 Seeing as we have a few Mr and Ms Plods in the membership
list I thought I would tell you about Bert Bonney (close to
his real name - I have to change it slightly as I don’t have
authority to write about him) a typical village bobby, just
after WW11.
Now, when telling the story of Bert you are actually telling
the whole story about village life, with all its little quirks.
To start with Bert was around 50(ish) at the end of the war,
which to our very young eyes made him a very ancient person
with lots of authority. Bert didn’t go to the war - guess
what? he had flat feet - which is quite ironic seeing as one
of the nicknames for Brit coppers is ‘flatfoot’. He stood
about 6’ 4" then with that helmet of his he appeared to be
about 7 feet tall ... scary stuff. Bert lived in a police house
at Hurst Green which is the sub village to the major village
of Oxted. Oxted itself was big time, it had a proper police
station with 2 full time staff, supported by 3 ‘special constables’.
Specials were people who lived and worked in the area and
were called on when extra hands were needed, parades, bonfire
night and stuff. They wore the same uniform except that the
shoulder tab read ‘Special Police Officer’. In Oxted these
revered ‘specials’ were Mr Amos the butcher, Mr Dickers from
the furniture and lino shop, Antonio (I will come back to
him) and Miss (no such thing as a Ms then thank god) Haley,
who worked in and part owned ‘The Green Jug Tearoom’. Such
were our defenders.
Now living in a police house must have been a trial for Mrs
Bert as she had to feed anybody they had in the little cell,
which usually was one of three of the local drunks although
from time to time the odd burglar would appear behind the
bars. Old Benny was the best of these, he was a good burglar
but had the habit, after breaking in somewhere, of going to
the pub to celebrate, still carrying the swag, which sometimes
he even tried to sell in the bar to get drinking money ... not
bright the old Benny.
When dealing with me and my crowd Bert had one method of
operation. If you got caught scrumping apples or pears,
you got a clout round the ears and a boot up the bum. If
you did something slightly worse you got the same with the
added threat of speaking to your parents.
During the war one of his duties was to keep tabs on the
Italian POWs. You see many of them worked and lived on the
surrounding farms. They weren’t locked up and sort of lived
the same as the rest of the villagers who they got on with
very well. They were supposed to wear a distinctive POW
shirt but these somehow got lost and they wore the same
clothes as the locals. The farmers used to slip them a few
shilling and it wasn’t uncommon to find them in the village
shops and the pubs. Remember the ‘special’ Antonio? Well,
he came as a POW and stayed on, marrying a local girl, he
got married in the same church as I did, St Marys Oxted.
In fact there were many Italian POWs who stayed on and became
part of the local scene.
Now I mentioned that Bert never went to war, however, on
his dress uniform tunic you would have seen a small blue
medal ribbon. You see Bert got The George Cross, the highest
possible award for a civilian. The official blurb about
the medal says: -
The George Cross is awarded for an act of the greatest heroism
or of the most conspicuous courage in circumstances of extreme
danger.
In 1944 a Lancaster bomber crashed outside the village,
the pilot had attempted to put his crippled plane down in
a field ... he didn’t quite make it. Bert and some of the
Home Guard were very soon on the scene, the plane was in
flames and, as it was soon discovered, still had its bombs
onboard, why they weren’t released we will never know but
probably because the young pilot knew he was over an inhabited
area. Bert actually crawled into the burning plane, knowing
the bombs were still there and dragged three of the crew
who were still alive (just) out to the waiting hand of the
Home Guard ... that’s our Bert for you.
Not really a lot more to say about our village bobby. He
loved cricket and played for the village team. Mrs Bert
packed him the same lunch every day. Two hard boiled eggs,
bread and butter, cheese and a bottle of pale ale (beer).
You would see him sitting on one of the seats on the village
green enjoying his daily repast. Actually the only way I
knew that Bert carried a truncheon was because, at times,
his wife included walnuts in the lunch (Bert loved them)
and he would use it to crack the shells. For some reason
a policeman’s truncheon was known as ‘An Address’, don’t
ask, I don’t know why. He would check all the pups at closing
time and be slightly blind to the fact that sometimes a
few remained in ‘the back room’, if it didn’t cause a nuisance
then he wasn’t too interested.
The image of Bert on his bicycle, no radio, no weapons (except
for a small truncheon) bike clips holding his trouser cuffs
in, is still with me as something that was very ‘solid’.
These days him and his bike would probably create a chuckle
or two, but only from people who don’t know what a real
policeman is.
I guess there is no purpose to telling this
little story, except that it's, perhaps. important to remember
some of this stuff - but I can't think of one logical reason
why it should be so.
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