from some members and their families of the importance of this screening – and the difference this could have made. Anyway, something to think about.

Sad to see that apart from Fraud, Bishopsgate is the only operational CID Office in the City now…….although good to see Dave Wood as DCI – particularly as his father Frank was at Bishopsgate. That being said pleased to see the Blue Lamp doing quite well, the Ex CID committee had a very pleasant evening there – great place to make deci-sions in!

We had our Spring Buffet in the Wakefield Mess in March, good to catch up with everyone after the winter and pleased to see a good turnout – including some old faces (not you of course Anne Harrison!) we hadn’t seen for a while.

Back to the Christmas Lunch. This year the Lunch will be held at the Garrison Mess at the Headquarters of the Bri-gade of Guards, Wellington Barracks, Birdcage Walk, SW1. on Thursday 3rd December 2009. Not in the City but as it is Crown Property it’s not exactly in the Met either! Anyway first time at this location and it promises to be a great event.

Before that we have the AGM at the Wakefield Mess at 3pm Thursday 24th September – followed by the usual Buffet and social.

With 158 Members the Association is in good shape. We do try to keep advised of colleagues who aren’t too well and send them a little something to cheer them up – and of course our very best wishes as well.

Jim Jolly

Summer 2009


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DOBAR DAN FROM THE BEEKEEPER OF L IVINO TOWN BOSNIA

The next article threw me a bit. When I first read it, I thought it had been submitted by a mad person. Then I saw that it had been sent in by former DC Brian (Swarf) Eager – and that I was right. Ed

A lot has happened since we gaily loaded our possessions into the ‘W’ Reg van and hot-footed it from Wokingham last January (’08).

Poor bailiffs, we missed you by one week but what a wonderful thing an International re-direct proved to be, if you pay £75 you can get all the free Pizza delivery price lists sent onto you and they are current less a ten day lag to get across………I have not tried to phone any up I promise, to ask them if they ‘Do Liver’ ha ha…. mainly because I have as Allan Coleman will confirm, discovered the joys of cheap restaurants and an amazing foodstuff called ‘Cevapi’…this meat sausage gives you wings and is rumoured to be the staple food of the new Brawn Racing Team, Jenson himself has taken to eating a small portion of 10 before each qualifier

because of the well known properties…..Maybe he needs to be informed about the Bean Soup….which around these parts can get you sent to the guest room by the ‘Zena’ (breaking you in gently Zena = wife) for rear end malfunction…..so with a bit of rear wing diffusing technical know-how I reckon Louis Hamilton could soon get his forward momentum going if he took to eating Bosnian Bean Soup.

Also everyone was complaining about the credit crunch when we took time out to phone back and fill in what the Sky News chan-nels left out. Now we find out Gordonsky Brownski has added 50p to the tax system which I am still part of on my special negotiated rate of 25p because pensioners are not meant to be seen dining at Quaglinos are they?

We are still berating Bees for their honey….but I wanted to catch up with a few other things and leave the bees for next edition.

We had a moment of gross stupidity in the three months after leaving Blighty when we gave a Brit expat a tidy sum and it did not come back for nigh on a year later….so like most of you fellow pensioners I trawled through my options: -

Wear Sack cloth and take up Alms (preferably by Mostar Bridge), Try and find the international branch of the DSS in Canton 10, Become a career Collection plate dipper at one of the myriad Churches, Samostans, and Mosques……etc!

You will pleased to know however, I kept to the ideals and principles bestowed upon me by PS Roddy King and took a different approach to my sudden lack of wealth……

At a defining moment the heavens opened up and a beckoning finger… beckoned me ‘ Come forth Brian – we need Trainers at Herts Constabulary’

The disembodied voice was that of former Inspector of Her Majesties Finest Police Force, our own - Steve Risby.

I spent a four month period back with Herts teaching them together with Boycie (Ray Janes) about something I knew not a lot about myself but isn’t that the way!! 700 students later and I was ready to be released – “Hang on” I said “I’m just getting the drift” During this pleasant period Steven Risby and Helen his wife, accommodated me for the whole period although they soon had enough of me and my inane whistling and took the easy option of leaving me in their house and fleeing to relatives in Australia…was it my tuneless whistling or something else? (Micky North – bless you Mick for having had a desk by me all those years ago…he now knows the back catalogue for Dexys mid-night runners).

