‘I wouldn’t want to be a bobby……..’
Among my very early memories are Sunday School outings from St. Thomas’ Church, Ipswich in the late 1920s. There would be about twenty us aged between six and ten, in an open charabanc (an early 20th century word for a motor coach) on our very excited way to Felixstowe or, if the church’s finances were particularly healthy that year, to sandy Walton-on-the-Naze or Clacton-on-Sea. A couple of still-young Sunday School teachers would be striving to keep us in order.
As we travelled we sang at the tops of our unbroken voices the not particularly edifying folk songs of our age, time and place. The words of one verse of a song that our treble voices bellowed with redoubled enthusiasm as we approached a policeman on point duty (this was long before there were traffic lights!) were:
I wouldn’t want to be a bobby;
Dressed in other people’s clothes.
With a belly full of fat
And a sausage on my hat.
I wouldn’t want to be a bobby!
I’m not quite sure what policemen looked like in the late ‘20s – but there’s no doubt that this is what I looked like. I wasn’t much good at rifle drill – either then or later!
Most of the policemen took it in good part, waved to us and smiled good-naturedly. There really were quite a few ‘Dixons of Dock Green’ in the Police Force when I was sevenish.
A policeman’s life (no-one calls them ‘bobbies’ these days) may or may not have been an enviable one in those days, but I think that they were generally liked and respected by most of the population.
That isn’t so today. Nowadays there are whole neighbourhoods in which they are regarded as natural enemies and the very worst thing that any member of such a neighbourhood can do is ‘grass to the cops’ about anything whatsoever. I remember one of my grandsons telling me, when he was in his early teens, that that was one of the lessons that he had learned at his school in North London.
Then again, those of us who regard ourselves as law-abiding citizens have been shocked and disgusted at allegations of bribery and corruption at high level (and no doubt lower level too) in the Police Force and of, sadly well documented, cases of police brutality. Nor should forget that it was Tottenham Police's inept, incompetent and ill-considered actions that resuted in the death of an unarmed (and presumed innocent) man, and triggered the nation-wide riots.
Against that though, we must set the dogged determination and acts of heroism of ordinary policemen (and firemen and ambulance staff) during the recent unprecedented scenes of violent rioting. Recalled from holiday and – at the beginning – grossly outnumbered, they did all that they, or anyone else, could have done to counter and contain the violence.
They were, we are told, unprepared for the scale and extent of the violence. Of course they were. Never before had there been such destruction and widespread looting, aided and encouraged by electronic means of communication. Within three days though, the situation was well under control. Recall of police officers from leave and effective co-operation between the country’s police forces had stopped the riots, hundreds of alleged rioters had been arrested and restoration work had begun.
By that time of course, the top politicians had returned from their holidays. They then had the unbelievable impudence to suggest that it was their return and their ‘decisive action’ that had turned the tide! I am not a bit surprised that the Chief Constables were outraged – and that they haven’t hesitated to voice their feeling. It isn’t so very long ago that David Cameron rebuked an army chief in Afghanistan for having dared to criticise some of the government’s policies and actions. ‘You do the fighting’, Mr Cameron suggested, ‘and leave me to do the talking’. Perhaps someone should now tell him ‘You do the talking’, no-one would deny that he is very good at that ‘and leave the details of the policing to the Police’.
I am not surprised either that our senior police officers are offended at David Cameron’s inviting a former Police Chief from the USA to lecture them on gang control. He is said to have had some success in that field in New York and Los Angeles. London is not New York; Birmingham is not Los Angeles, the Met. is not the NYPD and British Police Forces, unlike those in the USA, are not yet, thank Heaven, under the direct control of politicians.
If England’s top policemen need to know more about ending gang power they’d be better advised to see how Scotland’s Strathclyde Police Service successfully tackled Glasgow’s notorious gangs. Come to think of it, Mr Cameron might find it a good idea to invite Scottish Chief Minister Alex Salmond to Westminster to advise him and his political colleagues in the government, on future avoidance of riots of the kind that we have recently seen in England.
I am sure Mr Salmond would be pleased to suggest reasons why, while England’s High Streets were being trashed, plundered and burnt, Scotland’s remained riot-free!
