Oh this brings back memories. Night duty New Year’s Eve as custody sergeant. What an experience. Booking in so many people who apparently “earn more in a day than I did in a year” I didn’t dispute that at all, but at least I didn’t start off the new year in a police cell with a hangover! Smug zone 🤣
My Mother died on 23rd Dec on my very first Xmas in the Job - it was never the same again. Back at work that evening for ND because I was a coward and it was easier working than supporting my widowed Dad and sisters. Stood outside the French Embassy where some protest and hunger strike was going on. Refusing to deal with a sudden death (only time I ever did anything like that) and didn’t get any flack.
After Dad died two years later being only on in section house at Christmas because I was a sad bastard with no mates!😂
Generally Christmas was good when I was single and had to work it. Fire Brigade policing, watching movies, banter and company. Calls not generally too bad. Remember the one time I nicked the landlord of the CID’s fave pub for drink drive. Oh dear, never heard the last of that one!
Desperately not wanting to work Christmas Day when I had the kids but having to do South Senior as T/Supt - bloody busy: firearms, building evacuations, tiger kidnaps you name it! I used to take boxes of chocolates in for those working when I was SLT at an anonymous South London Police Station.
As for it being Christmas, we’ll, whatever the past, for at least 1500 years we have used the date to mark the birth of Christ, hence the name Christ-Mass. We actually know nothing about Anglo Saxon religion beyond the little later chroniclers -usually monks - tell us. The whole idea was to think of others and ‘peace on Earth’ - worthy ideas in themselves and personally for me turning it into the über fest of consumption and excess that it undoubtedly is now is a step back.
So Merry Christmas to you Dom, and all the other readers. May your holiday be peaceful and restful and I look forwards to reading your inspired thoughts next year.
First Christmas Day greeted by cell reserve with a warming cup, half tea/half Scotch. Went to burglar alarm next to a pub with my tutor PC. As we waited for keyholder, pub landlord invited my tutor in. He came back with a 1/4 bottle of whisky for me. Next call RTA (now RTC) car collided and overturned on roundabout on Divisional boundary, both drivers drunk. PC who turned up to deal from other Division fell over as he got out of car, so we chose to deal while he was ferried back to his station.
Whilst I thought this was the job for me, I realise times have changed and there is less latitude for today’s officers.
Merry Christmas everyone but don’t drink and drive!
Absolutely spot on as ever Dom (you secret Elvis fan). Anyone who has done a decent stint in uniform doing E, L & N will remember those halcyon shifts over Christmas that brought out your & your colleagues Grinch-like tendencies to stratospheric levels.
For the first 5 years of service, being single existing in Paul Breen Section House - one could hardly call it living - you’d usually cop some form of NYE aid whether you were or were not on core shift. Usually night shifts during the Christmas period used to be mega quiet after the surge of domestics piped down. I remember once being called to a pub lock in, only to peer through the window to see ropey adult entertainment whereby the lady in question appeared to be cleaning the tables with her back, with clientele assisting...
We regularly tested our car control skills in the Metro/Fiesta Pandas as Basic drivers. More so over the Christmas period when frost was a regular weather event. One such test was ‘Coasting’ from the top of Crystal Palace Park Road, into neutral and coasting down towards, and usually past Penge nick and halfway towards Beckenham. Don’t dab the brakes you chicken!
Or the time in 1999 when everyone wasn’t really sure how Y2K was going to pan out.
Called to a suspects on days before NYE, at about 0200 in Southend Road on the borders with Catford’s ground. Arrive 4th on scene to be told by more venerable officers ‘it’s all under control, no suspects here..’ Yet about 150 metres away near to the address I clearly spot two drunken twats with boxes in their arms. I & others race to stop them. The boxes were frozen food from a very well established kosher butcher in NW London, and boxes of Veuve Clicquot champagne. An even younger in service colleague than me (I was coming up to 5 years) didn’t think they had enough grounds for burglary! Said twats were well known; so my terse response was heard halfway across the Borough. I knew where they lived & on checking, two more criminal masterminds were found; out for count in their hovel, clutching boxes of Moët Chandon & another box frozen kosher meat.
Not a bad night’s work - 4 in the bin for burglary; all the stolen property restored to the bemused victims; and the SOCO attended & lifted enough forensics to jackhammer the nails into their figurative coffins. After taking the MG11, I walked away with a bottle of Veuve & a bottle of Moët to share with the team on NYE.
