A long time ago in an existence far, far away, I was a police officer. Joining in 1982, that year and those that followed were once my present day. My era. My modern-day. Nobody ever lives in history, do they? Then something peculiar happened to me. The years became decades and my life looped around living that gradually altered me – falling in love, becoming a father, grief, elation and so on. Usually, a gentle erosion that was unseen – especially by me. As these incremental transformations took hold living for the day was the constant and most obvious companion. Yet as I edged away from the previous to the present my past became history without much conscious thought.
Almost four decades later I was invited back to the scene of the crime ─ an early posting at the Thames Valley Police Training Centre, Sulhamstead. As a Sergeant trainer I wasn’t too interested in the history of my then employer. I knew that as one of the largest provincial forces it had been formed upon the amalgamation of Berkshire Constabulary, Buckinghamshire Constabulary, Oxfordshire Constabulary, Reading Borough Police and Oxford City Police. At that time in my life it was all about looking to the future. I never visited the museum, which for a brief moment was directly under the office in which I worked.
Having written about the big beasts of the British and Natural History museums I was expecting a more intimate experience, but nonetheless consistent in terms of seeking out the curious, crazy and captivating. My guide on this occasion was museum volunteer and ex-Bracknell colleague John Oblein, the onetime local scenes of crime guru or, as I suspect the contemporary version would be, CSI: Bracknell – like the Miami version but with none of the palm trees and more concrete. The last time we had seen one another was a lifetime away ─ and some more!
As I passed the desk sergeant mannequin the experience was as I had expected – quaint and quintessentially quirky.
Then in the blink of an eye everything changed. I was transported back to an early turn at Bracknell, Berkshire on Wednesday August 19th, 1987, when I was single-crewed in a marked police vehicle on the Bagshot Road, junction with Broad Lane – stationary and tucked away in Lime Walk, a small access road ─ looking for dodgy vehicles to pull, or reporting for summons those idiots who still refused to wear their seat belts. Rather, I guess, like fishing. I had heard a rumour that traffic officers often played snooker, pulling a red car, then a higher value colour. At times policing was mind numbingly boring. No doubt I was also thinking about my long-weekend – the oasis in a desert of a health destroying shift pattern – only another morning stint away.
The force radio hummed away in the background and my hearing had been attuned to detect the local call signs. Stuff that happened further afield was generally no more than white noise. This communication status-quo was brutally disrupted when I learnt in real-time of the death of Police Constable Roger Brereton and the unfolding and horrific drama that became known as the Hungerford massacre.
As John provided a detailed narrative on the timeline of events in which unemployed labourer Michael Ryan shot dead sixteen people including his own mother, before turning the gun on himself after a standoff at a local school, I realised for perhaps the first time in my life that this was my history. Not some abstract collection of artifacts on a shelf, but a moment in time that implicitly connected with me. Although I was not at the scene, this event was seared into my consciousness and this visit had brought it back in a powerful and very vivid manner. I had often thought about the location of the tragedy – a small village – and how different the outcome could have been if the murder spree had occurred in Oxford, a mere twenty-six miles to the north. Would the police have been able to deploy armed officers more efficiently to a city location? Until that day I never knew that Hungerford existed. I recall sometime after the event talking to support group officers who had tied rope around the motionless body of Ryan and, from a safe distance, dragged it across the classroom floor since there was a high likelihood that he had booby-trapped himself.
John soberly recounted other information that I had previously been unaware of, including the fact that the humble local police station was being refurbished at the time and the only two telephone lines metaphorically melted due to the volume of calls reporting the developing horror and whereabouts of the mass murderer. The ensuing report into the slaughter, conducted by Chief Constable Colin Smith, painted a picture of heroism wrapped up in panic and unpreparedness. Many policing processes were transformed as a result of that fateful day and the aftermath lives on. I was stunned at how quickly the dormant memory of this long-ago summer day had once again become so intense. Standing in silence we remembered our fallen colleague.
Opposite the Hungerford information was testimony to Operation Prospect – the police response to the highly organised protestor activity opposed to the construction of the Newbury bypass that gave birth to eco-activism. Many years later, and in a new life in the corporate world, I worked closely with the police Silver Commander and all-time legend Mervyn Edwards, who frequently regaled me with stories of how the police outfoxed the surface-based campaigners but often faced check-mate from the subterrain dissenters, typified by Daniel Hooper or “Swampy” to his legion of supporters. This relationship connected me to the man who came to the rescue of the thin blue line and is now a firm friend – Peter Faulding.
If my memory serves me correctly, I was somewhat isolated from this operation since in the mid-1990s I was safely tucked away in a non-operational role at Sulhamstead. On the other hand, I felt that I had more than earnt my public order spurs a few years earlier and only a handful of miles south-east of Newbury at RAF Greenham Common.
Alternating between policing the myriad of resolute encampments occupied mainly by women protesting against the decision of the British Government to allow cruise missiles to be stored there and being crammed into the back of a police carrier as movements of the weaponry were exercised on a regular basis, this moment in time was somewhat more personal. Once, when the generally affable protestors sought to create a human chain of hand holding around the base, a reporter from a national newspaper pestered a colleague and me to hold hands too. I liked Andy Carter a lot but that was a little too cosy and appearing in every domestic red-top the day after, and maybe worldwide, was probably not a wise career move. Some years later I learnt, on good authority, that the night-time escorts of military hardware hadn’t contained any cruise missiles. On hearing this news I initially felt cheated, but then quickly thanked my lucky stars that I had probably not been in that much peril, save as a rookie cop being routinely pushed to the back of the Ford Transit where the tailgate curved. Being 6’2” meant that I had to learn to arch my neck at some unnatural angles. That was one of the reasons that I sought early promotion as supervisors always sat next to the driver in supreme comfort.
