PLYMOUTH |
The Encyclopaedia of Plymouth History |
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BEAT REMINISCENCES Mr Fred Davey MBE, who joined the City of Plymouth Police in May 1948, has kindly supplied information on the old policing system in the days of the City of Plymouth Constabulary. He joined the force in 1948. At that time they worked a system of three shifts: the early turn was from 6am until 2pm; the late turn was 2pm to 10pm, and the night shift was 10pm to 6am. Starting from a fortnight on early turn, there would then be a week on late turn, followed by two weeks on nights. This would be followed by a week of late turn before returning to the two weeks early turn. During each shift there was a 45-minute break for a meal. Before the Second World War, and perhaps during the War, the night duty officers had their breaks in shop doorways. The station reserve officer would then carry around some coffee to these men and because of this the night-duty meal was for a long time known as “coffee”. This terminology continued even after things became more civilised and they returned to the police station for their meal breaks. Those were the days of the six-day working week, of course, with only one day off in lieu of Sundays. For the police this meant a different day each week and only once in every seven weeks did you have both a Saturday and a Sunday together. This was referred to as ‘a long weekend’. Then the Chief Constable, Mr J F Skittery, brought in a seven week system with the intention of spreading the manpower over the 24-hour period and putting more men on duty at the times they were needed. The seven shifts were then: 6am to 2pm; 8am to 4pm; 9am to 6pm; 2pm to 10pm; 4pm to Midnight; 6pm to 2am and 10pm to 6am. The 9am to 6pm shift had a longer meal break than the others and was used mainly for traffic control duties. This arrangement lasted for a short while but then the shifts were reduced to six in number, doing away with the 9am to 6pm one. Both these shift patterns were popular with the men because they did away with the 8-hour changeover and gave them more time with their families when they were off duty. The day off for those on day shifts was always a Sunday. At some time during this period there was an increase to a day and a half off per week. This was fine but when this was further increased to two days a week, two things happened. The first, as Fred Davey himself puts it, was ‘that the higher ranks in the Force thought the end of the world had come!’. More practically, it meant that the number of shifts was reduced to four, the three traditional ones plus a new 10am to 6pm one. Plymouth’s ‘A Division’ covered Greenbank and the City Centre police stations, the latter being located after the War in a temporary building in Westwell Street. There were 20 beats. Number 1 covered an area to the west of Mutley Plain; number 2 was Mutley Plain itself; number 3 was to the east of Mutley Plain; number 4 was the west of Tavistock Road, number 5 to the east of Tavistock Road; number 6 was Mount Gould and number 7 was Laira. The man on this beat was provided with a pedal cycle and later a motor cycle. Beats 8 and 9 covered Prince Rock and Cattedown. Beat 11 covered just Royal Parade and the south side of New George Street while a colleague on beat 12 covered the other side of New George Street and Cornwall Street. The remaining beats covered the Hoe and Barbican. Not all beats were necessarily covered as Fred refers to one Saturday night when he was Acting Sergeant covering both stations that he had 18 police constables on duty covering 20 beats. The system used in ‘working the beat’ was that at the start of the shift the Sergeant would instruct the Officers to walk their beat in either the left or right direction from their starting point. The rule would apply throughout that shift. The idea was that the Sergeant should be able to walk the beat in reverse and meet the Constable part way round. Perhaps the more useful rule was that a Constable should ring in to the police station once every 45 minutes from one of the blue pillar telephones or boxes. Former Police Constable Simon Dell recalls seeing the beat lists displayed in police stations. The beat was rigid and only an emergency, or to make an enquiry that the Sergeant knew about, would be accepted as justification for leaving the set route. It was also very complicated. For example, on even dates the officer might go one way around his beat but on odd dates he would take a slightly different route. It could even vary between shifts. The only thing that was important was that the officer was at a particular spot, usually a police box, telephone post or major road junction, within ten minutes before and ten minutes after a specific time so that his Sergeant knew where to find him if required. This was also used as a form of discipline, of course, to check that the officer was doing his duty. Old newspapers are full of reports of police officers being found asleep or even drinking in public houses, for which they were usually dismissed.
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