Fave xmas memory some local bloke in Kentish Town who was a perpetual nuisance arriving drunk at front desk on xmas eve. Swifted over counter. Kept in till boxing day court. He entertained ys by singing folk songs in exchange for fag breaks. Sad bugger. Drunk with mh issues. Probably long dead in a paupers grave.
Luckily we had trained chef on team. We bribed section house catering manageress with bottle rum to leave kitchen unlocked. Best xmas breakfast or dinner ever for a £5. Hes retired and is First aid trainer now for kids up north.
Domestics on boxing day. I adopted zero tolerance. Wtf cant you behave? No! Okay get in the van. Get in or Im putting you in head first. And i did. Cant do that now. Iopc reign of terror would seize you in the night like Nkvd in Stalins Russia. PSD quislings will break every and any rule to get easy quixk clearup. Destroying MH of the cop, fine,no onecares, you must obey the Centre and save yourself from denounciation.
Drunk cops. One bloke drank vodka whilst driving. Ended up shooting himself whilst on bail for shooting dead his eztranged wife and her lesbian lover. Had a pop at mother in law too, but missed. Htf did he get bail? And htf did plod fail to find the other shotfun? His poor kids.
Still twinkly lights help lift the dark cold gloom and i do like xmas carols. Louder the better. Proper traditional onez. None of this modern rubbish. Lots of cheese to be eaten with assorted pickles. Some cake and mince pies. Always nice with cuppa or glass rum.
I pity cops of today. Attacked phtsically and mentally by media, politicians, criminal scum, the public and the iopc/ cps. I hope they still have some fun. If not policing is finished.
I’ve never worked in London but your experiences are remarkably similar to mine and I guess many others. Working in a big (ish) city, Bristol saw the same drunken antics as I later found in rural Cornwall. I always remember the Friday before Christmas as the worst day, everyone pissed, driving, shouting and fighting, late turn was a nightmare!
I have enjoyed your articles and look forward to many more next year, thanks Dom!
I recall one Xmas in the control room at a central London Police Station playing Risk. Never played it before, we were all sober and as Controller I thrashed everyone! We played 2 games and I won hands down both games. They wouldn't let me play after that.
'Another sudden - bloody - death' made me laugh out loud. I spent a long time as a PC being the sudden death person. You can tell when the Coroners Officer knows your name but worst of all being the death-a-gram person around Xmas (actually any time but Xmas is even worse).
Oh this brings back memories. Night duty New Year’s Eve as custody sergeant. What an experience. Booking in so many people who apparently “earn more in a day than I did in a year” I didn’t dispute that at all, but at least I didn’t start off the new year in a police cell with a hangover! Smug zone 🤣
My Mother died on 23rd Dec on my very first Xmas in the Job - it was never the same again. Back at work that evening for ND because I was a coward and it was easier working than supporting my widowed Dad and sisters. Stood outside the French Embassy where some protest and hunger strike was going on. Refusing to deal with a sudden death (only time I ever did anything like that) and didn’t get any flack.
After Dad died two years later being only on in section house at Christmas because I was a sad bastard with no mates!😂
Generally Christmas was good when I was single and had to work it. Fire Brigade policing, watching movies, banter and company. Calls not generally too bad. Remember the one time I nicked the landlord of the CID’s fave pub for drink drive. Oh dear, never heard the last of that one!
Desperately not wanting to work Christmas Day when I had the kids but having to do South Senior as T/Supt - bloody busy: firearms, building evacuations, tiger kidnaps you name it! I used to take boxes of chocolates in for those working when I was SLT at an anonymous South London Police Station.
As for it being Christmas, we’ll, whatever the past, for at least 1500 years we have used the date to mark the birth of Christ, hence the name Christ-Mass. We actually know nothing about Anglo Saxon religion beyond the little later chroniclers -usually monks - tell us. The whole idea was to think of others and ‘peace on Earth’ - worthy ideas in themselves and personally for me turning it into the über fest of consumption and excess that it undoubtedly is now is a step back.
So Merry Christmas to you Dom, and all the other readers. May your holiday be peaceful and restful and I look forwards to reading your inspired thoughts next year.
First Christmas Day greeted by cell reserve with a warming cup, half tea/half Scotch. Went to burglar alarm next to a pub with my tutor PC. As we waited for keyholder, pub landlord invited my tutor in. He came back with a 1/4 bottle of whisky for me. Next call RTA (now RTC) car collided and overturned on roundabout on Divisional boundary, both drivers drunk. PC who turned up to deal from other Division fell over as he got out of car, so we chose to deal while he was ferried back to his station.
Whilst I thought this was the job for me, I realise times have changed and there is less latitude for today’s officers.
