Moving On

If you want to read my scribbles then good luck. I'm slowly building before starting my campaign to leave this world to its own devices.

Rebuilding My Ether

It's as if I'm rebuilding my whole life. Recently I bought a new computer, loaded with Windows XP. I then downloaded a file that XP disliked, so that every time I opened a Windows folder (anything in the Start menu) XP crashed itself. Don't ask me why.

Result was that I've had to reload Windows XP - which (for some strange reason) means that everything else on my computer has to be destroyed and rebuilt.

At the last count I had 82 different log-ins that required a password - fortunately I maintain all those at my Yahoo email account - it works with my BTInternet account, and means that I never download emails to my computer - and with spam and viris protection it works well. (enough advertising)

At present I'm looking at screen with huge type, and can't make the sound system work, but I do have the wireless network working - just can't carry my desktop around the house with any ease or convenience.

Combine the rebuild with installation of a wireless network (which didn't work until I allowed a guy in southern India to operate my computer remotely - ain't it marvellous) and the news that my grandchildren plan to come to stay with me and I'm in panic mode.

Slowly making www.lockwoods.co.uk a place to visit - you can sign-in there, and if you are really good (or controversial) I'll allow you to upload articles etc to the site.

An Idea

Have an idea - tell people about it - publish it on a blog, send out dozens of emails.

Nice people respond, 'Oh what a good idea, can I join in?'

Others want real information (from me?). How much will this be? If we can buy it as agricultural land it could be really cheap - if for housing - really expensive. How much land? As much as can be saved from the national housebuilders - those companies that have one set of plans (so that land-use can be maximised) that they use to build energy-greedy (but cheap to build) housing.

If this country had any sense it would insist that all new housing was both energy- efficient and able to create their own energy (by making the wife pedal a uni-cycle while doing the ironing and shouting at the kids).

It doesn't do that - it allows these builders to get away with what is (in effect) murder. By building such awful houses they create tomorrow's slums, increasing social stress, and increase the carbon load upon the world.

The world can take all this - no problem. It's people who will have the trouble.

To get back to the original bit about responses. Our beloved leaders have just ignored me. So, what's new?

Let's Build

Trinity College, Cambridge own a great swathe of land between Felixstowe and Ipswich, close to the villages of Trimley St Mary and Trimley St Martin.

Our council have just announced planning permission to build 2,700 houses on this land.

I wrote to the Master of Trinity some while ago suggesting he sell me 10 acres of this land, to be used for a community project that would build a variety of sustainable houses, and a community.

The reply I received was pleasant, but suggested I contact the local council, the East of England Development Agency etc.

That's what I now plan to do.

Anyone care to join in?

CMS: The Learning Curve

I've found something new - and so I'm wasting inordinate amounts of time (can time be an amount?) trying to make it all work.

It's a content management system (CMS), which uses a database to run web sites. Most old sites (like mine) are static pages. I make 'em, put them on the Web, you look at 'em. They don't change. With CMS I can split the page up into many small pieces, and then decide which piece will be displayed where, adding new items whenever I like, and others can add material as well - oh yes, I plan to involve you too!

It's very early days. I only got the stuff to work yesterday, at www.lockwoods.co.uk

You'll notice that many pages still talk about Joomla! see www.joomla.org This is Open Source software, and is to be highly recommended. Instead of one company offering you a product, in order to make a profit, open source is a collaborative effort, with many thousands of people: programmers, developers and users all making contributions, which they all share.

A similar system is Open Office, see http://www.openoffice.org/ which is an office suite to rival that bloke who made a lot of cash out of IBM all those years ago - what was his name? William Dawes? Can't remember.

Sorry to get technical - but I'm having great fun swimming through the treacle of instructions that rarely make much sense.

Shame

A shame that's the responsibility of a whole country.

No, I'm not talking about Israel, whose citizens should all be ashamed that when they attack foreign lands, killing innocents.

This shame is about England (I'm not sure what happens in the other, smaller, territories). England allows charities to run hospices for children. They don't really fund these places, relying instead upon National Lottery funds, which are little more than another tax upon the populace.

The East of England has three hospices for children. This year the National Lottery decided to withdraw funding. The hospices had wanted to expand, as there is an increasing demand. That's not possible.

Today I had a stall at the annual fete of EACH Lovely, well-meaning, people, many of whom had been directly touched by the death of a much-loved child. Not enough people attended. They will continue to struggle for money.

It's a national disgraces that a country cannot ease the passing of its own children, those kids whose life has been snatched away before they really understand what life is all about.

I told these people to stop collecting pennies by organising fetes and similar events. They should challenge their energies towards a concerted attack upon our politicians. They should picket their houses, ensure their demands are thrust down everyone's throats.

After all, who can deprive a dying child of anything they need? These little scraps will not be here for very long. The cost to the nation of lavishing love upon their shattered bodies and minds will be no more that a few of the missiles we were content to rain down upon Iraq just a few years ago.

Shame on you all.

Think of those dying children - and then go attack a politician - any politician

Mirrored Souls

There's been talk.

Even a suggestion that I'm making it all up!

It is, however, true. There are two Trevor Lockwood's. One who writes this Blog, another who lives in Barcelona, and often leaves comments on the Blog.

There's synchronicity, in that I also lived in Catalonia (often described as God's Own Country), before writing this Blog, which I now do from the decaying resort town of Felixstowe, in Suffolk, in the east of England (God's Other Country).

Both places have their attractions, and house swaps could well be in order - I'll get the allotment in proper shape first, and the house, and everything else before suggesting to the other TL that we should swop places. Perhaps we could also swop roles. He could fend off all my debtors, while I chatted up all his Catalan lovelies.

It's an idea that becomes increasingly attractive the more I muse upon it. When I last looked there were 26 Trevor Lockwood's shown on the Voter's Registers in England and Wales. Perhaps we should agglomerate, pool resources, shedding our collective debts and responsibilities. There are plenty of games we can play. responsibilities

The Learning Curve

Let's hope there is a life hereafter because a lifetime spent learning lessons will be such a waste if it all ends here. The real lessons learnt seem to be those that come from mistakes, those that produce that feeling of cringing embarrassment when recalled.

We should all make mistakes, and appreciate how much we learn as a result. Working within a disciplined service for much of my life has meant that I've taken a long time to learn. For too long I did as I was told, and later refused to do anything I was told. The pendulum swung too far away from the old ways. Perhaps now age is mellowing my acerbity.

Arrogant people, those who are convinced they know best, are to be avoided. Suicide bombers especially. As they push the button that blows them to eternity they do so believing that Allah will accept them as heroes, that they will live the perfect life for evermore.

It's a silly attitude to adopt, and very dangerous, particularly if you happen to be close to one of these misguided fools when they explode.

The wife of the first British suicide bomber (he killed himself at Mike's Bar in Israel) made a telling statement. She'd received a letter from her husband that told her he was leaving her, but that, later, they would meet in another life, and live together in perfect harmony. "He's got to be joking," she said, "if he thinks he can tell me he's leaving me and the children and then expect me to want to live with him in heaven."

He'd not really thought it out.

Anger

There's at least one reader of this blog that is angered by my writing. Hopefully it is always the same person, but perhaps not. In answer to the latest retort all I can say is that statistically, our beloved Councillor appears in the local press more frequently than any other councillor. My case rests, along with the old dogma about the exception proving the rule. Even I don't always get it right.

They are likely to get even angrier because I've decided to open my own web site as well, so www.lockwoods.co.uk (do note the 's') will grow over the coming months. Not sure why I need to do this - probably because I have an over-inflated ego, although I've not done much for myself - ever, so perhaps the time has come.

Summer's heat is making everything grow, and I'm having to eat even more to keep up with the produce coming from the allotment.

The Lost Sock

A community comes together when its members are involved together in a project. Over the last few months that's happened with 'The Lost Sock', a film produced by Felixstowe TV. This all started with an off-the-cuff remark made by Chris Gosling, the powerhouse behind Felixstowe TV, to the members of Felixstowe Scribblers, our local writers group.

Very quickly they came up with the outline of a script, and several people involved in local amateur dramatics were asked to appear. Filming began, producing 10-15 minute shorts that were displayed on the Felixstowe TV site.

The scripts were developed as the project moved along, and local companies started to get involved. Local shops provided locations, a car-hire firm provided vehicles and Felixstowe Port security even provided the 'heavies' to act as extras. All sorts of people became immersed in the project.

As each programme was screened at Felixstowe Tv interest grew, audience figures rose and it was decided to create a full-length movie.

Yesterday it was screened before a large audience at the 900-seat Spa Pavilion in Felixstowe. A full-length feature, lasting one hour 26 minutes. All this is a considerable achievement showing what can be done when people come together.

Some of the actors, all amateurs, were equal to anyone on commercial TV. There were mistakes, perhaps the dialogue was a bit confused at times, the sound quality could be improved, the camera angles chosen with more care. But it was still good entertainment and for a first attempt showed considerable potential.

The nameless local councillor as just one of many local people, organisattions and companies involved.

Looking forward to the next contribution from Felixstowe Films.

More info on The Lost Sock Saga

It's suggested that we all look at Episode 4 of the Lost Sock, which appeared on 18 February 2006. It records 'the seconds of infamy' (my informant's words not mine) of the lady councillor.

Look at the episode, or better still see the whole film at the Spa Pavilion on Sunday 9th July at 2pm. Click on the title of this Blog to get to Felixstowe TV.

