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.