It was a fine warm early September Saturday evening and the Grumpy Old Men’s Society were drinking outside. The Green Dragon was serving a barbecue supper that eve and all were looking forward to it. Gladys, the landlady, was setting up for playing bowls with the ladies and Pete her husband was busy with the men ensuring all glasses were full. No one was drinking inside, for it was rare that the weather was so kind and it was far too good an eve to waste inside. As a result the bar service was a little haphazard, but no one was bothered.

“So what is it to be the night? asked Geoff. “If all else fails I’ve a couple of short ones about the police that’ll provide a laugh.”

“Do you spell police with two ells as well as pronounce it that way, Geoff?” asked Paul.

“Get stuffed, Paul.”

“Just asking, Geoff,” Paul replied laughing.

“Give Pete a minute or two to organise the bar staff and sit down and then you start, Geoff,” Sasha told him. “If we’re on police tales I’ve one and another about the Council too.”

By the time Pete sat down more than a few minutes had gone by and all were ready. “What kept you, Pete?” asked Alf.

“I locked the front door, so anybody arriving for a drink will have to come round the back and we’ll see them. No point in the bar staff missing out on the fun is there?”

All nodded, for it was typical of Pete to be that considerate, and they’d take it in turns to serve any visitors. Locals would serve themselves.

“You’ll all have heard about the robbery at the Spar shop in Wigton a few weeks ago?” There were nods all round. “Well I heard a few details about it the other day that weren’t in the paper. I went to the auction in Carlisle and got chatting to a few lads I’ve known for years. Apparently, the thieves backed a stolen JCB [back hoe machine] into the shop at the front straight off the main road at half past two in the morning. They trashed the entire shop getting to the ATM cash machine which was at the back. Must be sixty feet from the front window. They got the ATM out of the wall with the back actor [back hoe] and drove out the front right round the block to the car park at the back. It would have been easier to just keep going and exit via the back wall of the shop straight onto the car park, but obviously that didn’t occur to them. Best of it is their van was too small to fit the ATM in, so they abandoned it on the car park and left. I’ve no idea if they’ve been catcht(1) yet, but the laddie who gave me the tale said it was over four hours before the police arrived at the shop. The alarm goes off in the station so they knew about it, and there were several folk who had the entire incident on their phones. Christ man, I’m telling you, bloody useless all of them. It makes you wonder what the hell the council pay all that money we have to give them to the police for.”

“Ah but, Geoff,” interrupted Sasha smoothly, “You’re not taking all the relevant factors into consideration.”

“Go on, Sasha. I’ll buy it. Listen hard lads because I’m sure what Sasha’s going to tell us will be better than the tale.”

“Well first of all you know about the cuts in public spending which have resulted in serious demanning of the police force.”

“What the hell does that mean, Sasha?”

“Less money, fewer officers and local police stations closed, Alf. We haven’t had a local force for what, ten years?”

“Nearer fifteen. I get you you now.”

“Well. Lets be generous regards the call out time. The alarm no longer goes off in the station or if it does there’s none to hear it because the station is no longer in use. It goes to a local inbound relay centre from where it goes to the centre that puts the calls out to the appropriate police station. Someone once told me the send out centre is in Mumbai India. I’ve no idea if that’s true, but in this day and age it at least sounds credible. That all takes time because the call centre at Mumbai deals with tens of thousands of internet traders’ orders too. However, eventually they get the message back to the UK where the three officers on duty that night in Workington that are covering our half of the county, so that’s what eighty miles by eighty and serves a hundred and forty thousand folk, are having a cup of tea. Fair enough, like every one else they’re entitled to a tea break. So they finish their tea, saving a bit of response time by reading the printout as they do because they are conscientious lads. But now comes the biggest factor in the call out time. They take their cups to the sink and taped to the wall right next to it is a big sign that says Now Wash Your Cups, so since not washing their cups before leaving is a disciplinary matter, I ask you what are the poor bastards supposed to do?”

It took several minutes for the laughter to die down and Pete and Stan took the opportunity to refill glasses.

“Sasha, the thing that frightens me about you is your explanations of the world are just entirely too credible.”

“Well, Gerry, I’m sure there are events happening all the time all over world far more ridiculous than any I’ve ever imagined. You said you’d a couple of tales, Geoff. Give us the other one.”