The whole cast will be there, and rumours will circulate. This will be a time to enjoy the film and to ferret around, to play detective, to find out what really happened.

Hope to see you there.

It's a Wonderful Life

The sun is shining, although thunderstorms are promised (the allotment will be pleased).

My computers are playing up, rogue software loaded in error has upset Mr Gates and his team, and everything keeps crashing.

It makes me realise there is a world outside this darkened room. So today I enjoyed coffee and chocolate cake in the garden with friends, later washed down with a glass of English cider. Good conversation, warmth and food, what's missing? Hardly anything at all.

I'm amused by the comments this Blog attracts. Yesterday's was a local rhubarb about a councillor who was alleged to have spoken out of turn. One response says they are not going to reply to my farcical comments. Well, honey child, you just did.

Tonight will see me bent over my djembe drum. Perhaps that respondent would do well to go to a drumming class, where they can beat the hell out of their frustrations and enjoy themselves at the same time.

Life is short, sweetie pie. Don't attack - just learn to smile. It is fun.

Must make some raspberry ice-cream before drumming starts.

Local Gossip

Now, I'm not one to gossip!

But!

Our TV station has made a film, using a plot written by our local Felixstowe Scribblers writing group and local actors. Called The Lost Sock it will be shown at the local theatre next week. (click on the title of this piece to be taken to the site)

It was to be shown at the local cinema, but a councillor (she must remain nameless) who appears in the film commented upon the poor state of repair of the flea pit (it is dreadful).

The Irish owner of the place took exception to her remarks, and at the last minute withdrew his invitation to have the film screened at his cinema.

Panic set in.

Then our Chris, the Felixstowe TV man, managed to save the day, and there will now be a (free) screening at the Spa Pavilion on 9 July.

Our beloved councillor will no doubt be there, and will (no doubt) have her picture in the local newspapers the next day.

No reports are yet coming in about the feelings of the Irishman.

The film, which can be seen online, is said to be good in parts.

Whatever it's like it is a wonderful achievement, that shows what a small group of determined people can achieve.

If only our local council could be made to make use of their enthusiasm. Never mind, look out for her photo in the paper.

That's All Over

We are out of the World Cup. I say we, I mean England's football team is now out of the competition.

That failure is representative of the present state of England. We are ruled by Scots, and the mainstream guru on BBC TV is an arrogant, self-opinionated Scot. He was crowing with delight as he started to blame everyone he could once it was clear we had failed.

That a country of over 30 million people had to choose a foreigner, an uncharismatic but testosterone-filled Swede, was ludicrous. Particularly when the job, when done by Englishmen, had been regarded as a part-time activity commanding a very small salary. Our Sven has picked up 5 million a year, for over five years, and achieved no more than our gallant English part-timers.

Before the contest our 'star' player was injured. There was much fuss about whether he would be fit enough to play. That he'd never scored a goal in a World Cup tournament was considered irrelevant.

This allegedly talented player demonstrates all that is wrong about football. He's an aggressive, short-tempered yob whose paid far more than his intelligence, let alone his talent, justifies.

We had an alternative, a young man who had never played in a first-class game of football, let alone a World Cup. That he was the next-best choice shows how reliant the English football leagues have become upon foreign players. These expensive yet talented young men come to England, take £100,000 a week or more, and then go back home (with our money). They take much more. They take a detailed knowledge of the way we play football.

Our captain, David Beckham, has now resigned. His days may be numbered in any case. A new team is taking over at Real Madrid, with 160 million Euros to spend. Beckham's presence at Real has not gained them any trophies, and that may be the last straw.

Empires come and go, and the demise of our football team is indicative of the state of the country.

Meanwhile two more British soldiers are killed in Afghanistan fighting a war that has nothing to do with us. I mourn that tragic waste of young life.

The Shadows

It's great. If you look at 'Is Anyone Out There' - a few blogs back, there are now three comments. Not that any of them are considering anything I may have said (one does suggest I can be ignored). The pleasure is that they are now talking amongst themselves.

It all started with liars. Civilisation is the worse off because people lie. It was suggested it was the worst of the deadly sins.

Politicians are often labelled as liars, but I have just an edge of sympathy for them, because their time in office is often too brief. They are emphemera, at least that's the way the British Civil Service mandarins think of them.

They are right. Politicians are useless. They spout platitudes. They are rarely held responsible for any decisions taken. Invariably they are given two choices by their advisors. A good one, and a bad one. The good one is that preferred by the administrators.

We are all slightly mad, allowing nerds to make decisions that affect all our lives. And we've allowed them to get so entrenched that they can take 50% of all earned income, and still we don't complain. Even we they take us on wars which are nothing to do with us.

It's British administrators who enforce silly European laws, which the rest of Europe happily ignores. It's these people who insist that all boxes are correctly ticked, and never consider anyone to look outside the box.

I had to get outside a big box the other day. I got on a bus with my senior bus card. Presenting it to the driver he said, 'I can't take that. It's out of date.'

So it was, I'd given him last year's card, and not the new one, which had just arrived. 'I've not got any younger,' I said. But he was adamant, and I had to get off the bus, walk home and get the newly-issued card.

Why do I need to renew a senior citizen's bus pass every year? Providing a photograph each time, filling in long forms, providing documentary proof of my age?

Perhaps it's because I look so young?

States

It's like having a twin. The Other Trevor is following in my footsteps, he's now living in Spain, working at property management. I did that once. Hopefully he'll not make the same mistake as me, and come back to Blighty.

Interesting concept: the nation state. I'm not sure how much longer it will last. It's likely that real power will shift towards China over the foreseeable future. Although I published a book a few years ago, one based on the Mayan calendar, which has been running for over 28,000 years. It's full cycle comes to an end soon - not sure if it's 2008 or 2012. The latter would tune in well with the Olympics in London.

The Mayans suggested we would then turn into another life-force, an altered state that no longer required a body. So, prepare to vaporise.

When I last looked at the voter's register there were 26 Trevor Lockwood's registered in the United Kingdom. One lives in the village, Bramford, where my own family were living 200 years ago. We may be related, but will he pay my bills?

We may all be linked as Lockwood, meaning an enclosed wood, is still in Yorkshire. It's now part of Huddersfield. Sherrif Hudder was upset when John Lockwood ran off with his daughter. He chased him for over a year, finally catching up with him. John put up a good fight, killing off most of the posse (yes, they are not an American invention). He was drawing back his bow to finish off Hudder when his beloved mistress cut the bow-string (family ties are stronger than bow-strings).

John picked up his baby, preparing to flee. Hudder shot an arrow that passed through child and man, killing both.

So, none of the known Trevor Lockwood's are direct descendants of poor John of Lockwoode, killed 1215 by Sherrif Hudder, who turned his pasture into a field that took his name (boo hiss).

NIMBY

It was such a lovely day, and my hay fever decided to stay at home, so I spent some time on the allotment this morning. It was glorious. I removed a few weeds, did a little digging, planted the rest of the leeks and took the centre 2-3 bulbs from the shallots. They are often very loose, ready to pick, and removal helps the remaining globes to expand a little more. Replanted some rocket, picked a few raspberries, dug up some potatoes and a couple of beetroot, and the world looked so much better.

Wish that was the case for everyone, but it's not the case. NIMBY is an acronym for Not In My Back Yard, and I keep wondering how I'd react if the Danes or Saxons (Germans), or even the Romans (Italians) suddenly turned up in East Anglia and said that God had given them this land, and as they had lived here hundreds of years ago they were going to take over this land.

I'd not be able to prevent that happening, because World Powers, would support these invaders. I'd be pushed, with the promise that I'd be able to form my own country on the piece of land the invaders didn't want.

My reaction would be 'sod off' you'll have a fight on your hands if you try.

The invader, with World Support, would disregard my protests, and invade more of my land, squashing me in to refugee camps, making me rely upon foreign aid in order to survive.

Somehow I'd be obliged to accept this situation.

Over my dead body.

More butter on your potatoes anyone? You'll need to keep your strength up, I've heard we are going to reclaim France next week.

It gets better

Every day there's a small improvement. Today two people have commented upon my Blog, one suggests that I'm disposable, but I'll cope with that, as the only certaintity in life is that we will all die. Sooner or later? Whenever let's hope we don't know too much about it.

On the longest day we met on the beach (the bit that's not been dredged and sold to Denmark) for a chat, drinks, food and to play a little music. One person spoke in tongues - and we'd like to discover which language she was speaking, as she's always drifting off into this nether world. A linguist living somewhere near Felixstowe would be useful. I suspect it has a middle-eastern origin, but what do I know. What's certain is that it a language, as it has some structure, and phrases are repeated.

It's fascinating, and warrants some investigation. I wonder if it's a breakthrough from another dimension, or a genetic throwback (we have physical characteristics passed through generations, why not other attributes, such as memory)?

Better stop, or those that believe I'm a crank will send the white coats.

Wish someone would invite me to a strawberry tea. It is Wimbledon Fortnight, and although I have little time for tennis (the ball syndrome) I do like strawberries - and tea.

Monday

What a great day of the week. I woke to the sound of rain, the air was fresh, even the hay fever decided to relax.

From some sort of national obligation I watched TV as our football team, England, played Ecuador. I even carried on to see parts of the Portugal and Holland game.

It's depressing. Drunken louts who only find enjoyment from booze and when their team beats another. The media grab hold of an isolated incident, and make it into a crisis. I'm cynical enough to know that the red-top (popular) press will give these silly young men so much beer that they'd do anything. The mob can easily be stirred. It could happen. Although give young Englishmen enough beer and mock courage and they'll believe they can do anything.

