What happens when the police have nothing to do
Published: Sat, 05/19/18
If aliens had landed in the suburbs of London on Wednesday 29th of July 1981 the visitors might have been forgiven for thinking that they had just missed the end of civilisation. There would have been no one on the streets, and not a shop, or business, open. Barnet, where I lived at the time was a ghost town, at least in the public spaces. If our alien visitors had then flown their spacecraft to the centre of London, especially the area between Buckingham palace and St Pauls Cathedral, they might have assumed the whole population of London was there after all.
The reality was somewhere in between, there was a national holiday and everyone, who wasn’t in central London, was supposed to be glued to a TV set watching Charles Windsor and Diana Spencer getting married. I still lived at home at that time and I confess I got bored after 20 minutes, or so, and decided to clean my motorcycle in the drive. Richard, a friend of mine who lived across the road, also rode a motorcycle and I saw him roll down his drive and ride up the road towards the High Road. We exchanged a wave as he pulled out. Five minutes later Richard rides back down the road, turns into his drive and stops in his garage. Literally seconds later a police car comes down the road at high speed, carries on down the hill and out of sight. I heard the squeal of tires as the vehicle must have braked hard at the junction at the bottom of the hill.
Richard reappeared and wondered across the road to say hello.
“Is the police car anything to do with you?” I asked. Richard just shrugged his shoulders.
“Not sure.” he said. “I just got to the High Road, turned left and this police car comes the other way and pulls a U turn and starts coming back in my direction so I decided to come back here and get out of the way.”
As things turned out Richard should have stayed properly hidden for a bit longer. Instead, he went and remounted his motorcycle and was about to resume his journey, when the same police car came racing up the road again and blocked Richard from actually leaving his drive. The two policemen in the patrol car leaped out and ordered Richard to get off his bike. Then another friend of Richard’s arrived and demanded to know why the police were harassing his friend. At that point one of the officers grabbed the microphone of his radio and I clearly heard him shout. “Assistance needed at...” And gave the location. Actually I could hear everything, even from across the road, there was no other noise at all, until that is, I heard sirens from three different directions and minutes later, three more police cars skidded to a halt outside Richard’s house. Richard was promptly arrested and his bike ridden away by one of the officers. The
other friend was threatened with arrest too if he didn’t keep his distance. I am afraid I just kept away. I am always willing to step in and help a friend, but only when it is likely to actually do some good, not getting involved seemed like the best contribution I could make.
Half an hour later my Yamaha is looking nice and shiny and I hear another bike coming back down the road. Again, Richard comes over to say hello.
“So, what happened?” I asked.
“They locked me in a cell.” Said Richard. “Ten minutes later the desk sergeant came and asked me why I was there. I told him what had happened but that I had no idea why. So, he gave me a cup of tea and sent me home.”
To this day I have no idea what that episode was all about. Perhaps the police were just so bored that day that they were creating their own distractions. Maybe there was more to it than Richard actually let on to me. Either way, it was more entertaining than watching someone else’s wedding.
Of course the fairy tale wedding we witnessed in 1981 turned out to have a dark, and ultimately tragic, outcome. On the other hand, if it had not taken place there would not be a royal wedding today between Dianna’s son, Harry, and Megan Markle. Not that I find myself any more excited about today’s wedding, than I was nearly 37 years ago. On the other hand, the connection between the two occasions does show how the web connects people and events across time and space. We cannot see how the lines of the web will connect in the future, but we do know that actions we take today will have consequences in time to come, and when we look back, we can see connections to choices made in the past. Then, by observing patterns from the past we might be able to make intentional choices for the future. Understanding the web is a major theme in the Foundation Programme if you have not already seen it https://iceandfire.org.uk/foundation.html
regards
Graham