“OK. Now you may not be aware of this but police officers go to special training classes to enable them to distinguish details on things that move at incredible speeds. I’m going back a few years when cross ply tyres were still as prevalent as radials. I had two radials and two cross plys on my Allegro because I couldn’t afford four new radials. I know that the radials were on the rear wheels and the cross plys on the front, which was legal, because I fitted them myself. I was flagged over by a copper on foot when I was doing forty miles an hour in a forty limit area. I expected to be accused of speeding because he was holding a vascar radar pistol. But no. He told me he’d seen that I had an illegal combination of tyres on my car. At this point he hadn’t even looked at my tyres. Well damn me when I looked the radials were on the front and the cross plys were on the back, which is illegal. He’d seen that at forty miles an hour from fifty yards, or so he said. I’d had to look damned hard standing next the the vehicle when it was stationary to tell, but I obviously hadn’t been on the training course. And I’m damned certain there was no chance I’d made a mistake.”

“What happened, Geoff? You get done for it?”

“No. A mate who was a mechanic wrote a letter saying he was working on the car for me and had had the wheels off, but I needed it back before he’d finished. He wasn’t aware of the two types of tyres and just put the two with the best treads on the drive wheels. If there’s any doubt they’ll not get a successful prosecution they’ll drop it, which they did.”

“You lied, Geoff?” asked Dave.

“Well they started it.”

“You any idea what was going on, Geoff? Because what that copper said about seeing the tyres weren’t right was bullshit. I’ve been messing with cars for a living all my life and sure as hell I can’t do that.”

“Put it this way, Alf. My Allegro was parked on spare land I owned that was out of sight of the house and just about anyone else too, so the tyres could have been swapped without me knowing. I’d just been a court witness concerning a hit and run incident. Without doubt the copper had been hit and the vehicle had driven off, but it couldn’t have been the poor bastard they nailed for it because he had an alibi, he was working with me at the time several miles away. He had the right make and model of car and it was the right colour too which was unlucky. I’d had a couple of visits from the police suggesting delicately that I may have been mistaken. I don’t know what was going on but I’ve often wondered.”

There was a silence and Tommy said, “I’ve never trusted the bastards since they pulled me, Sarah and Jane my sister in off the streets in Manchester. The three of us and my four girls were out on a day’s shopping. We were all staying with Jane who lived down that way. Sarah had been looking forward to it for weeks. I’d have been pretty recognisable because I was wearing a broad brimmed rainproof hat, same as the one I wear now, like a lot of blokes wear round here. We’d had lunch and were going to go into the Arndale shopping centre, so that puts it before 1996 when the IRA(2) blew it to bits. I think it was round about 1980, but I’m not sure. A van pulled up and they pushed us in the back with no explanations. The girls were all still in nappies, the twins were still two I think so that dates it to 1978 or 1979. The law separated me from the women and the kids and we were all searched. I kept demanding to know why were we there. I was given some bullshit about a dodgy credit card. I’d never earnt enough to be allowed a credit card, in those days the banks only issued them to high earners, so I said it couldn’t be any thing to do with Sarah or me. I was told it was to do with Jane. ‘Don’t be bloody stupid,” I told the man, “She’s a top fashion designer and probably earns twenty or thirty times what you do. Why the hell would she be messing with a stolen credit card.” They searched all our stuff including a bag of dirty nappies. They’d pulled us off the street just before one and threw us out six miles from the car at nearly seven. My solicitor said because we’d not made a big enough fuss, legally we were helping the police with their enquiries and although he’d put a complaint in on our behalf it would just be filed. I never got a reply, never mind an explanation or an apology. I’ll never help the bastards again, no matter what.”

Sasha said, “A young copper was rude to me once in a shop queue. [line] I pointed out his lack of manners and said there was no need to talk to me as if I were a criminal. He told me we were all criminals it was just that some of us hadn’t been caught yet. I told him that presumably that meant all police officers were on the take from organised crime and fabricated evidence as a routine part of their daily duties. He said, ‘Fuck you,’ so I said, ‘You’re almost but not quite pretty enough for me to consider it,’ which got a laugh from all thirty or so customers in the shop who were watching and listening. Stupid man really. I was well known in the area and well thought of and he was a stranger. When he got to the front the shop keeper said, ‘We don’t serve bent coppers. Do yourself a favour, lad, bugger off and don’t come back. We don’t like folk who insult our friends and neighbours.’ He was laught out of the shop.”