There's been so little trouble at the World Cup in football, and it is a World Cup, even the USA fielded a team that was good enough to get to these final stages, that I'm unimpressed with a few plastic chairs being thrown around.

The German police took the right action, rounding up anyone who was causing trouble and locking them up for three days. They missed the game, they missed all the fun before, during and after the match. That's the best punishment there could be. Nobody wants these louts.

There's a part of me that wants England to lose. I'm not sure we need our young people to copy the lying, cheating, over-paid young men who are today's gladiators.

Is there anyone out there?

Once upon a time I had a web site, upon which I displayed well over one million words that I'd cobbled together. Thousands visited the site, but few responded.

That's the great joy of the Net. We are all satisfied by this new democracy. Once we can set aside Mammon, and ignore religious zealots, both of which are impossible ideals, we have the chance to make real choices.

Would you choose to live here? You have the choice. That's a privilege open to all those who have the technology to read Blogs.

If we can get rid of the two snakes: one red, one white, that encircle the earth all day and all night, then the pollution that helped create that sunset will disappear, and you will no longer want to live there.

That's democracy.

Crankiness

An anonymous commentator says my hay fever is caused by crankiness.

Does anyone have a cure for that state?

If not I must stay indoors until the season ends.

No wonder that contributor wants to remain anonymous.

Is the football on yet?

Pass me a tissue.

Read with care

I do wish people read my scribbles with my care. I complained about friendly fire, only to be accused of suggesting that friendly nuclear bombs had been dropped. That was not the case - there were different sentences.

Why don't folk give me an answer to my hay fever instead?

The experts are suggesting it may be genetic (not in my family) or the lack of exposure to pollens as a child (I was born surrounded by fields, walking through the grass every day of my life).

Pollen may be the irritant but I suspect it has more to do with my susceptibility, which may have been heightened because my body is now subjected to an inordinate number of strange chemicals. One researcher suggests that a new chemical is introuduced every 20 minutes. The east of England, where I live, gets all the rubbish carried in the wind from the rest of the country, especially London which is just 70 miles due west.

Again, so I read, southern Britain has some of the worst air pollution in Europe, if not elsewhere.

And another of my critics wants to know why I want to live elsewhere.

Peregrine Worsthorne, a noted columnist, now says that he is no longer in love with England. I agree. The place is going to the dogs.

I've spent the day talking to the Arts Council. They award money to artists. The system is so bound up with red-tape that they have lost all vision. It would be more productive, and cheaper, to give any artist who asked a small sum of money, a few thousand, and see what they produce.

Control should come after the event. Not before. How can imaginations soar when the artist must be able to describe the potential market for their work, and have an established reputation before awards can be made?

A new Age of Enlightenment is not likely.

Summer

The weather - a perennial topic for an Englishman - remains variable. For one or two days it's hot, but the humidity remains high, and then we have a belt of rain. My allotment is running wild, but should produce good results. New potatoes, and perhaps the first mangetout could be on the menu tonight.

It's encouraging to know that England is producing something. Talk recently, amongst my circle of friends, is of excessive immigration and lack of exports. A survey in Lincolnshire shows that most farm-workers who arrive here, mainly from Eastern Europe, want to stay. 56 langugaes are now spoken in a county that once had difficulty in speaking an understandable version of English. These workers are encouraged to arrive because they are cheap. Not because English workesr will not do the job, but they want to be paid a decent wage.

Big business, and that includes our farmers, wants cheap labour. Politicians concur, accepting this argument without question. However if the immigrants stay they are no longer cheap. They demand housing, schools, and will encourage their dependants to also come to this green and pleasant land.

The argument then suggest that such immigration is great because it creates rich diversity. Drive through our large urban conurbations and all have ghettoes where immigrants congregate, and feed upon each other, having little contact with the indigenous residents.

There is no real attempt to ensure these people integrate. Many, in the past, have never learnt to speak English.

Britain was called Great Britain when we had between 10-30 million people. We now have at least 60 million, and the government is encouraging most of them to live in the south-eastern corner. Roads are crowded, tempers frayed, and we are beginning to waddle around like turkeys fattened for Xmas because most restaurants sell junk, our supermarkets sell processed junk in cardboard boxes and chips must go with everything.

I want to live somewhere else. This country is no longer mine. It is peopled by selfish immigrants who only want to exploit this country for what it can give them, and their extended family - most of whom live abroad, although many are trying to get here.

The global village does not work for the Little Englander - who has practically everything. We have nothing to gain by these policies. In fact we have much to lose, as the country's wealth is watered down and dissipated elsewhere. Shangri-La must be found before it is too late.

Hay Fever

Has anyone out there got a cure for hay fever? I'm plagued at this time of year. It must have something to do with increasing pollution levels because I was brought up in a field, surrounded by pollens of every kind, but in the last five years I've had hay fever.

It's awful. I try the generic my quack provides, I've eaten honey all winter, started with homoepathic tablets until it became unbearable.

This affliction is ruining the quality of my life.

Out damned spot! I want rid of ye.

Here We Are Again

If it can happen, it will. Thank goodness we don't rely so much on nuclear bombs as we did when it was (falsely) believed the Soviets wanted to invade. Now only a few people are killed when an idiot drops bombs in 'friendly fire'.

British Telecom kept me away from the Net for three weeks. I now return with a new computer and a broadband connection that is 4 times faster. Goodho! The viruses can now get in that much faster.

It's like moving house, there's so much stuff on the old machine, that I can't transfer just yet - anyone explain how LANs work? Mine doesn't.

I'll be back

Literary Heritage

Recently an old wardrobe I used as a bookcase collapsed, spilling books all over the floor. Those little bits of plastic just could not take the strain any more. That made me look through the books on my shelves. Nearly 500 of those books are by authors that I have helped to publish their own work over the last twenty years. There have been many more writers who have gone it alone, but I no longer have their books.

Looking over the titles there's some really good stuff there, and a sprinkling of mistakes. One guy insisted on producing his novel in bold sans serif font making it the most difficult book to read (I didn't).

When I started, over 30 years years ago, it was a hazardous business even thinking about publishing your own work. Today it has become much easier. Ebook are the easiest, but we still need a handy reader that is given away free, or at very low cost. Once that's available everyone will carry one around all the time. It could be that the Ipod will become a standard item, and we will not read but listen to books.

Real progress has come with digital printing. I now use an on demand printer for my books and that gives me a direct link to major distributors in UK and USA, effectively giving world-wide coverage. Go into any bookstore and you can place an order for one of your books, which will be printed to your order and delivered to the store in a matter of days.

I ha’ve never made any money from my support for authors, but I feel passionately that authors should be able to reach readers,– and especially those readers who are not even born yet.

Our literary heritage is in serious danger. The Tudor poets could not survive today, nor could the melancholics of the Victorian era, yet they and many others, contribute to the richness of a cultured society.

Culture today depends upon commercial success, good looks, football prowess, sex-appeal and serving the lowest common denominator. Mass-market appeal is drowning out progress, at least the sort of progression I dream about. Perhaps we are drifting into a primitive world. One day the lights will be switched out and no-one will understand why.

Suspicion

Tony Blair is the Prime Minister of the government of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. He's given Scotland the right to govern most of its activities - he's not allowed them to go to war by themselves as he's always wanted to keep that pleasure for himself. He gave Wales more muted powers over their own destinies, and Northern Ireland had devolved government but behaved like truculent children and so had the privilege taken away. It now seems they don't really want it back, especially as they've all been receiving their salaries and perks for doing nothing, so why should they want to go back to doing something.

England has nothing for itself, only Tony Blair.

It's time to wonder what he's up to. He said he was going to retire before the next election, but didn't say when. He took us into Iraq, even though the rest of the British vehemently opposed that action. Now he has committed British troops to Afghanistan. There's no clear reason why he should have done that. The Russians couldn't tame that beast, nor can the Americans, so what are the British doing there?

He reshuffled the government recently but left his deputy prime minister in place, just took away all his powers. He knows that this man, John Prescott, is widely regarded as a buffoon. He also knows that if he is removed there must be an election, and one of his opponents will get the job. Best to let the fool remain.

He's now signed a petition supporting research on animals. He knows, once again, that most of the rest of the country want more stringent controls on animal research, and that many scientists are questioning its validity these days. It was relevant once, but now we have other methods.

Yesterday he came out in support of nuclear power. He knows that his party, the Labour Party (which he insists on calling New Labour), will have difficulty supporting him on all these issues.

Why is he taking such a stance?

Is he just power-crazy, pushing the electorate to see how far they will go? Is he just ignorant of the wishes and views of ordinary people? Or is there another agenda?

I wonder if all this is not a deliberate strategy. He does not want to hand over power to Gordon Brown, his alleged chosen successor. They don't like each other - even though they are both Scots. He does know he cannot stand again. He would not be elected. His days in power are numbered. He is a selfish, self-centred man.

Perhaps he is also spiteful. If he can't have power then he'll not let those around him have it either. He'd rather let the young kid now leading the Conservatives have the job instead.

He's now a stray bullet. Nobody knows what he will do next. It's doubtful whether anything he says or does will be logical.

Welcome to a decaying Empire.

Free Speech

Freedom of speech is an essential element of a civilised society. We are not an homogenous band whose brains all follow the same pathways, and it is invariably the case that today's heretic or revolutionary will develop to become tomorrow's leader, and often then fall to become despotic.

