Policemen - is this for real?

[markey]

I've posted before on a similar theme, but every time I look back through old diaries, I see and remember more about policing in the seventies and eighties. I don't know if any ex-coppers post or browse here but if they do, I wonder if the following mean anything to them

• Clip-on ties
• Rupert bear lapel badges
• Police-issue 'macs'
• Book 40's

Would anyone remember

• Handing in IRB's for minor offences so that the court staff could present the cases if they were guilty pleas
• Cramming all the weekend defendants arrested for public order offences into the back of the magistrates court on a Monday morning
• Having to hand-deliver the papers (witness statements and exhibits) to the Crown Court when major/serious cases had been committed to that court

Things that just wouldn't happen now

• Having your socks checked before a shift - you always knew when someone had bought a six-pack (different meaning then) because they'd have three days of black towelling socks, then the grey pair followed by the light blue pair and finally, if brave enough, the white ones
• Putting on a pair of borrowed 'station' boots if things looked to be getting a bit too dodgy for your ordinary shoes

What about the "things that no-one would believe unless they were there...

• An officer calling in because he'd got lost and wanted directions to get him back to the nick!
• A young officer asking if he could leave his uniform - and all the other 'bits' - at the court overnight as he was "going out" that evening and wanted to go straight to court in the morning!
• A frantic young PC actually wetting himself (literally, 'doing it in his pants') in court because you just didn't ask to be excused whilst the court was in session!

I wonder about the reaction now? From those in the job, and others.

[sweep]

Re: Policemen - is this for real?

I do recall a young police officer asking my mum for directions to the station, he said he had been walking around for hours. we found it funny because you could actually see the station from the place he was stood, this would be early 70s.

[markey]

Re: Policemen - is this for real?

I do recall a young police officer asking my mum for directions to the station, he said he had been walking around for hours. we found it funny because you could actually see the station from the place he was stood, this would be early 70s.

Pretty embarrassing for him I suppose, especially if your mum was able to point out the building.

i should have said in my original post that when the officer 'called in' I meant that he phoned in, from a telephone box as he didn't want to run the risk of non-stop mickey-taking if he had asked for directions over the radio! Probably the same sort of thing as the one in your own tale.