“Was that Jim Postletwaite’s general store?”

“Yes. Why, Bill?”

“Jim telt me that tale years ago, but I didn’t know it was you. Seeing as we’re telling tales about plod(3) I’ve a one that I’ve not thought about for years, but let’s get another glass. My tale will just fit nicely before supper, which I can see the ladies are sorting out.”

“I’ll start pulling pints lads if someone will take them outside for me,” Pete remarked.

Alf stood and said, “I’ll go and get some trays, Pete.”

It was ten minutes or so before the tale spinners and listeners reconvened to hear Bill.

“Most of you know I used to drive a clapped out Peugeot 505 before I started driving Izuzu pick ups. I had some work for a few years down Distington way and used to come back up the coast road to Silloth and drop a bit of firewood off at my sister’s, before coming home. I used to pick up pallets from the builders’ merchants in Workington. They were glad to see them gone because they put them in skips [dumpsters] to have taken away and it cost them a fortune, and you don’t get many pallets in a skip. I had a sixteen foot three axled trailer and a bloody great plasterboard pallet on the car roof. I used to fill the boot, [trunk] the back of the car and pile the trailer and the pallet on the roof to the sky. It looked like a heavy load, but most of it was air. That what it’s like loading pallets. That day I loaded up, roped and ratchet strapped it all down and set off. I picked up plod somewhere round Grasslot before Maryport and they followed me all the way up the coast. They could have have pulled me at any time in the ten or twelve miles they were following me. I went through Allonby and they finally flashed me to stop when I was well past Beckfoot and ready to turn right to go through Wolsty.

“It was the worst possible combination, a arrogant bloke of about thirty with a young trainee,” Bill looked over his shoulders to check where the ladies were and lowered his voice, “wearing a goody sized pair of chest ornaments. He walked all round the load pulling on ropes and straps but they were all as tight as lute strings. A bloody tyre kicker if ever I saw one. I said naught because I thought I was probably a bit over weight. Anyway the bastard made me go all the way back to the weighbridge at Workington dock. I nearly pissed myself laughing when I was three kilo’s [7 pounds] under, but for once I was bloody glad the fuel tank was nearly empty.

“ ‘What’s the gross train weight on this,’ he asked.”

“ ‘According to the VIN [vehicle identity number] plate under the bonnet [hood] three thousand five hundred kilos. I’ll pop the bonnet and you can see for yourself,’ I replied with malice in every syllable. ‘And I’m three kilo’s under. I’ve noted your number and a complaint will be going in. You’ve cost me a hour and a fiver in diesel.’ ”

“ After looking at the VIN plate the idiot said, ‘The load looked unsafe,’ ”

“ ‘I don’t give a toss what it looked like because that is not a matter for the law. It either was or it was not unsafe, and you tested the tie downs. If you believed it to be unsafe you know damned well you made a serious error of judgement telling me to drive back to Workington, so I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt in thinking you did not believe it to be unsafe, but I’m glad I’m not looking like a complete idiot in front of the young lady. Now is there any further harassment, or are you going to do the job I’m paying taxes for and let me get on my way?’ I left and did write a letter of complaint, but received no reply. I passed the matter to my MP [member of parliament] but all he got was a bullshitting whitewash letter in reply.”

Most of the men were shrugging their shoulders, for they’d all had similar experiences at some time. Sasha summed it up when he said, “They don’t get paid enough, so the police can only recruit idiots because no one with any brains will do the job for that little money, because they can earn far more elsewhere. You pay peanuts and all you get are monkeys. Anyway it’s supper time.”

Supper was, as Denis said, “Abso-bloody-lutely excellent,” and it was an hour later before the ladies resumed their bowling and the men got back to yarning.(4)

“Any more tales about plod, Lads?” Sasha asked. “I’ve not got any more about plod I can think of, but I’ve got one about the council that’s equally stupid, unless anyone else wants to have a go.”