Those that fear the words of others may be moving into that final phase, when everyone around them poses a threat, where a word spoken out of place can mean isolation, imprisonment, even death.

One million people marched through the streets of London to protest against the invasion of Iraq. The government ignored the pleas of all these people, and the majority of the population who agreed we should not invade.

Now we are paying the price. We shall gain nothing from the invasion of Iraq or the use of our army in Afghanistan. We have already paid money, for weapons, for rebuilding an Iraq devastated by bombing, even though a Defence Secretary said that all essential services would be protected, that they would not be bombed.

Our streets are no longer safe. Suicide bombers, born and bred in England, have been so incensed by the actions of our government that they choose to destroy themselves and to take innocent people with them, or to leave them maimed and weakened by a senseless campaign.

It's easy to condemn the suicide bombers, but they are taking such actions because we created conflict. The war against Al Quieda is yet another myth. Who started the fight in the first place?

We remember Vietnam. We know that there was no chance of victory. There is no hope of beating the rage that is eating away at the hearts of so many.

The British must stop interfering with the lives of other people. We have enough to do here. Let them get on with it. Bring the troops back home.

What's really happening?

Our Foreign Secretary, Jack Straw, was sacked last week. Been in the job for five years, not caused any real trouble, so why should he go now?

Rumour says it's because he said it would be inconceivable to invade Iran, and that to consider using nuclear weapons would be nuts.

Yesterday another member of our government said that Guantanamo should be closed. America has rejected that request. That guy will probably disappear soon as well.

Iraq is proving to a disaster, but there is a more important issue than the political stability of that country. The companiesd that make the really big weapons, the million-dollar bombs dropped on Baghdad, are beginning to get worried. They have replaced all the weaponry used in invading Iraq. They now need another target.

Iran looks like a good bet. Politically it threatens Israel, and America is controlled by Jews, so attacking Iran looks like a good idea. We don't have to ask if it is necessary, or even if it is achievable, the question is how many bombs do you think we can drop on the place.

All my life I lived under the supposed threat of Soviet invasion. It was a myth, a lie. It was never going to happen, but companies making the products used in war wanted us to feel worried - they made more money that way.

A Kalashnikov rifle costs a few dollars to make, and can be made by anyone. A nuclear bomb takes a little more thought, and can be very expensive. That's the gear these large international (dare I say US-controlled) companies like to make. Missile guidance, huge tanks, untested hardware.

The truth is that we don't need conventional armed forces any longer. They are useless against insurgents, and (supposedly) they are the new enemy. So why do we keep making warships, fighter planes, tanks and bombs?

Because they all make money.

Allotment

It was all too much for me this morning, so I took the traditional male line, and ran away. Just for an hour. It was about to rain, the wind was blowing, but it wasn't cold. I went to the allotment. It was glorious.

A blackbird kept up a constant aria, an absolute delight as I planted runner beans, black French beans and 'Golden Sweet' yellow-podded mangetout peas. Fortunately a hedge had been trimmed nearby, and the clippings remained, long branches of hawthorn, which made perfect pea sticks. This variety of mangetout can grow to 5-6 feet so I pushed in plenty of sticks. Must now hope that the blackbird wasn't watching too closely as I planted the seeds!

Raspberries are about to flower, and the one gooseberry bush looks as if it will be loaded with fruit. I started to clear away some of the long grass around these bushes, but there were too many nettles to make much of an impression without gloves.

A female blackbird flew down beside me, just to tell me that she'd be back as soon as I left to plunder the worms and other juicy snacks I'd uncovered.

We are strange creatures, encouraging the birds to eat the worms, when the worms do us more good than the birds. Although that blackbird's song did leave me feeling elated. An unbroken melody that went on for the whole hour I was on the allotment.

Potatoes are starting to come through. It's strange how some have pushed through and have already formed fair-sized clumps, whilst others have still to appear. My neighbour, a great weeder, has pulled his spuds up into ridges. I'm never sure about all that, you may get more potatoes, but if we have the promised drought they may all be too small to eat. I'll leave mine alone.

Spuds bring back sore memories. I had a five-acre field in Spain, and one evening I had a long discussion with my Catalan neighbour about potatoes. He said the seeds could be cut up, allowing more plants to be obtained. I argued that the cut potatoes stood more chance of getting blight. He resisted that idea, and we agreed to plant my field using both methods. He took the western side of the field, which took the brunt of the weather. That year it rained. His potatoes were soon blighted. It was an awful sight, watching the haulms collapse to yellow-black as the blight reached each plant in turn.

Eventually mine suffered as well and so I lost the whole crop - which had been planted by hand. It's a horrible feeling to pick up a potato that looks OK from the outside, but can be squeezed to reveal the blackened pulp inside.

I always plant the whole tuber these days.

Live for the Day

Spent this morning talking with a lady who looks after 15 anaesthetists, in that she adminstrates their work and collects and distributes the money they earn. Two are women, and she was caustic in her description of these two, saying they took up more of her time than the rest of the team (all men) out together.

I make that as an observation, without comment.

Another friend called to say that her husband had just died. Death is always so much worse for those left behind. As my years increase I consider myself extremely lucky. What ever happens from now on is a bonus.

That cannot be said for the (estimated) 5.4 million children who die from starvation-related causes every year. It's extremely sad, and whatever happened to population control? It was once a popular subject, although now in decline, along with all other environmental subjects.

We are a selfish bunch. Burning oil that has taken millions of years to produce, or nuclear fuel that may take thousands of years to decay. The future is never considered. The children we will never know will be left to pick up the shattered pieces of what should be a perfect world.

Over-population is one huge problem. Yet we continue to invest in new medical techniques that will prolong life while religious leaders condemn the use of condoms. The world is steeped in a lemming-like madness, motivated by greed, pushed along by political and social systems that pay little heed to the needs of the wider society.

British troops have moved into Afghanistan. Why they should be there nobody has really explained. The cost will be met by British taxpayers very few of whom support the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan. At the same time politicians tell lies, they cavort with their secretaries, having sex in plush offices and apartments paid for by the British taxpayer.

How did we get to the state when nearly 50% of our earnings are taken in direct taxation, and most of the rest is removed by indirect tax or the interest payments imposed by credit card companies and banks.

Amongst all this mayhem another friend's young son is about to die from imoperable cancer. Her pain must be unbearable. There are now words to describe such suffering.

How can any god deserve support when they allow us to create such a stupid world?

Progress for a decaying empire

I have no love of football. It's become a game for nasty cheats, whose icons are grossly overpaid. It is, however, a reflection of a nation's psyche. Today we are told that a Brazilian, presently managing Portugal, is to be offered the job of English national coach.

To that we have Arsenal, the only English football team left in Europe. There is not one English player in that side.

Beyond that we have a government minister saying, 'It really doesn't matter who owns the company, as long as the jobs remain in Britain.'

There's national stupidity at work. One in eight of prisoners in British goals are foreigners. We don't know how many illegal immigrants we have in the country. It is apparent to everyone except the Home Office, which is stuck in a 1970s social science timewarp, that many of them come here to exploit us and then to take the spoils elsewhere.

The port in Felixstowe, where I live, has been given authority to expand. There will be a huge new dock, with 13 new cranes. The deep water channel necessary for the new large vessels is dragging away the sand from our beach. The town is losing its one resource - it's attractive beach.

No matter, say the officials, that the port is owned by China. It will bring jobs to the area.
Nobody has bothered to look at Rotterdam, the largest port in Europe, where computers are replacing humans and the whole port is slowly becoming automated.

This is the end of Empire. We once ruled the world. Now we don't deport foreign criminals, we don't even know who is foreign, and not entitled to live here. Our industrial base has been destroyed, and we don't have anything left to replace it. Our workers are little more than slaves, except that the slave knew he would have a master, our workers can lose a job tomorrow without notice.

Yet the Deputy Prime Minister can shag his secretary. The Health Minister ruin the National Health Service. The Schools Minister seem so out of touch that she's unreal and the Culture Secretary is forced to divorce her husband to stay in her job.

We need a dictator.

I'm up for the job if the rest of you care enough to want me.

Disgusted with South Devon health care

Now it's time for a real moan. My father-in-law (lovely man) is dying. He's 89 and had a slight stroke - see my advice in the blog below this - and was admitted to hospital.

He recovered sufficiently to be taken to another facility for convalescence. There he developed bed sores (poor nursing care?) and was returned to the main hospital for treatment. There he caught MRSA, and now his body is falling apart, because the infection is attacking the bed sores.

The hospital staff say they are sorry. There is nothing more they can do. Can they be blamed or is it the system?

That's bad enough - and will somebody please realise that we did not have such dreadful infections when each ward had its own ward cleaner. That lovely lady checked all the dodgy places every day. If she missed something the charge nurse found it. Then the ward sister's eagle eye was ever wary. Failing all these dedicated people we could rely upon Matron, a matriach who struck terror to all who stepped out of place.

Today we have a bully-boy contractor employing cheap immigrant labour, which have to be kept on the move so they are not deported, who are paid very little, and can't clean above shoulder height. The germs have now worked out how to survive this remnant of Thatcher's destruction and sit just above shoulder height, ready to drop MRSA on any old dears who pass by.

It gets worse. The doctors said there was nothing more they could do. Father-in-law was going to die, and should be sent home.