Merry Christmas everyone but don’t drink and drive!
Absolutely spot on as ever Dom (you secret Elvis fan). Anyone who has done a decent stint in uniform doing E, L & N will remember those halcyon shifts over Christmas that brought out your & your colleagues Grinch-like tendencies to stratospheric levels.
For the first 5 years of service, being single existing in Paul Breen Section House - one could hardly call it living - you’d usually cop some form of NYE aid whether you were or were not on core shift. Usually night shifts during the Christmas period used to be mega quiet after the surge of domestics piped down. I remember once being called to a pub lock in, only to peer through the window to see ropey adult entertainment whereby the lady in question appeared to be cleaning the tables with her back, with clientele assisting...
We regularly tested our car control skills in the Metro/Fiesta Pandas as Basic drivers. More so over the Christmas period when frost was a regular weather event. One such test was ‘Coasting’ from the top of Crystal Palace Park Road, into neutral and coasting down towards, and usually past Penge nick and halfway towards Beckenham. Don’t dab the brakes you chicken!
Or the time in 1999 when everyone wasn’t really sure how Y2K was going to pan out.
Called to a suspects on days before NYE, at about 0200 in Southend Road on the borders with Catford’s ground. Arrive 4th on scene to be told by more venerable officers ‘it’s all under control, no suspects here..’ Yet about 150 metres away near to the address I clearly spot two drunken twats with boxes in their arms. I & others race to stop them. The boxes were frozen food from a very well established kosher butcher in NW London, and boxes of Veuve Clicquot champagne. An even younger in service colleague than me (I was coming up to 5 years) didn’t think they had enough grounds for burglary! Said twats were well known; so my terse response was heard halfway across the Borough. I knew where they lived & on checking, two more criminal masterminds were found; out for count in their hovel, clutching boxes of Moët Chandon & another box frozen kosher meat.
Not a bad night’s work - 4 in the bin for burglary; all the stolen property restored to the bemused victims; and the SOCO attended & lifted enough forensics to jackhammer the nails into their figurative coffins. After taking the MG11, I walked away with a bottle of Veuve & a bottle of Moët to share with the team on NYE.
Fave xmas memory some local bloke in Kentish Town who was a perpetual nuisance arriving drunk at front desk on xmas eve. Swifted over counter. Kept in till boxing day court. He entertained ys by singing folk songs in exchange for fag breaks. Sad bugger. Drunk with mh issues. Probably long dead in a paupers grave.
Luckily we had trained chef on team. We bribed section house catering manageress with bottle rum to leave kitchen unlocked. Best xmas breakfast or dinner ever for a £5. Hes retired and is First aid trainer now for kids up north.
Domestics on boxing day. I adopted zero tolerance. Wtf cant you behave? No! Okay get in the van. Get in or Im putting you in head first. And i did. Cant do that now. Iopc reign of terror would seize you in the night like Nkvd in Stalins Russia. PSD quislings will break every and any rule to get easy quixk clearup. Destroying MH of the cop, fine,no onecares, you must obey the Centre and save yourself from denounciation.
Drunk cops. One bloke drank vodka whilst driving. Ended up shooting himself whilst on bail for shooting dead his eztranged wife and her lesbian lover. Had a pop at mother in law too, but missed. Htf did he get bail? And htf did plod fail to find the other shotfun? His poor kids.
Still twinkly lights help lift the dark cold gloom and i do like xmas carols. Louder the better. Proper traditional onez. None of this modern rubbish. Lots of cheese to be eaten with assorted pickles. Some cake and mince pies. Always nice with cuppa or glass rum.
I pity cops of today. Attacked phtsically and mentally by media, politicians, criminal scum, the public and the iopc/ cps. I hope they still have some fun. If not policing is finished.
I’ve never worked in London but your experiences are remarkably similar to mine and I guess many others. Working in a big (ish) city, Bristol saw the same drunken antics as I later found in rural Cornwall. I always remember the Friday before Christmas as the worst day, everyone pissed, driving, shouting and fighting, late turn was a nightmare!
I have enjoyed your articles and look forward to many more next year, thanks Dom!
I recall one Xmas in the control room at a central London Police Station playing Risk. Never played it before, we were all sober and as Controller I thrashed everyone! We played 2 games and I won hands down both games. They wouldn't let me play after that.
'Another sudden - bloody - death' made me laugh out loud. I spent a long time as a PC being the sudden death person. You can tell when the Coroners Officer knows your name but worst of all being the death-a-gram person around Xmas (actually any time but Xmas is even worse).
Another brilliant post Dom.