There were no takers so Sasha started. “This is from when I was cab driving and my boy Alex was at university. It’s going back to the days of when the Poll Tax replaced Property Rates as local taxation. That was in March 1990 in England. They’d learnt nothing from the disaster in Scotland where Poll Tax had been introduced twelve months before. Poll Tax was an even bigger disaster in England than it had been in Scotland, and it was replaced by Council Tax in March 1991. It was only in existence for about twelve months in England, but Councils were still forlornly pursuing the several million who’d refused to pay it for years. Alex was a student living at home for a while before he went to university and lived there. Students and the out of work only paid twenty percent of the full amount. I reckoned we owed five months worth at twenty percent. I was going to pay it, but then I changed my cab for another vehicle. The plates taxis are legally obliged to have visibly displayed at the rear of the vehicle are not transferable from vehicle to vehicle because they have the vehicles details on them. You have to pay for them up front, and the money is refundable when they are handed back in to the common law section of the Council which is the department that licences taxis. I can’t remember how much money it was, but it was not insignificant. I handed my plate back in to be told I would receive the cheque in the post in about three months, but I had to pay for the new one then and there. I reckoned It should have been a straight swap, but it was that or no plate, so no cab, and no work equals no wages.

“Being as mad as hell fire about it I deducted the money the Council owed me for my plate from the money I owed them for Alex’s Poll Tax and sent them the difference. I received a letter from them telling me it didn’t work like that and unless I paid the Poll Tax bill in full within ten working days they would take me to court. I ignored the letter and a month later still hadn’t received a court summons. I did receive a telephone call from the Council Treasurer’s office. I explained their internal arrangements were none of my affair and if they wanted to pursue the matter it would have to be in court, but since the Council already had all the money I owed them I suspected they wouldn’t do that because no court would find me guilty of any crime. Unlike the millions who had refused to pay the Poll Tax which they knew they would never recover because the police were refusing to prosecute because they simply didn’t have the manpower I at least had paid. I was told they would be passing the matter over to their enforcement department.

“That was when the fun started. The first enforcer asked if I were Mr. Vetrov. I said I was Professor Vetrov. He started on about the Poll Tax and I told him the department that dealt with Poll Tax was closed and he’d have to ring back tomorrow between ten and three thirty before putting the phone down and leaving it off the hook. At ten thirty the following day the phone went again and this time I said that Miss A Vetrov dealt with Poll Tax, but unfortunately she was off ill. This went on for weeks. Miss Vetrov went on courses, was temporarily seconded to another department and finally she went on maternity leave. I only ever said to the Council’s employees what one of them had said to me, though I admit I used just about every lame excuse and put off that they had used.”

“What happened in the end, Sasha?”

“They gave up. They knew they had no case and that I knew it too. It just took them a long time for the penny to drop that I wasn’t playing by their rules because I didn’t have to.”

“May I tell a couple of short tales, Gentlemen? One’s about a Council, and the other’s about the police,” asked a youngish looking man with red hair. The regulars had seen him several times though he had never spoken to anyone before.

“Pete, fetch the lad a drink. What you on, Son?” asked Denis.

“Bitter please. I’m Anthony, Tony.”

“Ok, Tony. There you are one pint of bitter specially brewed to keep the vocal cords in perfect condition. When you’re ready off you go,” Pete told him.

“I’m a bee keeper. Have been since I was kid. I learnt it from my granddad. Like many a bee keeper I registered with the Council, and they’d ring me up from time to time to remove a swarm. Bee keepers don’t charge for the service. It’s been accepted for centuries that a swarm belongs to whoever takes it. I took a swarm out of the Council offices once. It was in a room that had been full of folk working on computers in the finance department. It was on a coat rack and really easy to take. I did the job in about ten minutes.

At the time of the tale, I’d have been twenty three, just married to Beth and we’d not long moved into our first house. There was a footbridge over the nearby beck that folk used as a shortcut to walk from the shops and pubs to get home to the estate of houses behind our house. The beck ran under the overhead M60, the Manchester Motorway ring road, in a culvert which was always getting blocked. The frequent blockages and the chips [fries] that folk threw over the railings onto the banks when they’d had enough on their way home from the pub after calling at the chippy(5) made it a paradise for rats, and there were some big buggers. When the rats ran out of chips to eat they scavenged further afield, and Beth had had enough when she saw one in the kitchen.