Hold on there! The social services then said, 'Oh no he can't.' Not until we have had six meetings with all relevant parties (except his family) to discuss his case. No date was given as to when a decision to let him out of hospital would be taken, and the social care worker refused to listen to the pleas of his two daughters, ready and willing to help.

By this time the family knew better than to ask what services would be available when this dying man did arrive home. They'd asked that previously, when faced with two social service officials conducting a home visit. These denizens had probed and prodded, checked and sniffed, questioned and hummed and haa-ed. They'd said he needed this, should have that, would need that changed, this moved and then perhaps all would be satisfactory.

All had looked very promising. The cavalry were waiting on the other side of the hill. Relief was at hand. Except it wasn't. That's what he really needs, they said. But we don't have any of that. We suffer from a lack of staff, money, resources and interest. So they left. He had no support provided.

Now they say he must wait in hospital, to be assessed. While GPs pick up over £100,000 a year, money is poured into a system that uses it to monitor progress and report back to the government.

This stroppy old git suggested the family go the hospital, and bring him home. All agreed except his elderly wife. She is utterly distraught by all that has already happened, and doesn't want to make a fuss - who does at her age? She's now at risk and wants to end it for both of them, they have had enough of this life. A sorry end for two wonderful people.

Patricia 'Am I supercilious' Hewitt purports to govern the health service. She says our heath service has never been better.

Go say that to my in-laws.

Recognise a Stroke

Don't just let someone stumble, fall over, get up, brush themselves down and say everything is OK.

Agree with them but just ask them to do three simple tasks:

Ask them to smile

Ask them to raise both arms

And to speak a simple sentence: perhaps It's a sunny day today.

If they have trouble with any of these - dial 999 and get them to hospital. They may have had a stroke. Recognising and treating a stroke victim within three hours can save all the problems.

Remember those three simple steps.

Cold Spring

There's a lot of the pagan in me, and that becomes very notceable in the Spring, except that my character is flawed. I anticipate failure too readily. Spring is a time of hope and excitement. The first flowers peek through the cold wintry soil, offering hope for the future. The sun will shine again soon. All will be well with the world. But there's always that nagging doubt in the back of the mind.
Today the scepticism has proved to be well-founded. We've had a few days of sun that have seen me discarding jackets, pulling shorts out of the wardrobe. Today all has changed. It is cold, and that's made worse because my obstinancy tells me it is now April, and heating is no longer required - at least not during the day. I will relent in the evening and twiddle the central heating knob, but not during that day.
Use the time to play with words. Go to Michael Quinion's site World Wide Words. He'll have you rubbing your hands together with glee, and that'll keep you warm.

Aerials

The TV aerial fell off the roof of a house owned by my friend this weekend. So what's the problem? Well, the house was rented and I had agreed to act as the contact point whilst my friend was away.

At the same time my daughter phoned, and emailed, to ask for my help. Dad's do not refuse daughters. It's a basic rule of life. Then I was asked to help build a telescope, add an eel logo to 100 semi-precious stones, and cook a meal or two.

By this time I was wondering how my allotment was looking, and whether I would ever find time to prepare the page layouts for a new book. No problem, so I went out to dinner, stayed out too long, felt like death swept across the griddle the next morning until the phone rang again. Those accounts I'd promised to help a friend (another friend - do I have too many of these creatures) where now do, and had I managed to finsh them yet?

It's time for the allotment. The sun is shining

Life Gets in the Way

Is this the story of my life? Good intentions but then the rest of my world gets in the way. This short biography will continue but I'm away from home and so do not have all my notes.

Perhaps I should now start from this end and work backwards towards those halcyon days, when me and the world were still young?

Yesterday was important because I obtained an allotment. It's not huge, just 5 rods, which is half the normal size but it's a short cycle ride away from home and the lady who worked it before me seems to have only just stopped using it - and she had dug over most of the ground. That meant that within an hour of signing the agreement with the local council to rent the plot I could plant two rows of onions and a row of shallots!

I woke this morning full of ideas, ready to plant even more seeds but was forced in another direction, which sent me off to Bury St Edmunds to pick up something for a friend, and the rest of today is already allocated to other tasks. Is that a function of retirement: to fill the available time? And are those new, ever-pressing, tasks really that important? I wonder.

There was a time when I was inundated with nuisance telephone calls. I told those who promised to place me on a register that would ensure that I was never phoned on a Sunday afternoon by Kitchens Direct (can you believe that - a Sunday afternoon!) or strange voices from Asian sweat shops asking to talk to someone in charge of IT, or to tell me that my mobile phone contract is about to expire - how the hell do they know anyway - to no avail. The answer was not to answer the phone at all. For the first few days that was difficult, but I soon managed to dismiss its insistence, and found that it always gave up before I did. It was the same technique I used to give up smoking, to make it a challenge between me and the phone, or the cigarette. They wanted me more than I wanted them. Easy.

Spent last night with two good friends, who shall remain anonymous because they don't usually answer their front door bell in the evening. I'd called twice, to no answer, but kept persisting and finally struck lucky, they answered the door.

Their reluctance to answer was the result of not having a television licence, a strict requirement in Great Britain. Their reasoning for not having a licence is too complex for this short spat, but I couldn't live my life that way, wondering who was waiting at the door, ready to pounce upon my cheque book.

Perhaps more tales of Islington nick would be more exciting!

Islington Nick

While with the Special Patrol Group I passed the promotion examination, and after spending a few weeks at Enfield Highway as an acting sergeant in 1969 I was promoted to sergeant, and sent to Islington nick (NI). Working with two other sergeants, Denis Prendergast and Percy Rush I worked on ‘C’ Relief. They were good days. Denis was a kind-hearted Irishman who helped me enormously, and we spent a lot of time together. Denis was a Station Sergeant, then a rank higher than an ordinary PS, and was always the Duty Officer, with Percy and me taking turn about to be Station Officer one day, and Section Sergeant the next.

Percy was an amiable rogue, and fortunately I didn’t have to spend much time with him as he always managed to get into scrapes. At that time single officers lived in Section Houses, I’d been in an horrible one above Tottenham nick, then moving to the luxury of Elizabeth House in Highgate. During my early days at Islington there was a section house in a building at the rear of the station yard. Later there was a new, purpose-built, building in Canonbury.

Just after the old Section House building was cleared, and before the builders moved into to convert it to offices, I drove into the yard late one night to see Percy trotting across the yard towards the Section House with a cell mattress under his arm. Beside him a young woman tottered along on high heels. She was undoubtedly a prostitute. ‘It’s OK,’ said Percy, ‘she hasn’t got anywhere to stay tonight. Can you look after the Front Office while I see her settled down?’ I smiled at his huge wink, and Percy came back with a smile on his face, having taken an hour to settle his young lady down for the night.

In those days we wore blue cotton shirts that were real pigs to iron, with detached collars with the studs leaving small bruises on the front and back of my neck. I walked into the front office one hot summer Sunday, to be grabbed by Percy, who asked me to look after the station while he went to the new Section House at Canonbury. I agreed and off he went to have a shower, to cool down.

He’d been gone about 15 minutes when our Chief Superintendent walked in. In those days that meant I jumped to attention, calling out ‘All correct Sir,’ even when it wasn’t. The Guvnor checked the Duty State and demanded to know where was Percy. Mumbling excuses I went to the Reserve Room (the station’s communication centre) and told them to get Percy back to the station as quickly as possible.

Meanwhile the Guvnor was checking the books, with intense concentration, and finding more and more errors and I was getting the butt end of his rancour, and I shouldn’t have been there in the first place. Percy was going to get it in the neck when he did turn up, from me as well as the Guvnor.

Percy finally arrived. It was clear that he’d taken a shower at the Section House, and that was an heinous offence (don’t ask me why, but that was the way it was). As he marched in I burst out laughing because he’d clearly rushed out of the shower, dressed, jumped in the car and driven back to the station. He hadn’t bothered to towel himself dry, and his pale blue linen shirt, now dampened, had turned a much darker shade of blue. With his hair still dripping wet he looked a real sight.

For the Guvnor it was all too much, and Percy was dragged off to his office to be told off. The disciplinary regime under which we worked was really stupid, as someone like Percy could run rings around the system, and in so doing show that these senior officers really had little control over our activities.

In practice sergeants ran the service we gave to the public, and senior officers were little more than an encumbrance, doing simple administrative jobs, such as checking the books. Task that anyone could have managed.

SPG continued

Then came the experts, who could walk down the road, and spot rogue vehicles at a glance. I always knew when James had spotted something as we strolled down the street together. He’d quicken his pace, looking straight ahead until we found a safe hideaway. In a breathless voice he’d tell me, ‘The grille on that Ford’s all wrong, I bet it’s a ringer.’ A ringer could mean a car with false number plates, although the correct slang is really ‘plater’ (not sure you can have correct slang, but there you are), meaning a car bearing false number plates. A ‘ringer’ normally meant that it’s a ‘cut and shunt’ where two cars are cut in half, and a half from each is welded together to make a new vehicle. Car crime can be good business, and is often the first step to other crimes. Bank robberies were once much more frequent than they are today, when banks have cameras, bullet proof screens and lockable exit doors, and cars were often stolen to order, and left in strategic locations close to the bank, so that the robbers could jump into a fresh car, and make their getaway.

