My life as a Person of the Police — Long and HARD!
My time at Police Training School was long and hard.
The lead Instructor was long and hard. He used to dish out punishment after punishment. We had to swallow these, just to keep him happy.
And so we wouldn’t have white stains down the back of our flared crimplene trousers.
We would be roused by the duty cock at 4am, when we would be expected to complete a five-mile run around north London in high heels.
After our run, we tottered into the communal shower. In an early sign of the cost savings measures that would come to blight the police service in later years, these showers were positioned directly below the urinals at Wembley Stadium. Golden.
The formal morning parade would follow. This involved everyone getting dressed up as police officers, then trying not to laugh when a pigeon chested senior officer with ludicrous facial hair and a superiority complex tried to stare you out. We worked out that if you pursed your lips and leaned in, he got really uncomfortable.
Big Phil Phallus got to second base with him once.
After parade, we got down to the meat and bones of police work. We would act out role plays using captured community activists. My favourite role play was ‘Happy Bag.’
‘Happy Bag’ involved stopping a community activist leaving the sixth form college in his VW Beetle. The first officer would then use hypnotism to make the activist believe they were Genghis Khan, whilst the second officer would ‘find’ the happy bag in his hippy car. The happy bag would contain a sawn-of-shotgun, a balaclava, some Class A drugs, and a signed photo of Jimmy Savile.
A snap of the fingers would bring the community activist back. Dazed and confused, they would often stare in amazement at the severed heads of their vanquished enemies which we’d used to replace the CND sign hanging from their rear-view mirror.
After the role play, we would act out a court appearance. The community activist would be found guilty, then the judge would tell us he was sick of seeing the same bloody happy bag in his court yet again. We all had a proper laugh. It was as close to the harsh realities of policing that training school got.
My time at training school coincided with the BBC making a fly on the wall documentary. The opening of the first episode was to feature an interview with the head of training school, Commander Manfat, in front of the statue of Sir Robert Peel. Robert Peel was the lead singer of The Cure. Why we had a statue of him I have no idea.
Normally when the telly people are around, all normal police officers are immediately replaced by shiny graduates from HQ who pretend to be street cops for the cameras. This is because they are unlikely to go nuclear when a tramp does a dump on their shoes.
A tramp did a poo on my shoes when I was policing the changing of the guard once. My natural reaction was to flick the muck off my espadrilles, and then stand to attention once more, hoping my Sergeant wouldn’t notice my transgression. He didn’t luckily, but the Coldstream Guard who got it in the face probably did. I say probably, because they’re not allowed to move a muscle, or they get sent to the Tower of London.
I bet he can remember my face. Even after all these years.
In anticipation of the BBC cameras arriving, they put a strict curfew in place. Searchlights scanned across the estate, with any stray recruit being taken out by snipers.
They kept the rural guys in cages. They were allowed to mate with each other to stop them screeching. The trail of evolution had lost track of which one was related to the other, so they were left alone. One played the banjo and dribbled.
The HQ shiny cops were sent on an intensive course at Rada to learn to portray the real cops they had replaced. Shortly before the BBC arrived, the training estate was flooded with the institutionally racist Kids From Fame.
Somehow the lead instructor missed the memo. For him, it was business as usual that morning. His business was role play. Hard role play. Hard, slick role play. Hard, slick, towering role play! Hard, slick, towering Mount Vesuvius role play! RoLe PPPPPLLLLLAAAAAAYYYY!!!!!!! JESUS!!!!! Aaaahhhh….
We all stood to attention in front of the Lead Instructor and were briefed. His were scarlet Anne Summers edible panties. It was just like a normal day. Except all the other recruits were breaking into spontaneous dance performances in regulation police issue spandex body suits.
We swayed along awkwardly in the background as the Lead Instructor dished out the roles we would play. I was to portray the lead officer, something I had not done before. The Lead Instructor calmed my nerves with a large suppository. He said it was for my own good. Like the priest when I was in the school choir.
And then everything went dark.
