Pocket Book Stories
by Kent Police Officers

Scary!!

Morning all, from Mississauga, Ontario, CANADA.

Harry SUMMERTON here; I was, from 1948 until 1964, Police Constable 1787 in the Kent County Constabulary. My first posting after training, was to Sheerness. A typical British seaside town that in the summer, bustles with visitors, but come the late Fall, (Colonial term for Autumn), almost goes to sleep.

Come the dark evenings, and with them of course, the continuance of night shift, (Then 10pm to 6am), downtown Sheerness would be, by around 2am, virtually deserted. Apart from the Duty Sergeant, I had the entire town virtually to myself.

Points were kept; for those of you not familiar with that term, in those days, no walkie-talkie radios, at certain times during the shift, one had to be at a certain place. Usually a telephone kiosk. Reason? Well, the duty Constable at the Station would be aware of that, and should he need to call upon you for anything, he could, and often did. The Duty Sgt. would meet you at one or other of those Points.

Imagine it; dark nights; cold, clad in dark blue uniform from head to foot, (Boots too), one could almost melt into any dark spot. And so it was, one such time. It happened that near to the ubiquitous phone kiosk I was waiting at, one stayed there for 15 minutes, there was an equally dark recessed shop doorway. Marvellous for getting out of the wind, perhaps cold rain, or a hard frost and if one stood well back, against the shop door, gave a little warmth.

Would have been about 4am, when a solitary figure appeared, and walked right past that spot. Waiting until he was right opposite I bade him a cheery, "Good morning", in as sepulchral voice as possible. Had he been in a foot race, there is no doubting at all he would have been the winner!! He never looked back-not once!!

Harry SUMMERTON.

Initiation

I was initiated at Dover, by the night-duty station officer. I was on my 1am point in Dover High Street, when the telephone rang. The voice at the other end 'identified' himself as Chief Superintendent Pearce, our Divisional Commander. He asked how I was feeling, my first week alone on night-duty. I assured him I felt fine and confident.

He asked if I had all my appointments with me. For those not in the 'job', this means my pen, notebook, whistle, truncheon and hand-bolts. I said that I had them all about my person. 'Supt Pearce' then asked me to blow my whistle and rattle my hand-bolts and truncheon against the mouthpiece of the 'phone to assure him I had them with me.

I twigged then that it was a 'wind-up, an initiation into the job. I told 'Supt Pearce' where to go and hung up the phone.

Then I suddenly thought 'What if it really was Supt Pearce?' It was with trepidation that I walked back up the High Street, to go into Ladywell Police Station for my refreshment break, in case the Superintendent was waiting for me!

As I walked in I could see the station staff laughing and knew I was OK.

John ENDICOTT

Initiation II

During the 1970's, when West Malling Aerodrome was still there, a young probationer was taken late one night, with the section members whistles, to one end of the runway. The sergeant told him this was the annual whistle test, to be carried out to see if the whistles were still working properly.

The sergeant then drove his car, supposedly, to the other end of the runway.

In fact, he drove back to West Malling Police Station for a cuppa and a choccy biscuit.

Then using the personal radio, he got the probationer to blow the whistles in turn, saying something like, "No, didn't hear that. Try again". This went on until the poor probationer twigged that it was all a wind up!

If you are a former Kent Police Officer and have any short stories about your time and experiences with Kent Police we would like to hear from you. Just drop an email to info@kent-police-museum.co.uk with your story (up to 1500 words) and we will add it to our past times section.