The SPG quickly acquired a reputation, or should that be notoriety. We certainly did make an impact, as must be expected when 100 police officers suddenly descend on a small area of London, and stop everything that moved. Our real purpose was to be an active, trained, group to deal with emergencies, and we were used several times during my short year with the group. Unfortunately such techniques have now been subsumed under the deluge of stupidity currently labelled human rights. To stop anyone these days our police officers, when and if they do make the streets, need to circumvent legislation that defies logic.

I went to a plane crash at Heathrow, where my job was to prevent the fire brigade from pinching the duty free booze and fags from the back of the plane, and then to recover, label and identify all the luggage. It was a sad day, for me sorting through the burnt remnants of lives, and much more for those relatives and friends of those who were killed, including an air-stewardess, pushed out of the plane as she struggled to release the escape tube.

We were often used at the many demonstrations in central London, which were always at the weekend, and so were at Grosvenor Square in 1968 when anti-Vietnam War demonstrators confronted the American Embassy. One of our number had his radio pinched during that squabble. Three hours later it was spotted sticking out of the pocket of a demonstrator by another SPG member and so another crime was cleared up.

These were strange days, as I would spend one weekend, dressed as a policeman, at a demonstration: and the next I’d be marching along with Sue and my children as participants in a similar demonstration, often anti-war or anti-bomb.

The Inspector in charge of my squad was a thick Irishman, Paddy Flynn. He was a coarse, devious individual devoid of any identifiable sympathy for anyone except himself. He used swearing as his primary method of communication, and it was sometimes difficult to work out what he was trying to say, as the invective poured forth in a continuous stream. His ignorance added to my growing disinterest in the police service.

Then I passed the promotion examination, and so it was time for another change.

Special Patrol Group

In 1968 I spent some time on the infamous Special Patrol Group. We were, allegedly, a group of skilled and experienced police officers whose job was to deal with major incidents, and to flood areas for short periods in an effort to reduce crime. There were four such groups of about 60 PCs covering London. My group was based at Whetstone nick in north London.

We had a fleet of Austin J2 vans, awful trucks, into which PCs were stuffed, together with all their equipment. Normally we worked in two teams, half in plain clothes, the rest in uniform. We flooded an area, and stopped everything and everyone who looked at all suspicious. This system produced results, and we had some very good arrests.

With some embarrassment I have to admit being one of five PCs who once stopped a grubby white van. We tipped out the five young men, members of an obscure pop group. In turn, each was searched, and finally a small quantity of cannabis was found. They were all arrested and taken to Camberwell nick, where we had a cup of tea, a long chat, and they were charged. The group were pleased, as the publicity was welcomed. They later became very well known, as T-Rex.

The SPG were a good bunch of lads, and included many good thief-takers. Such police officers seem to have a sixth sense, or an incredible amount of luck. There was no real pattern to their successes. Wally, a real old codger of a cop, was loud and noisy. He’d jump in where angels feared to tread, nosing away, often talking nonsense until his hands would seize upon a trophy. It may be just a scrap of paper, or an out-of-date MOT certificate or driving licence. For him this small piece of evidence was enough to start ferreting. Often he’d win over the villain, who’d then confess all, spilling it out at Wally’s eager nods and winks. Once the confession was made Wally became a friend, a defender of the accused, and would anything to help reduce the punishment about to be mêted out.

Others (like me) stumbled across the odd miscreant, but Tel (Terry) and Pete had even perfected this technique, if that’s what it could be called. They had the knack of tripping over problems, walking round the corner to find a kid breaking into a car, or a burglar’s bum pushing out through a window. For them, that was the easy part. From then on, they had to struggle. Their new friend always decided to run away, and our two heroes were not much good at that. Both were short, and just a trifle overweight, certainly they were not built for speed. So we became quite used to hearing their voices over the radio, puffing and short of breath, calling for assistance. It was all good fun, as we roared off in our J2 vans to start searching. Invariably the thieves would come buzzing straight into our arms. Many of my suspects often decided that I needed a fight, and so I’d have to struggle to detain them. It was good fun, and I never lost one, but I often yearned for someone who’d say ‘It’s a fair cop, guv.’

Institutional racism

'Institutional racism in the police' has been a familiar, and probably justified, cry. The Stephen Lawrence Inquiry revealed a lot, although there would appear to be two sides to that story, one that has never been properly revealed about the antecedents of that unfortunate young man. Despite the publicity and a plethora of missives and training courses the police service will remain aloof. Whatever its management may try to say they have little influence on the minds and actions of the young officers working the streets. Those young officers still do not have enough contact with the populace at large, and in common with an increasing proportion of young people these officers have poor social skills.

Racial prejudice probably cannot be removed, and there is some evidence to support that point of view. If that is the case then the only feasible alternative is to remove the institutions and groups that continue to harbour such ill-will. For too many years we have pussy-footed in our handling of immigrant groups who come to the country and then consistently abuse both us, as people, and our social and political systems. Within that far larger case is the present structure of the police service. It is no longer serving the needs of society, and recent plans to amalgamate, to save money, will not help.

Racial discrimination has always stirred up emotions. It is more likely that the discrimination was not as a result of colour but of intrusion of too many new people from the same ethnic backgrounds who too often failed to readily accept the norms and values of the indigenous population.

It will always be difficult for a small select band, like the police, to adequately reflect the larger population. That is another reason why the structure of the police service now needs to be changed. The role and function of the Office of Constable should remain, but the post-holders should come from the whole of society. The idea of the police service as a quasi-military uniformed entity has only been with us since 1829. It has served us well, initially dealing with malcontent militiamen returning from wars without pension or support. It has guarded and protected, but the primary objectives laid down by Sir Richard Mayne in 1829 of preservation of life and protection of property have been ignored or set aside over recent years.

Today very few police officers undergo even the basic first aid training every three years that I once undertook as a police constable. Life protection is restricted to the public order supervision of large events, as long as the event organisers have the funds to pay for a police presence. The assurance of knowing there will be a Mr Plod around the next corner has disappeared. Yet there were fewer police officers thirty years ago.

A few years ago on the night that England beat Germany in the European Cup I was at Leicester Square, in the West End of London. Walking around I did not see one uniformed PC. Gangs of dealers, openly selling drugs in the streets, now occupy the ‘fixed points’ places where police officers once stood, and could always be relied upon.

Even our village Bobbies have now been forced to cover huge areas and many rural outposts have been closed. A uniform police officer is now an administrator, and on the rare occasions they do venture on to the streets they are a reactive force, responding to calls, and are usually isolated in a tin box of a car. They attend incidents, usually as the result of a phone call to the central police control, record a few details, make sympathetic remarks and return to their primary objective - administration.

Our society cannot operate efficiently without public order under control, and the populace feeling safe from violence, robbery or burglary. The clear-up rate for major crimes in some cities, such as Nottingham, is now no more than 16%. It is a disgrace, and has been brought about because the thin blue line of authority and control has been steadily eroded. We all need to know the parameters within which we can operate. For some young people there are now no real guidelines to acceptable behaviour, at least not any that the wider society find acceptable. If you can get away with crime, then many will do so. Until we appreciate the need for order, we will become increasingly like the faded remnants of Empire that we really are.

Baby Sitter

She peers round the door
Uncertain who calls,
Elvish delight beckoning enter the space
Where all is tidily out of place,
Apologetic chatter climbs the stairs
Then we settle as delicious familiars
Her delightful crooning washing my sleepy eyes
With uncertain stability
As she returns through the past refusing futures
That hold unseen promises she will not dream.
She is the teacher who knows best.
There is talent aplenty under that vest
As around her fools buzz, invariably stinging
With unimagined pain biting deep.
Repeating, reminding, remaining, repeating,
Pain taking life so many hoped to enjoy
As she coquettes her reality

She was a police officer, she worked at the Cally, and on occasions would baby-sit for us. Her life had been traumatic. Her first husband turned out to be homosexual, her second was burnt to death in a car accident and she formed a relationship with a Home Beat Officer. John was a canny old bird, rarely to be found, but he had his ear to the ground and looked after his patch very well.

One day we were all rushed over to Islington, there had been a car chase, following a burglary (as I recall). The suspect was a local man, Ginger Beauman (I think). He’d gone to ground along Camden Passage, a warren of pedestrian passages. John had jumped into a Panda car, and was on the scene. He knew Ginger, knew where he lived. Ginger had a flat above the shops, a series of three rooms linked together. Ginger arrived back at the flat. He was seen by an officer, who was on the stairway of a building opposite to enter the first room, then move to the second and on to the third.

Here Ginger took a shotgun from a cupboard, broke it open and could be seen placing cartridges into the breech. At the same time John entered the flat. The officer shouted a warning over the radio, but John rarely carried one, and if he did it was not switched on. Like a bizarre drama the officer on the stairway had to watch John move from the first room to the second and to open the door of the third, just as Ginger finished loading the gun.

John lunged at Ginger, who hit him hard over the head with the barrel of the shotgun, knocking him unconscious.

With that Ginger realised he was now in serious trouble, and could hear other officers entering the flat. He put down the gun and gave himself up.

At court he was sentenced to eight years by which time John was happily back at work. Two years later he collapsed and died with a brain haemorrhage. Too late for Ginger to be charged with his murder, but we all believed he died from that blow on the head. Our lovely baby-sitter was devastated.

Slowly she recovered, Pentonville Prison was on her beat, an ancient building dating back two centuries, which housed an ever-changing collection of male prisoners. As part of her job she often went to the prison, and to the Prison Officers Club.

