Policeman - using the telephone (1960s) : Alan Burt

Transcript

When I left the police training school I went to Ferndown ... and was allocated a bike, being a youngster. The youngsters had to have the bikes and the more experienced chaps had the cars so I used to go off on patrol in my uniform on a bike. I had to cycle between set areas and set telephone boxes and stand outside a telephone box on the hour (or) on the half hour and if anybody needed me they could dial that number, and of course I would answer the phone. I would get my directions from my deployment and off I'd go. I recall as a youngster I could never understand it. When I was nineteen, bearing in mind we never had any radios, you'd cycle off on night duty. So Ferndown village, as it was then, and you could cycle up to Trickets Cross and then ride down to Colehill to the outskirts of Wimborne, checking factory estates and all the rest of it with no communication whatsoever, apart from standing outside of a telephone kiosk. Parley Cross at three o'clock in the morning, you may or may not get somebody phone you or you may or may not see another policeman for eight hours.