John drew my attention to some exhibits that connected to times much further back in history, causing me to reflect upon the repeatedly barbaric and devious side of humanity. The first, of which I was wholly unaware, had truly horrific consequences and like the Hungerford heartbreak it only sought to remind me that as a species the darker side of humanity is a constant companion – the case of Amelia Dyer.
The Victorian era, blighted by many social injustices, embraced epic criminality and marginalised many. The Poor Law Amendment Act of 1834 removed any financial obligation from fathers of illegitimate children. The practice of “baby farming” in which single mothers routinely left their new-born with fostering parents was rife. Upon payment of anything between £5 to £80 the babies were looked after, thus reducing the social stigma. Such a fragile, unregulated, and often clandestine practise was a paradise for the unscrupulous and criminal. Young children caught up in this wrongdoing were usually drugged to sustain an unnatural stupor, suppressing appetite, and frequently causing death by starvation. On April 3rd, 1896, police raided Dyer’s home where she had set up a thriving baby business and were confronted with the stench of death, albeit no human remains were found. However, crucial evidence, including white edging tape and pawn brokers receipts for children’s clothing connected her to the eventual discovery of several dead babies recovered from the river Thames. Nicknamed the “Ogress of Reading,” she was hanged on 10th June 1896. Police estimate that she murdered in excess of four hundred children, making her the most prolific recorded serial killer. The same era that had given rise to Jack the Ripper, who had five attributable murder victims, was also a period that had been cruelly exploited by a woman of whom, up until my visit, I had never heard, even though her gruesome story had been merely a matter of steps away all those years ago.
The second crime was the infamous Great Train Robbery. I was familiar with this latter global sensation ─ although before my time on the beat ─ which had its own dedicated corner of the museum. The successful apprehension of the offenders – immortalised in a swath of books, documentaries, and films – was down to old-school policing. As John explained, “A radius of half an hour travelling time from the heist was drawn on a map and every building was checked out by a local officer” ─ including the law breakers lair at Leatherslade Farm. A watershed moment in criminal investigation, this was one of the last major crimes to be investigated by the Metropolitan Police outside of the Capital as Thames Valley Police and other provincial forces subsequently became autonomous. Many things had changed since the commission of the crime in the early sixties, however the Monopoly board used by the gang to while away their time whilst in hiding looked pretty much like the one I have at home.
The collection of roads policing memorabilia took me back to my first arrest for drink driving. In those sepia-tone days the suspect would have to blow into a plastic bag via a glass phial of crystals that would discolour if alcohol were detected. If a certain mark on the side was reached it was a nick. Pulling the car over at night the driver graciously blew into the Heath-Robinson looking device and as I struggled to monitor the result in the headlights of the police car, he did a runner. I vividly recall my tutor constable, Andy Gray, calmly stating the obvious, “He’s going. He’s gone!” I managed to nab him before he was lost in the dark and in doing so learnt an important lesson – never allow a detainee a chance to create their own destiny. To this day I still remember the spiel necessary to request a sample of breath for the first handheld electronic device – the trusty Lion SL2.
A visual history of police personal communication devices evidenced the rapid strides in technology that I had witnessed and had held in my hand or attached to my uniform, which had also seen incredible change. The old Burndept that some of my colleagues had strapped to the front of their tunics like a reserve parachute and was a tad more reliable than two cups connected with a length of string, to the Airwave devices that could perform audio acrobatics. The Dymo-tape list of stations on an old control room relic was a reminder of my roots – “Charlie Hotel (CH),” the call sign of the Bracknell sub-division. My police heritage began there and ended at “Charlie Alpha (CA),” downtown Slough and District. My journey through the blue was summarised as – CH › AE › X › CC › CA › CE › CA. From constable to inspector.
There were numerous other remarkable exhibits in this extraordinary yet snug testament to law and order, including John’s passion – crime scene investigators or as he was colloquially known in the olden days – “SOCO” (scenes of crime officer), with the noticeboard outside of his office on the first floor shielded by a grey roller blind. How that innocent looking drape was often yanked up in true 1980’s Quincy M.E drama-style, “Probationers you are about to enter the fascinating sphere of police work ─ the world of scenes of crime …” Pictures of heads some distance from their owners’ bodies, loose limbs and various other unusual bloodbaths usually had a few running for the loo to have a second look at their breakfast. It took me a fair few times to master the art of rolling the suspects inky digits across the fingerprint forms to ensure that the whorls, loops, arches, and composites were of the requisite quality.
As I left, I had mixed emotions. My long overdue visit had been more than a trip down memory lane. This was my history. I was inextricably linked to this place and the transformation of the police during my twenty-one years of service proved to me that I had an inner strength to which I had hitherto been somewhat oblivious. I could cope with a facet of life that had, at times, caused me apprehension – change. I had to agree with Winston Churchill who once said, “The farther back you can look, the farther forward you are likely to see.”
Policing is much more than nicking villains and protecting the vulnerable from harm. It is an integral part of the framework that binds us together in a stable, safe, and secure society. Whether you are a serving or former cop, or a member of the public I recommend that you drop and in and see John and his colleagues at the Thames Valley Police Museum since this is your history too.
© Ian Kirke 2022 & all photographs
Twitter @ianjkirke