There she met a strange man, a prison officer, much younger than her. He was an upside down man, with a bald head and full beard. Not well liked by his colleagues he somehow caught our Baby-sitter's imagination. She fell in love. He proposed. They married. Some time later he left, without warning, telling his colleagues that he’d only married her for a £50 bet. Once again, our poor sweet Baby-sitter was devastated.

Life can be cruel. This lovely sweet lady had once lost a child. She’s been a teacher, in a primary school, lavishing love and attention upon other people’s children. Joining the police, to make a new start, her life continued to bump and grind along pain.

If there’s a grand plan – what had our Baby-sitter done wrong? What purpose was served for all that deprivation? Here is just one example, the world is full of people starving, being tortured and abused.

Does your God have a malevolent streak?

Love

It was midday, a pleasant enough morning, and I was standing on the corner of Archway Road and Southwood Lane Road, Highgate with George Davis. He was one of my best friends, tall, very fit, a Rolling Stones fan, with ginger hair and an infectious laugh. We’d nearly finished early turn, and had stopped for a chat, and a look at the world. We were keen young policemen, fearless and willing to have a go at anything. At this time of day, about to leave work, we were more relaxed, and doing what young men like to do – looking at girls.

A small white Ford Escort estate stopped at the traffic lights, just in front of us, and the girl driver smiled in our direction. I walked round to the driver’s door, she wound down the window, I made some inane remark, and she laughed back in reply. I was smitten. A few days later found myself ten-pin bowling, with this gorgeous girl by my side.
We were playing in the last lane at the bowling alley, against the far wall. Not that it mattered; there was no one else in my world that day. We talked, laughed and played the game. Then came the moment when I fell in love, irredeemably and absolutely. Sue placed her hand on my left forearm, reached up and kissed me gently on the cheek. That was it. I fell in love, and have remained in love with this wonderful woman ever since.

Love comes in many forms, and my love for Sue was something of an obsession. I adored her, loved her, and wanted to spend all my life with her. Our friendship opened up my life, but my presence was, in time, to pull apart the plans she had for own life. It may be that my love for her was what finally tore us apart.
It may seem strange to write about the breakdown of a partnership in the same breath as its beginning, but that’s the way it has to be. Writing about this relationship is very painful. I wanted to make her happy, and worked hard to do so, but it’s impossible to make someone love you, and once passion whispers away into the ether it never returns. I had my chance, my time with Sue, and for that I will for ever be grateful. Our liaison produced two wonderful children, and now we have three beautiful granddaughters. Our separation brought extreme pain, and changed the direction of both of our lives irrevocably. Hopefully snippets of the seventeen years we spent together will appear elsewhere in this blog.

Stops

It’s good to see that someone reads these missives, even though I don’t agree with their comments they will remain for all to see. That’s the function of an open society.

Unfortunately over the last few days we have seen people attacking the Danish Embassy over a trivial incident about a cartoon that none of the demonstrators have probably seen. Perhaps religion itself should be banned, or at least asked to prove its credentials. I wonder how religious beliefs would fare if subjected to the Trades Description legislation? Christianity has had 2,000 years of promises, and brought little but misery and pain to many, particularly anyone who has dared to speak out against a particular set of belief or values.

To return to the biography, as young policemen we took an active interest in our area. We lived on the ground, drank in the local pubs and knew many local people. Not much escaped our notice. There was crime, but most of the time we were able to handle it but too often today it seems to have run out of control.

We frequently stopped people in the street, invariably undertaken politely but firmly, and these stops often produced our best results. Today an officer has to justify any stop, not just in terms of general suspicion, but also with detailed reporting, each form taking up to 10 minutes to complete.

The powers we used have now been watered down so much that many young PCs take the easy option, and turn a blind eye. We jumped in where angels feared to tread, and often got results. We used Section 4 Vagrancy Act 1824, an old act designed to prevent ex-soldiers from becoming a nuisance on the streets, or Section 66 Metropolitan Police Act 1839 which gave us power to stop, search and detain anyone acting suspiciously, and that definition depended upon our interpretation of the myriad piles of case law that surrounded this legislation.

Such law was good law. It had stood the test of time, and most anomalies had been revealed. As a piece of legislation develops ‘stated cases’ are created that help to clarify particular points. We all knew, and understood how these powers could be exercised to the greater good. Today, civil liberties and incompetent lawyers have made a mockery of such summary justice.

The fundamental aims of an efficient police force are the preservation of life and the protection of property, so wrote Sir Richard Mayne in 1839 when the Metropolitan Police were formed. During the Thatcher regime it was decided it was not cost effective to train police officers in first aid, instead they should call an ambulance, and in any event they could make themselves liable to have a claim for compensation made against them if the treatment they gave was proved to be injurious.

I despair as I now look at our efficient police force, working under the stranglehold of spurious legislation administered by the CPS. I have since worked, as a bleedin civvie for both Essex Police and Suffolk Constabulary and been disturbed by many of the procedures now adopted. It went against all my principles that officers would not enter certain places, for fear of retaliation.

Gypsy sites were one place that the police would not enter, even when they had pursued someone driving a stolen car to the gates of the site. On the news this morning was a report of 150 police being used to storm one gypsy site. It’s madness that such resources now have to be used, and its because of a lack of positive action in the past, which now merely increases the nerve of the criminals.

I recall being in a control room at Essex just a few years ago watching on remote camera one guy pushing a wheelbarrow with a 40-gallon drum perched on top. He went to the forecourt of a garage selling vans, and started to siphon diesel from one of the vans. It was daylight, the garage was open. The garage staff tried to stop him, but he persisted, threatening them with violence later if they tried to stop him. He was eventually stopped, but not arrested because, the officers explained, he hadn’t left the premises with the stolen diesel. Total madness. He should have been nicked.

One sunny day I was at Highgate, on early turn, standing on the corner of Southwood Lane and Archway Road biding my time, as it was nearly time to go off duty. My mate, George Davis, was with me and we were happily watching the world go by, and as we were young men that meant we kept a keen eye open for any young women who might be passing.

A white Ford estate pulled up at the traffic lights, driven by a lovely girl. That was the start of a story that changed my whole life.

Port Grows

The need to mention the memory of the floods has broken my concentration, which is probably good, as it's time for a walk in the fresh air. Yesterday I was described as Eeyore the pessimistic donkey, and there's probably some truth in that. I'd argue against that label, I'm just a realist, one that has been kicked in the teeth too many times. I always bounce back, so there must be some good in me somewhere.

The other big story in Felixstowe was that the port has been given permission to expand, adding 1,300 metres of deepwater dock, with 13 new cranes. All this means money for a foreign-owned company, increased congestion and light pollution for Felixstowe residents. Nobody cares. Thatcher sold off this strategic resource to the Chinese, knowing that it brings 9% of our GDP into the country, and takes profit out. What happens if the port owners get nasty, or go bust?

Yes, I do need that walk in the fresh air.

Be back tomorrow with more history of the Metropolitan Police.

1953 Floods

Today, in 1953, my dad left home. For three weeks we heard only rumours about his whereabouts. It was a worrying time, not just for my family but for thousands living on the east coast of England as high sea and wind combined with the high tide left a trail of death and disaster in the worst flooding in Britain in the last century.

During the night of January 31 floods claimed 307 lives, devastated 200,000 acres of farmland, swept cattle, horses, sheep and poultry to their deaths and 24,500 homes were damaged. There was no flood warning system in operation, so that it was not until the next morning that it was realised that the greatest peacetime catastrophe in this country in living memory had struck a normally peaceful countryside. Over 100 more lives were lost at sea, and 1,800 people were lost in Holland.

A hurricane lashed the North Sea until mountainous waves crashed against the sea wall defences along 1,400 miles of coastline, causing damage running into millions of pounds. It was a weekend of horror and heroism during which men gave their lives in attempts to rescue flood-beleaguered victims.

My dad worked for the gas supply company, and went to Harwich, the port on the other side of the estuary of the River Orwell opposite the port of Felixstowe. For three weeks he remained there, cutting off gas supplies and helping to rescue people. It was a hazardous business, and we were all glad when he finally came back home.

Last night in Langer Road, the road that runs down the centre of the first picture, a small memorial to the victims of the flood was opened. In Felixstowe 41 people lost their lives, and this small memorial has been designed by local children, and may serve as a reminder.

Ironically our beloved government has just decided that the beach at Felixstowe does not need the flood protection local people are now asking for. The consciences of these faceless officials will quietly fade away when the next flood tide comes.

People pull together when facing such disasters, and a spirit of camaraderie manages to get most through the trauma. Today also marks the loss of 100 British soldiers in Iraq. Hardly anyone believes the loss of their lives has been worthwhile, any more than they do the over 2,000 US troops and an estimated 30,000 Iraqi citizens.

As threatening noises are made at Iran's alleged attempt to protect itself from aggression perhaps we should all turn inward, and spend more time looking at what we have to do at home. Let the rest of the world look after itself for a while. It can manage without our help - or interference.

Highgate Nick

We walked everywhere, there were few police cars, with one area car covering Hornsey, Highgate and Muswell Hill, and initially we had no radios. Walking the beat alone, and we were always supposed to be alone, was a lonely and hazardous business. You never knew what was around the next corner, and whatever it was you needed to be able to handle it – alone.

I soon learnt that the best way to cope with rowdy youths was to openly confront the loudest in the group, tell him to go away (always very politely, you’ll understand), and if he backed down, the rest would follow. We were lucky, the police were respected, but that had been obtained through years of careful police work. Most of those skills have now been lost.

