Mud, Ming-Ming and The Turkish Slipper
Police nicknames from a bygone age
‘The Turkish Slipper’, not a nickname for the bold…
Occasionally, my time in the police reminds me of the decommissioned warships they tow out to sea for target practice. A once-proud hulk, rust-streaked and stripped of its guns, sitting at anchor while younger ships bombard it with the latest weaponry. Out with the old and in with the new. One day, those nifty missile frigates will also grow old. They too will languish offshore, swarms of drones mockingly strafing them with lasers.
Policing’s latest incarnation, preoccupied with inclusivity and safeguarding and ‘non-criminal hate incidents,’ will also eventually slip beneath the waves. A question: what will it leave behind to be fondly remembered? There’s something Cromwellian about the EDI Roundheads who run the police nowadays. Miserable. Puritan. Hectoring, even. It’s not as if people are sticking around to enjoy this new model army, are they? Resignations are at an all-time high.
Whatever their other failings, coppers of yore had a sense of humour, albeit not to everybody’s taste. Some of it involved taking the piss, something increasingly viewed as ‘problematic’ and cruel. This is sometimes true, but also ignores a cast-iron fact of British working life – we often express our affection with mockery.
Such humour can gently prick the balloon of pomposity. It can oil the wheels of hierarchy. It allows people to let off steam. Although, in these socially atomized times, I wonder how difficult being funny is nowadays. Especially when the powers-that-be want the ability to seize your phone and examine it for non-State sanctioned jokes.
Which brings me to the subject of coppers awarding each other nicknames - consider this a piece of police anthropology, if you will. A missive from the past. Samizdat. I would add this article contains examples of piss-taking and salty language from days of yore. A bit like an episode of a problematic 1980s sitcom, but with added ‘C’ bombs.
I think that was a ‘trigger warning.’
I’m going to include the odd nickname that overlaps with slang – usually when it comes to colloquialisms for specialist units. For example, ‘Traffic Rats’ or ‘Black Rats’ for Road Policing officers – so-named because of their distinctive black motorcycle outfits back in the day. Oh, and for their habit of lurking in the shadows to stick on coppers speeding into work for early turn.
My favourite police nickname…
Being reasonably thick-skinned, I more or less took nicknames for granted (unless they were obviously offensive). Policing’s a rough-and-tumble job, one where the things you were called on the street were far worse than anything you’d hear in a police station. Then I attended the Met’s Sergeant’s Course (don’t worry, my time in the rank was mercifully short). The instructor, a long-service inspector, was giving a lecture on ‘Dignity at Work.’ “Now we’re going to talk about nicknames,” he said. “Do you want the official version or the non-official version?” Well, it was 2006 so we begged for the non-official version. The instructor gave us each a whiteboard marker and said, “write every nickname you’ve ever heard in The Job on the board. All of them. Then we’ll talk about why they might not be acceptable.”
The next hour was easily the funniest on the course, provoking some genuinely interesting discussion about what did and didn’t constitute bullying. I’m going to share my favourite from the lesson right now. It’s not rude - just clever. It’s said, once upon a time, there was a Pc who was known as ‘Tunbridge Wells’. Why? Because his real name was Justin Kent. Southern English geography gag ahoy.
That one, allegedly, came from the TSG. The Territorial Support Group probably deserves a special mention, being a veritable incubator for nicknames. Sit a load of coppers in a riot van for twelve hours? Their no-nonsense policing style attracted nicknames from non-TSG officers too. The ‘Thick and Stupid Group’ was one. My favourite was ‘The Spice Girls.’ A tiny quantity of weed was known as a ‘A TSG of Cannabis’ after the trifling amounts of the stuff the TSG would nick people for.
TSG carriers also had a single jump seat behind the driver, usually reserved for the sergeant. This was known as the ‘BINGO’ seat, which stood for ‘Bollocks I’m Not Getting Out.’ Another ex-TSG bloke I worked with was called ‘Mud’ (if you’re reading, hello mate!). Everyone called him Mud. It was even how he introduced himself. Now, I was never much of a detective, but I suspected it wasn’t his real name. I finally asked why. “I was in charge of my unit’s National Lottery syndicate,” he explained. “One day our numbers came up and we won a load of money. The problem was, I’d forgotten to buy a ticket. After that, my name was Mud.” And, like mud, the name stuck.
More than a few nicknames originate from workplace mishaps. There was, famously, a policewoman who was unfortunate enough to write-off several police cars in accidents. She was known as ‘Ming-Ming’ because ‘she was always fucking pandas.’ There’s probably an employment tribunal in that one nowadays. I once met a Dc at a CID office lunch. During a long career in the military and the police he’d survived numerous injuries from bomb blasts, bullets and knives. He was universally known as ‘Doom.’ Another officer, known for his reticence when it came to getting stuck in at fights, was called ‘The Turkish Slipper.’ Why? “Because he always turned up at the end.”
Ming-Ming
Other nicknames turned on questionable work ethics. Back in the day, lazy ‘uniform carriers’ were too frequently a feature of British police stations. One every copper will have heard of is ‘The Olympic Flame’ (never goes out) or ‘The Gurkha’ (takes no prisoners). Another is BONGO (Books On Never Goes Out) and SILAS (Sorry I’m Late Again Sarge). I knew a sergeant known as FLUB (Fat Lazy Useless Bastard), a man who I never saw lift a finger during the three years I knew him.