Later that morning, the BBC set up their cameras as the shiny cops sang a rather beautiful rendition of, ‘Starmaker’ to Commander Manfat. Manfat was wearing the senior officer’s number 1 uniform of tunic bedecked in little medals he had won in the senior officer’s sports day that summer. Simpering shiny cops dusted him with make-up as others fluffed.
He was ready. The biggest moment of his career. His guaranteed route into a lucrative television career. He stood to attention before the Sir Robert Peel statue and waited for the director to count him in.
The cameras had just started rolling as I found myself slowly regaining conciousness. I could hear Manfat going on about how fucking great he was from somewhere below me. I became aware that I was sitting on top of Sir Robert Peel’s head. I had no idea how I’d got there.
I had no idea why I was naked, smeared in lard and wearing a rubber Yoda mask.
I looked down and noticed the Lead Instructor. He was rehearsing ‘Memories’ from Cats with a chorus of traffic officers. I caught his eye. He began frantically signalling for me to stay put, and not to move a muscle. Either that or he’d got his love beads trapped again during one of the high notes.
It was all too late. The warm morning sun heated my body lard and I found myself slowly sliding down Peel’s face.
I remember wondering to myself what role play I’d been involved in. Road Traffic Act more than likely.
Commander Manfat was the consummate professional. He continued his interview, despite a naked, greased recruit in a rubber Yoda mask suddenly appearing behind him, stemming the bleeding to his genital area with Manfat’s egg and spoon rosette.
The international news coverage led to the police service of Great Britain being sued by Lucasfilm. They didn’t like an agency of the state presenting a Jedi Master in a state of undress with a bleeding cock. Some people, eh?
After what seemed like an eternity, training drew to a close. I will always remember our last class meal together at the Angus Steak House. It was my birthday, so I was given the bumps. I lost a testicle in the ceiling fan.
I hadn’t heard from my dad since I’d had him beaten up. Little did I know that, from that moment forward, he would dedicate his life to ending mine.
I was more surprised than most when he turned up at my graduation ceremony. In fact, most recruits were surprised when family members turned up. Most normal families find it inappropriate for one of their number to join the pigs. Big Phil Phallus, for example, came from a long line of proud grave desecrators.
The downfall of the lead instructor marked our last few days at training school. A man subject of an honourable discharge from the Salvation Army was brought down by his dishonourable discharges in the police service.
Thinking he was alone in his bedsit, he carefully oiled himself into a rubber police-issue gimp suit. He reached nonce nirvana with the help of a cuddly Pope, which he’d wired into the mains.
It was only when he unzipped his eye slit that he realised that, rather than being in a nondescript bedsit in Neasden, he was in fact at Aunt Edna’s funeral. Diary clash! These things happen.
The morning of our graduation day came. We all gathered in our formal uniforms of tunic, muck stained trousers, white gloves (stained) and breast shaped helmets. Tradition is an important part of policing. We looked as much like bell ends as our Victorian predecessors. At least they were mostly pissed on gin.
Family members were held back by our colleagues from the riot police. I could see my father had had ACAB tattooed across his forehead. ACAB, a pop band of the time, were known for such hits as Look of Love, When Smokey Sings and Poisoned Anus.
I imagined he was trying to impress me, to re-connect.
It would take more than that a new-found appreciation for synth pop.
I met with my parents at the conclusion of the ceremony. My dad called me, ‘Fucking bastard spawn of a whore,’ and chased me around for a bit with a butter knife he’d stolen from the all expenses spared buffet.
Mum had brought some other bloke along who kept staring at me with damp eyes. He was strangely familiar. Like seeing a version of yourself in twenty years’ time. He pushed a present into my hand as they were leaving. It was a model spaceman. It said, ‘I suck you good four dollar?’ when you pulled the string in his back.
I said thank-you very much because mum made me. She also told me to write a thank-you letter after I’d done my homework and washed my bits in the bath.
I waved off mum and the other bloke, then told the riot police that dad was conscientious objector, so they gave him a damn good old-fashioned thrashing.
And so I was a policeman. What was to come? Not the lead instructor anyway.
Stay tuned for the next exciting episode!
