Free Citizen Survivor Tales (The Ministry of Survivors) by Richard Denham

them and gave them all a thump. One of the lads tried to fight back, so, with assault of a police officer now committed, we beat him with our truncheons. Do you know what our nickname became among the young lads? The Black and Blues, quite imaginative really, because that was the state anyone we didn’t take a liking to ended up. Being a policeman, particularly through what Coventry was suffering, should have been about fair play rather than the technicalities of breaching the peace and the desire to feel collars. One officer could give a man a verbal warning, and if another officer didn’t like the look of him, he’d go back the next day and nick him anyway. We lost a lot of respect in the community, and I cannot blame them for it.
    As the situation in Coventry got worse, and order was breaking down, we were given more and more rule to apply the law as we saw fit and, well, we fell. We lost all our moral fibre. We became more like an armed gang than anything else. Corruption amongst the police was ignored and seen as acceptable in the circumstances. There was once thirty or so of us scrapping in the streets with a gang of about twenty lads and I remember thinking ‘What is going on?’ Had we backed these lads into a corner so much, made them so desperate, did they despise us so much that they were willing to brawl in the street with us like we were a common street gang? I remember one of my colleagues laughing afterwards, patting me on the back and saying ‘Nice bit of overtime there.’
    Often I’d see people being taken off in the back of a police van, not sure the usual sort, but women and children too. I’d ask where they were going, ‘Don’t concern yourself,’ was the Sergeant’s response.
    I started to despise myself and the uniform I was wearing. Where once I was delighted to see a bobby, it suddenly became very oppressive, like my chest was caving in, and I was one of them, heaven forbid what others thought of us. But the truth is, people believed, or wanted to believe we were the good guys, of course they would, people don’t want to think of the bobby on the beat being a bad apple. People will believe what they want to believe, if they want to believe someone is good they will, if they want to believe someone is wicked they will, and they will ignore anything that goes against that. Do you know what I can’t stand the sound of now? Police whistles; stupid isn’t? But they fill me with dread now.
     
    What happened to you?
    It was an absolutely stupid thing to do, but I tried having a quiet word with the Inspector, just to explain my thoughts and concerns, let him know what people thought of us. He seemed to take it all in and thanked me. The next day, it was announced that due to my age and the circumstances I was being dismissed. Because of my long-service I would receive a pension and they would ‘overlook any indiscretions’, but that was it, there was something that tried to imitate a leaving party, and then I was gone. I did try to stay in touch with a lot of them as they were my friends, but I was given a quite word that I was considered a pariah now, and my old colleagues had been advised not to have any contact with me as I was a ‘potential reputational risk’, I believe is how it was worded.
    The years passed and when Coventry ended, so did the police force, and my pension. Now I scrape a living with my family here, it’s a hard life but at least it’s honest and, well, as long as I never hear another police whistle as long as I live, then I’ll be grateful. The police that exist this day, they’re a different breed to me. There are even the Blue Lampers the so-called vigilantes who seem to be constantly scrapping with the bobbies, keeping them in check. But really they’re all cut from the same cloth and as bad as each.
     
    Bill, you may be aware, there are those within the Constabulary that claim it was in fact you who was the corrupt one, which is why you were dismissed. How do