Walking the beat, standing inconspicuously in the shadows to appear at just the right moment to quell a disturbance, or stop kids sky-larking getting out of hand, and our presence on the streets was important. Today, there are more police officers but much less time is spent on the streets, and few young policemen understand much about dealing with the public.

I have much venom stored up against the Crown Prosecution Service. Thankfully they did not exist in my day, but it seems clear they have led to the demise of the police service I knew and respected. Third rate solicitors and panda cars: the two prime movers in the erosion of law and order in Britain.

Highgate meant breakfast at the postal sorting office, as at that time a postman was deputed to cook breakfast for his colleagues – and us. Those few minutes break every morning on early turn gave me excellent food, good conversation and many useful contacts. Such stop-off points were vital for the young copper. Refreshments at the station were mundane and boring affairs.

We had no canteen, so had to cook our own food. Refreshments took 45 minutes, exactly. Most books and forms used by the police were known by their number and ‘Book 92 Officers at the Station’ sat on the Station Officer’s counter, and PCs had to enter the Front Office, walk past the sergeant in charge, and book in, to the very second. On cold wet nights those 45 minutes flew by, and we had to don raincoats and capes and slosh out into rain, to stand around on deserted street corners in the middle of the night. The small hours can be bleak and depressing when you are alone, cold and hungry – and as a young man I was always hungry.

We made light of many instances. A police officer has some grotty tasks to undertake, and it is those you tend to remember. Death messages: telling someone their loved one has been killed or injured, are always difficult, but even then we could find humour. ‘All those with husbands take one step forward! Go! Where’d you think you’re going Mrs Smith?” Not funny now, but it broke the tension we felt as the Reserve Officer, the officer who ran the station’s communications room, handed the message to you to deal with.

My worst death message came when I had to tell a young Mauritian woman, with three young children, that her husband had been killed by an Underground train. She was completely distraught, knew no-one in this country, so I spent most of that night dealing with her, and the problems she was about to face. It seemed as if her husband, new to this country, had been standing close to the tunnel and had looked to see if the train was coming. It was, and took his head off.

Another lasting memory is of chasing a young man. He’d stolen a car, and as we chased behind him he dumped it at the Goods Yard, Hornsey and ran off. I set off after him, but stopped when he ran across the railway lines. I could hear the train coming, he clearly was too concerned with getting away from me, and ran straight into an express train. Difficult times, as I’d never intended such an outcome. The memory of collecting his remains from the track, putting the pieces into a bucket, remains with me today.

To counter such morbid subjects we did have fun, although much of it now seems bizarre. It’s small incidents that come to mind: the prostitute servicing a client in the back of a client who mouthed to me ‘two minutes’ as client pumped away. I let her go, but her client received the shock of his life, once his two minutes were up. I came into contact with many such ladies of the night, most were amiable enough, but all had terrible tales to tell. I turned down a request from one, who wanted me to act as her pimp. She was earning £300 a week, at a time when I was probably not earning much more than £150 as my monthly salary. She wanted £30 a week, and was willing to give me the rest. I demurred.

Metropolitan Police

I’ll try to make these entries short and succinct. Any time spent as a copper unearths a host of stories, but the real truth is that much of police work is mundane, even boring, and in my day it was often cold wet and miserable.

Peel House, the Metropolitan Police Training Centre, then in Victoria, not that far (geographically) away from Buckingham Palace in the centre of London, was run on military lines. We had daily inspections, our heads shorn, as ridicule shouted at the air. That first morning we were inducted, issued with books, instructions and initially treated with respect.

Finally we sat in a classroom awaiting the arrival of the Chief Superintendent in charge of the training school. A fat man, whose uniform sat on him like a sack he waddled into the room, stared at us all dismissively then smashed his fist down on the desk of the young lady sitting by the door, in the front row. ‘Young lady,’ he roared, ‘Get your tits off that desk and your hands off your fanny. You are in the police force now!’

I should have followed my instincts, stood up, railed at him and walked out. My cowardice kicked in, and I sat there, accepting his tirade of abuse, but with sympathy for that poor young woman. The psychology was simple, it was that used by armed forces everywhere. Belittle and then bond. We soon formed ourselves into a protective group, struggling our ways through the 13-week initial training.

We slept in dormitories, but were given some privacy. The large open room was divided by steel partitions, about six-feet high, forming small cubicles. Each room contained a single bed, a metal locker and a small chair. That was it, home for the duration. Training droned on, and some evenings we were allowed out to the Mucky Duck (White Swan) pub around the corner to play bar billiards and drink Watneys Red Barrel. This was life?

All was set to change when I passed out as a police constable, warrant number 153486, a proud member of the best police force in the world, the Metropolitan Police. As we waited to hear where we had been posted I dreamt of walking the beat in Soho, or Chelsea or somewhere exotic. Instead I was sent to Winchmore Hill, near Enfield, with lodgings in the section house above Tottenham police station. It was to be a lonely posting.

Winchmore Hill (YW) police station saw PC 588Y Lockwood as an intruder. I was young, they were all old, many had joined the police as War Reserves, as an alternative to being turned into cannon fodder. Most were lazy bastards, and some tried to swing the old soldier routine. One even tried to make me walk a yard behind him when learning beats. He didn’t win that small skirmish. A young PC would walk the beat with an experienced officer before being let out on his own, and these older men were really only interested in guarding their tea spots, shops and friends who would shelter them from the rigours of walking the streets.

One favourite hidey-hole was at the rear of a greengrocers. In a garage at the rear of the shop was an armchair, a selection of fruit and, at night, a flask of tea! I was nonplussed when I first found this rest home for weary Mr Plods, on the one hand it was a welcome spot on a dank night, but I knew that many officers sat themselves down, and did nothing else all night, having first purloined a meal from one of the restaurants or takeaways. My keen young mind found such behaviour objectionable, I wanted us all to be out there catching baddies!

I didn’t stay long at YW. They agreed to my request to be transferred somewhere busier, so I moved to Highgate (YH) and with that came a move from Tottenham Section House to Elizabeth House, Highgate. After the steel partitions and the grotty atmosphere of Tottenham nick I found Highgate a great relief. My room was small, but on the corner of the building, looking out over lawns, with the gymnasium of Channing School for Girls just over the fence. Pure delight.

Highgate nick(YH) was fun, even though it was only marginally busier than YW. I was one of Sergeant Epps’ merry band, and he taught us well. He was strict but clever and often amusing. The regime was unrelentess and young PC’s were expected to conform, both off and on duty. Three weeks of night duty, from 10pm until 6am, often going to Tottenham Magistrates Court in the morning with arrests made during the night, were followed by six weeks of day duty: one week of late turn, one of early alternatively.

We had four days off a month, spread over to allow one weekend off each month, either a Saturday and Sunday or a Sunday and Monday. Following on from a night duty shift that was not much of a weekend, as you didn’t get up until 2pm on Sunday, and went back at work at 2pm on Tuesday. Social life could get in the way of all this, and I remember one week of early turn when I didn’t get to bed at all. Luckily I was working as a plain-clothes observer on the area car, so could sit down most of the time at work! Keeping my eyes open was a problem that week.

Work

Mum about to mount her pony, although it normally pulled a small trap. I hadn't realised what a good view we had from the back of our house.
I stayed on at school, in the Lower Sixth but it all seemed a bit pointless. I’d no idea where I should be going, and the syllabus was totally irrelevant. John, our next-door-neighbour offered me a job. He ran a secondhand furniture shop, and I’d worked there on Saturdays for several years. That money had helped me go on those marvellous school holidays organised by Dr Ernst Wangerman, our history teacher, who was Austrian.

John wanted me to work in the shop. He had great plans for expansion, and probably regarded me as his substitute son. He and his wife Elsie had no children, and although he was a taciturn man not given to emotion we had a close relationship, stretching back over most of my life. He offered me £20 a week, an unheard of sum in those days. He came to see my parents, and we talked it through. My parents advised against such a step, saying that I needed a job with a pension! I was not yet 18, and the idea of a pension seemed a far-off dream, but I would not have crossed my parents.

This cowboy suit was to be my pride and joy. Unfortunately it was far too small so I split the trousers in half just after the photo was taken on Xmas morning.
Against my own judgement I turned him down, but used his offer as the catalyst to leave school. My first job was as a scientific instrument technician at St Mary’s Hospital, Colchester. It was stupid job, and I lasted three months before applying to Severalls Hospital, a large mental institution, as a medical laboratory technician. This was a job I loved, but it paid just £4 a week, even when I left three years later it was still only £7, and my first week in the Metropolitan Police paid me £13. Still a long way from John’s £20 offer, and he went on to build one of the most successful stores in East Anglia, eventually handing over to his nephew, a strange man, for whom John had little affection.

Christmas 1963 saw me with a girlfriend, Dinah. She worked in the pharmacy at Severalls and we seemed to be going out together. I was never quite sure why that was happening, but she was a nice girl (no sex in those days), and I was, as always, content to jog along. That Christmas her mother bought me a set of towels. A strange present for a young man, but the message she’d written on the card with the present was mind-blowing. ‘Happy Xmas,’ she wrote, ‘these will come in useful for your bottom drawer’. Hold on a moment! I suddenly realised that my life was being mapped out for me.

And I now complain about policemen looking young!

As a direct result of that present on 24 February 1964 I found myself at Peel House, Victoria, London on my first day as a Metropolitan Police Constable. It was the only way I could think of to get me out of the rut I was falling into.