So thanks to Steve and Helen, and for the chance of a lifetime…which was a humble experience for me.

On a more serious note…my father passed away aged 83 and Colin Hodge my squash partner of nigh on 13 years passed away with a sudden ailment aged 60…both of these events knocked me for six and being estranged from Bisera didn’t help so having Steve and Helen on the end of a phone was also special. As they say in my old Guards regiment: - Quis Separabit (who shall sepa-rate us).

Now to end on a high note……we have finished the house and owe no one any funds, we welcome you all (but not at once) to come across maybe via Split and knock us up we can accommodate for free as long as you are able to look after yourselves – so over to you. Domine Dirige Nos. [email protected]



P O L I C E

COMMENDATION DAY by John Cardwel l

An afternoon with the Force.

On March 8th 1973 an IRA device exploded in Old Bailey EC4 injuring over 200 people and devastating buildings.

Inspector George Murrell did an outstanding job as Incident Officer at the scene and on Thursday 15th January 2009, he received from the Commis-sioner, Michael Bowron QPM, a retrospective commendation for his efforts on that day.

I was lucky enough to be invited to the ceremony together with Alan Francis and George’s wife Glenys. It was a wonderful afternoon. Nobody does these things like the City and the Force looked in great shape.

Alan Francis presented George’s citation. He spoke eloquently and with a depth of feeling obviously born out of pride in what George achieved in 1973. The applause George received from the serving officers was loud, sustained and sincere. It was a moving moment for all of us.

I know an afternoon does not make a summer but, the Force does seem to be in fine fettle and more importantly , ready to face anything the future has in store for it. JC

DON’T CUT THE MUSTARD

I was a little puzzled by Mr Wanderlusts` criticism of my culinary assertions concerning the national dish and his comments concerning pizza, Chinese and other epicurean de-lights normally found in any high street, well his anyway. After all this is the man whose comments on cruising (naughty, naughty, boats I mean) have stimulated Jennette and I to book a cruise for this year, we have to get out more apparently, but more of that later. Having given Mr Ws comments a lot of thought, well, a couple of minutes any way, I realised that this insight into his gourmet inclinations reveals that he was in fact cruising on a roll on roll off cross channel ferry.

In contrast, we have decided to go to Norway, after all we seem to be the only people who have not been yet, not alto-gether true of course since I was there in 1964 touring with friends in a van that was so old then it would be considered a museum item now. We had a grand time considering the place was very expensive. Going over the mountains into Sweden we shot by a customs post that looked like a dilapidated newspa-per kiosk. Being English gentlemen of indeterminate parentage we reversed back to be asked in sign and pigeon English about cigarettes. We had stacks because they were duty free and we were all smokers (in those days). What did he want? Our pass-ports were waved away with the continuing request that sounded like “cigaretten”. They were terribly expensive in Swe-den so we thought we had found a tobacco starved customs man. We took pity on him and threw him sixty fags and drove

on feeling satisfied that we had helped the poor addict out. It was later that we found out that the control of cigarettes was taken very seriously, but not by him obviously. Perhaps we would be-come an international incident when we came to leave for home? As it happened something else occurred that made that prospect tangible to say the least.

Our arrival in Sweden coincided with the time they decided to go mad and change over to drive on the right, in other words on the wrong side of the road, everybody seemed to be ready for it ex-cept us and a kid on a tradesman’s bike. As I drove through a town he shot out of a side turning and collided with the side of the van. The impact overturned the bike scattering spuds and cabbage to the four winds. He wasn’t hurt because he was on his feet calling Odins` wrath upon our heads. When in doubt lock the doors and await events. I wondered what the inside of a Swedish clink was like, convinced we were about to find out. I hoped the Commissioner had a sense of humour after all he had let me into the job in the first place.