The worst – and the best – of human nature
Extraordinary how those riots seem to have shown us the very worst and the very best of human nature and of our fellow mean and women. While they were taking place we saw people consumed by greed, hatred and delight in chaos and destruction. In the immediate aftermath though there were the hundreds of willing volunteers who turned out with their brooms and their buckets to try to clear up the mess.
There were scores of examples of acts of kindness to the victims of the violence too. Neither of my sons lives very far from the scenes of some of the worst of the rioting in Tottenham. One of them has told me about a local barber who at 89 (he makes me feel like an idle layabout!) was still cutting hair in his own barber’s shop in Tottenham. His premises were among those trashed by the rioters. His customers and other local people launched a ‘Keep Aaron Cutting!’ campaign with its own web site and raised thousands of pounds to help him re-establish his business. I have no doubt that there have been other such incidents that have remained unreported.
I do not find the demands for zero tolerance and tough sentencing from the press, Members of Parliament (who think they have found a vote-winner!) and some members of the public, very appealing. A great many of those who are being convicted had hitherto had clean records but were caught up in the excitement and frenzy of the moment. Whatever penalty they may receive from the court will be nothing compared with the fact that they will now have a criminal record that will affect them for the rest of their lives.
Nor do I think it right that Council tenants should be faced with eviction if they, or any members of their families, are convicted of an offence that has nothing whatsoever to do with their tenancy. Why should they alone be subject to the extra punishment of homelessness for which the council, who may or may not know all the circumstances, acts as judge, jury and executioner?
I was impressed by remarks made in a tv interview by Sir Menzies Campbell, former leader of the Lib.Dems. and an experienced prosecuting barrister. He said that MPs in Parliament make the laws, but that it is the magistrates and the judges, who are able to acquaint themselves with all the relevant facts of each case, who should pass judgement and determine the sentence. Politicians should neither applaud nor condemn their decisions.
‘Let he who is without sin among you, cast the first stone!’
Mr David Cameron, our Prime Minister, was on terms of intimate friendship with people accused of bribing the police and prying illegally into the private lives of innocent citizens. He appointed as his head of communications Andy Coulson, a former editor of the News of the World who had been arrested in connection with the phone hacking scandal, and whom it now appears was being paid large sums by News International while working for the Prime Minister! Mr Cameron justified his appointment by saying – rather self righteously I thought – that he believed that ‘everyone should be given a second chance’; everyone, it seems, except young rioters and especially young rioters who live in council houses!
Building a New Jerusalem, ‘In England’s Green and Pleasant land’
I have been reading the Church Times, and passing it on to friends, for almost a year. It is an independent Anglican weekly that covers the whole spectrum of Church of England tradition, and comments, always sympathetically and constructively, on news from other Christian traditions. I have particularly appreciated its friendly assessments from time to time of current Quaker faith and practice. In last week’s issue there was a long feature article, Vision of service, not private gain by Jill Segger, a Quaker, who urged that ‘The Quaker testimonies offer an alternative approach to industrial action’.
It also comments, usually very wisely, on national and international affairs. As one would expect, the riots and their aftermath have consumed a considerable amount of newsprint in the past week or so.
Last week, under the headline, ‘More is broken than Mr Cameron admits’ a leading article commented on the Prime Minister’s speech on mending ‘the broken society’. Below is the final paragraph of the article.
‘We wrote last week about the triumph of materialism and individualism. Any attempt to tackle the consequences of these on what Mr Cameron calls “the poorest part of our society” must acknowledge that the poor do not have a monopoly on moral drift. In the 289 sentences of his speech, just four, right at the end, touched on examples of moral decline found elsewhere in society “in the banking crisis, in MPs’ expenses, in the phone-hacking scandal”. His conclusion? “We need to think about the example we are setting”. Yet white-collar criminals have none of the excuses of desperation, inadequacy and hopelessness found among the poor. If the Prime Minister wants to reverse the “slow motion moral collapse”, in the nation, he needs to look far wider than he does at present’
My own conviction is that at the very heart of the ills that plague our country today is the enormous and ever widening gap between the incomes of the wealthy and those of the poor and under-privileged. Narrowing that gap could establish a foundation on which we could all together build a mended and truly 'big' Society based on firm moral values. That is surely an aim that all men and women of good will can share.
I will not cease from mental fight, nor shall my sword sleep in my hand,
Till I have built Jerusalem, in England’s green and pleasant land.
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