Free Prisoners, Property and Prostitutes by Tom Ratcliffe

radio up and say, ‘I’ve done my 24, I’ll come in and put my feet up for the rest of the shift.’
    Various ways around this were found. There were often spare cars in the police station yard, so after 24 miles some drivers would swap cars and start again. Others had the simple yet brilliant idea of ignoring the figures in the ‘start’ and ‘finish’ columns and simply putting 22 or 23 miles as the total. They guessed (correctly) that if any supervisor actually got as far as checking the log book entries, they would never go as far as checking the maths in each individual car. If they did get caught, they could just say that their maths was poor. Other times theprevious driver might have done less than the maximum distance in a shift, and would write up a total of 24 but actually ‘hand over’ the excess unused miles to the next driver.
    The other method of reducing recorded mileage showed the real stupidity of the system. The cars had mechanical speedometer drives, so if you drove forwards they added miles, and if you drove backwards they removed miles. It was quite common at 4.30 in the morning to see a panda driving round and round a supermarket car park in reverse, but anything more than 5 or 6 miles wound off tended to induce nausea in the occupants, and the incidence of people reporting sick with a bad back after nights increased due to having to look over their shoulder for half an hour continually.
    The other consequence was that the fuel bill rose considerably, using petrol to add the mileage and then more again to remove it. But no one in admin ever worked out that some cars were only doing 17 miles to the gallon, and as long as none of them seemed to exceed 24 miles in a shift they were happy.

Six
    Shifts with traffic made me keen to join that department one day, but I was under no illusions of it being a quick process. Those who went on traffic tended to stay for years, sometimes decades, and none seemed keen for promotion. To be in traffic with less than seven or eight years’ service was unusual at the time, so I knew I would have to be patient.
    Foot patrol was still my lot, and very pleasant it was on a fine Summer’s day, but in Winter it was a different matter. Rain and wind were no excuse for not ‘checking your property’ as it was called, an obligatory task on nights. This meant going round every shop on your beat, checking the doors and windows were closed and no signs of any break-in were evident. If it turned out there had been any damage or burglary when the proprietor opened up the next day, you had to account for either why you hadn’t noticed it or at least say categorically at what time you last checked it.
    Of course if it snowed, life was a bit easier. Once you had checked a street you only had to see if there were any footprints going towards a door to see if anyone had approached it. No footprints meant all was still well. But much that I like snow,walking round in it for hours became progressively more unpleasant. You could go to one of the hotels in town and scrounge a hot drink – the night porters were a reasonably approachable breed. Like me they were at the bottom of a food chain, carrying responsibilities and only being noticed when they got it wrong. But many were either busy or fairly soon became dull company, so after a swift drink you would head out again into the cold. I had joined at a time when the traditional Police cape was being phased out, and was one of the last to be issued with one. In the coldest weather I generally wore the standard issue greatcoat, a bulky garment apparently made of thick felt, which kept my body warm, but as with the cape it still left my legs cold. One snowy night I watched with envy as one of the traffic cars cruised round the town, the two occupants in shirt sleeves with the heater set somewhere in the ‘sub-tropical’ range. The huge Rover pulled up alongside me, heat surging off the V8 engine and wafting tantalisingly at my