Drivers behind stopped hooting and advanced on our car to drag out and incarcerate the driver no doubt. To our surprise they pushed the outraged cyclist to one side, threw the remains of his machine onto the footway and courteously waved us on over his decanted spuds. How civilised. When we came to leave for home, having taken the precaution to leave via Norway just in case the authorities in Sweden were not as liberal as the people, there was a lot of discussion on the dock side with lots of finger pointing at our van. This was it we thought, but no, it was some-thing to do with the fact that the van was so muddy the dockers did not want to hoist it into the hold, (no roll on roll off then Mr W) possibly some obscure agricultural law preventing the export of large lumps of Norway on old English vans. So back we go and we are looking forward to it. The Captains table? We belong to

Summer 2009


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the Groucho Marx School of cruising, when asked to dine at the Captains table he declined on the grounds that he did not pay a lot of money to eat with the crew.

I noticed in the paper that it is now on offence to take photo-graphs of Police officers. Are the police stations full of arrested Japanese tourists? It made me think that the photos of some officers should be published on crime prevention grounds, you know the saying, “I don’t know what they do to the enemy but by God they frighten me”. One particular Sgt, he of the raw onion snacks and pencil rubber earplug is a case in point, apart from being visually disadvantaged he delighted in bullying pro-bationers. He posted me to “kitchen fatigues” for a shift even though I had a shocking cold and despite my pleading for an outside posting. He ridiculed me to anyone would listen.

Sawing up cabbage is a time for reflection and a rich seedbed for the growth of revenge. It came in due time as I stood to arms wrapped in a kitchen apron that would have dwarfed Paddy Kerr who was also there. The Sgt had purchased his ticket for lunch from Bob Crombey in the canteen annex. I ad-vanced to the barricade armed with my ladle, various viruses, and a liberal amount of nasal mucus ready to do battle. I ac-cepted his ticket and with a great deal of exaggerated huffing anointed the dinner plate as I did each time after placing the various items of food on it, sort of did the Sgt require cabbage? Splutter, snot, splutter, huff. Said Sgt could not believe his eyes and when we had reached the gravy, with a cry of rage he threw the contaminate meal at me only to have it burst on the wall behind me. Paddy Kerr said absolutely nothing but calmly took over serving, obviously this sort of thing happened every day. Said Sgt stormed off to get a replacement ticket free of charge. No hope, I heard Bob Crombey tell him that what he did with his dinner was up to him but if he wanted another it was one and six. No problem from then on.

Summers coming, a stiff tonic before the box and I think I will leave the lid off.

Regards to all.

ALLAN COLEMAN , GIDEA PARK

I would like to thank all those who have contributed to this issue

and would like to give a special mention to my son James and his

expertise with computer type things!

I hope that you find the format easy to read and also that all of

you in far away countries managed to get an electronic copy in

double quick time rather than awaiting the snail mail.

Please do send feedback in to Karen Cattermole and l am sure

we will improve with your help.

Kind regards,

Chris Pearson

Guest Editor

PS. A lot of people, on hearing that I would be helping out on this

issue, asked me if I could include any ‘Griffin’ type articles. Un-

fortunately I don’t have any knowledge of the said publication. But

if anyone out there knows the location of Lawrence Sinden, could

you please ask him to get in touch with me.

CP over

Forthcoming seaside rendezvous'

2.30pm Tuesday 7th April - Royal Norfolk Hotel, Bognor Regis

(They normally require a deposit)

2.30pm Tuesday 5th May - Bosworths, Finchingfield, Essex.

2.30pm Tuesday 2nd June - Tea Shop, Deal, Kent.

2.30pm Tuesday 7th July - Kingscliff Hotel, Holland on Sea,

Essex (They normally require a deposit)

2.30pm Tuesday 4th August - The Chatsworth Hotel, East-

bourne.

6.30pm Thursday 6th August - Charles Thain Hall, Snow Hill

Police Station - NARPO and COLPPA Meetings (Book with Ray

Stockinger).

2.30pm Tuesday 1st September - The Cliffeside Hotel, Bourne-

mouth.

2.45pm Tuesday 6th October - Cliffs Pavilion, Westcliff-on-Sea,

Southend.

Saturday 14th November - Cheshire Cheese, Fleet Street -

Lord Mayor's Show.

AND FINALLY. . .

summer 2009 city police pensioners newsletter

Documents

years service

happy life drawing

happy days

time person

ps chris pearson john

john husseys professional

john cardwell writes

city of london police