I joined the North Riding of Yorkshire Constabulary in 1952 as a cadet aged 16 and during the following years learned a lot about police work. However, my real ambition was to be an author. Prior to 1978, whilst a serving policeman, I had written articles and short stories based on Yorkshire rural life and had also published more than thirty books.

Many were police procedural crime novels.

As a serving police officer I realised many police duties did not involve senior officers, detectives or major crime. Furthermore, much of a constable’s routine work did not involve any crime at all. Rural police work was more concerned with the prevention of crime, general patrolling, maintaining order in pubs and public gatherings, dealing with street incidents or traffic accidents and perhaps undertaking a local welfare role. Detectives dealt with serious crimes although rural constables would investigate minor ones like simple theft and malicious damage.

That realisation gradually steered me towards writing a book that chronicled the life and work of a village bobby in rural North Yorkshire, a book that was neither a crime novel nor true-life crime story. It would include the humour and odd personalities that enlivened police work plus the wonderful scenery and sturdy characteristics of Yorkshire country folk. Having been a village constable from 1964 until 1967, I decided to set my stories in that period.

The entire 1960s decade was a time of massive social and economic change with an immense upheaval both within British society and throughout the police service. There were Ban-the-Bomb marches, Mods and Rockers and Flower Power plus a huge change in the social habits and ambitions of young people. They enjoyed loud and rebellious music along with dances like the Twist and Rock and Roll, not to mention the expanding use of drugs and those wonderful mini-skirts.

The Rolling Stones were a cavalier pop group whilst the famous Beatles appeared at Scarborough, North Yorkshire in 1964. Pop music was nurtured by television which was itself growing in popularity as more and more people purchased TV sets with rather fuzzy black-and-white pictures. This highly effective form of communication publicised those musicians, songsters and their work in a way that had never previously been experienced.

The revolutionary Hovercraft was invented in 1964 and in the same year, a 48-year-old Yorkshireman called Harold Wilson became the country’s youngest Prime Minster since William Pitt. Similarly in America, the youngest-ever President was elected. His name was John F Kennedy, aged 42 and he was also the first Roman Catholic to hold that office. He was assassinated at Dallas, in Texas, on 22 November 1963. During the 1960s, many railway lines were closed through Dr Beeching’s recommendations whilst the expanding number of motorways were accommodating an increasing amount of traffic. Pirate radio stations appeared off-shore to become the forerunners of commercial radio networks and there was national happiness and pride when the England football team won the World Cup on 30 July 1966. They beat West Germany by four goals to two. Two British ladies won the Wimbledon championship to create more national pride in the 1960s, Angela Mortimer in 1961 and Ann Jones in 1969...

- End of online sample -

<< Previous | Next >>