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.