Others played on physical features - especially verboten nowadays. Most people have heard of the nickname ‘laptop’ for a short-statured copper (it’s a small PC). I remember a tiny DS nicknamed ‘Fridge Magnet’, apparently stolen from a sergeant major who once spied a five-foot squaddie on parade. “I’ve got fucking fridge magnets bigger than you!” I once told a police marksman mate about a bloke I’d heard of (who had nothing to do with the police) with one leg longer than the other, so walked with a wobbly gait. This earned him the moniker ‘The Sniper’s Nightmare’. My marksman friend replied they had someone in SO19 with an unusually large head. “We called him ‘The Sniper’s Dream’.”
Rank was often reflected when nicknames were awarded, consistent with policing’s legendarily poor industrial relations. One sergeant was known as ‘Aquafresh’ because he was a tube with three stripes. I knew several superintendents known as either ‘Thrush’ or ‘Canesten’ because they were irritating c***s. There was also a tall, pale, white-haired chief inspector known as ‘The Great White Shark’. Loathed by all, he’d silently glide around the police station looking for the tiniest misdemeanour, whereupon he’d bite dirty great chunks out of people. He had nothing better to do.
Ex-Met Commissioner Sir John Stevens (now Baron Stevens), known for his love of the grape, was (usually affectionately) known as ‘Captain Beaujolais.’ I also knew an inspector known as ‘Captain Chaos’, of whom the less said the better.
One, submitted by an old mate, made me smile. There was a detective at Heathrow CID who never bought a round of drinks at the pub. They called him ‘Crime.’ Why? Because, you see, ‘Crime doesn’t pay.’
This is not a compliment, Guvnor
Then there are the collective nicknames police officers use to describe each other. Uniform officers, when I joined, often referred to the CID as ‘The Filth’. The CID called uniform ‘Lids’ or ‘The Helmetry’. Some of this was tongue-in-cheek, some of it wasn’t. CID officers would refer to non-detectives in plainclothes roles as ‘Wood Made Good’, after ‘Woodies’ or ‘Woodentops’ (uniform police).
Met officers would refer to any non-Met coppers as ‘Carrots’, as in ‘carrot crunchers’. It mattered little that a Manchester cop might work in an urban environment not dissimilar to London’s. The other term was ‘County Mounty’, for officers from the forces neighbouring the capital. When I worked in a unit with a joint cell made up of county officers, someone promptly bought a large inflatable carrot from Amazon and hung it over their desk.
Specialist entry teams - police staff who operated hydraulic door opening equipment for raids - were known as ‘Ghostbusters’ because of their baggy coveralls and bulky equipment. Firearms officers were ‘Ninjas’ because of their dark clothing, face masks and weapons. The Clubs and Vice officers who drove around in an unmarked van arresting prostitutes were simply known as ‘The Tom Squad’, ‘Tom’ being slang for a working girl. Mounted Branch was always referred to as ‘The Pony Club’, until of course you found yourself in a riot. Whereupon they’re called the ‘thank fuck you’ve arrived’ club. In Special Branch, the desk officers who specialised in foreign affairs would swan off to official functions at embassies and consulates. They were known as ‘The Cocktail Squad’ by the rest of us.
As for professional standards? We were called ‘rubber heelers’ because, apparently, ‘you never hear ‘em coming’. It occasionally amused me how bent police officers celebrated sneakiness in catching criminals, but bridled as if some sort of Queensbury Rules had been broken when the same tactics were used against them.
The occasionally misnamed ‘Pony Club’
I’m pretty sure those days are gone, blown away like autumn leaves on the wind. I’m almost certain some bad stuff went with them, but probably a fair amount of good stuff too.
Was ever thus.
All I do know, after a career spent in good, bad and indifferent postings, is people make or break the Job. I’d rather have a crappy posting with brilliant people than a brilliant posting with crappy people. Does something as simple as a nickname matter? Or a permissive environment to have a laugh? Maybe it’s a stitch in the wider tapestry of what used to be called morale.
Going back to my original metaphor about drones taking over; perhaps it doesn’t matter. Policing, one day, might be done by AI. Until it does, though, can the remaining humans in charge lighten up a bit?
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Great observations, as usual, mate. Remember most of those. Here's a few more. A generally unpopular South London DS was known as TCP - That C**t Price (not his real name, but same initial), an unfortunate PC who had a motorbike accident and fractured his skill vertically, which healed offset,. This earned him the sobriquet 'Isiah', because one eye's ''igher' than the other. My favourite, that one. Then there was the Uniformed Inspector who was a famous panicked, and who was known as Commercial Union, after a TV ad of the time, where in contrast to the titular insurance company, he WOULD make a drama out of a crisis. There was another , very nice but very boring Inspector, who was known as Mogadon Ron, after a common sleeping pill of the time. Finally, there was young WPC on F who was very free with her favours, as was, of course, her right. She was known as Martini, after the 80s ad campaign 'Any time, any place, anywhere..
At Training School I was nicknamed Moses by two of the PT Instructors, both of whom were Jewish, because I had a beard and because I was the only class member who knew that Wingate FC was named after the Jewish leader of the chindits in Burma, Orde Wingate. As a PC at GA I was christened Guido Fawkes, or Gweed for short. My favourite nickname was told to me by one of my DCs, who was the son of Polish immigrants. He once worked in an office in West London where all the staff were of Polish descent except the Inspector in charge, who was very unpopular. It was a running joke among the staff to punctiliously greet the Inspector as "Guvnor", because "Govno", pronounced much the same, means "turd" in Polish.