“Beth and I are dentists, and someone at work said, ‘Ring the Council. They have men that deal with rats.’ So I did. I was told that the new procedure was if I went to any rent office and paid eighty quid they would send someone within the month from me either paying cash or my cheque clearing. I said it was all right I’d live with the four legged rats from the beck, but the ones with two legs that work for the council would live to regret trying to steal eighty quid off me. Like most bee keepers I belonged to the local association and I told every one at the next meeting what had happened. We came to a conclusion as to how to deal with the matter. Not long after that the Council had a swarm to deal with and I got lucky. They rang me. I told the woman that when two hundred pounds had cleared in my account, details of which I was happy to provide, I would attend to the matter. She clearly didn’t understand, so I explained, ‘You want eighty quid for some blokes to come and sort the rats out that come from the beck near my house. I reckon I’m worth at least two hundred quid if a rat catcher is worth eighty and furthermore you insisted you had to have possession of the money before you would act which I entirely agree with. I’ve spoken to every bee keeper in the area and they’ll all give you the same tale.’

“ ‘But we need them moving now. They’re in the Council meeting chamber.’ I laught and said, ‘ So you need to pay cash up front don’t you. Either that or move them yourself.’ ‘You don’t understand,’ she said. ‘I understand only too well. You feel entitled to squeeze me for money, but consider it unreasonable for me to do the same to you. Oh yes I understand. I just don’t care. Try ringing someone else. You may get a discount price, say a hundred and eighty, but I want two hundred.’ ”

Tony seemed to have finished. Alf asked, “What happened after that, Tony?”

“Nothing. They wouldn’t pay, so the Council had to meet somewhere else, and forty-eight hours later the swarm had found a home and moved off. At the next meeting one of our members said it moved into an empty hive he’d left in the back of his pick up parked in the Council car park. He’d left the hive with some attractant and wax sheets in it. The following year the Council dropped the eighty pound fee and the local bee keepers resumed collecting swarms for free.”

“Did you collect any, Tony?” asked Stan.

“No. I got the hell away from Greater Manchester and moved up here. We live near Keswick now and opened our own surgery in the town when one of the local one man practices retired. Best thing we ever did, and my bees do better up here too.

“My second tale is much shorter and about when I brought my bees up here. It was late summer, back end of August, so the long days and the good weather meant the bees were working till late. They were all strong colonies, but I didn’t want to lose any bees, so I left it till half past eleven and they were all back in the hives before closing the hives up and loading my six hives onto the trailer. A couple of bee keepers I knew gave me a hand to load up, and after a coffee it was nearly one in the morning when I set off for Cumbria. I was driving a big Volvo, and the trailer was a small, nearly new, two axled job that I’d borrowed from another bee keeper. By the time I’d reached the M6 motorway the weather wasn’t good any more. It was one of those violent, electrical summer storms. At first I thought with the thunder and lightening it was just a cloud burst and wouldn’t last long. It was hammering it down fit to knock holes in the tarmac, but it didn’t let up. It just kept pouring it down. Visibility was poor, so I went up the M6 at about fifty. Fortunately the traffic was light. I turned off the M6 at junction 40 onto the A66 and headed for Workington. We were living in a rented property at Harrington, and I had organised a site for my hives with a local farmer. I noticed the police car parked high up on the bank at the Cockermouth sheep and wool centre on the far side of the traffic island. In my rear view mirror I saw them drive down on to the road and follow me, but thought nothing of it. It was still pouring down and must have been getting on for four in the morning. The police car’s flashing blue lights came on and I pulled up.

“The coppers had an appallingly aggressive attitude and one said they wanted to see what was in my boot [trunk] and in my trailer. I opened the boot and it was empty other than a white bee keeping suit and my smoker and other tools. I unclipped the flexible ties on the tarpaulin and let them look. One of the two banged on the first hive and I told him, “If I were you I wouldn’t do that.”

“His mate asked, ‘Are you threatening us?’ ”

“ ‘Far from it,’ I replied. ‘I’m trying to keep that idiot of a mate of yours alive.’ ”

“Just then his mate jumped back and asked, ‘What’s that noise?’ ”

“ ‘It’s the bees that you have just rattled by banging on their hive. The air is full of static due to the storm and they will be aggressive if they get out. They’re strong colonies, so there’re are possibly forty thousand in each hive. If you let them out you’ll both probably be dead in minutes, but I’ve built up immunity to bee stings over the years, so I should be ok. However, I don’t want to lose my bees, so leave them alone please. The hive entrances are closed with a piece of foam which it would be inadvisable to mess with.’ ”

“The bees in the hive he’d banged were roaring so loudly that I could hear them over the rain from ten feet away, and their noise and vibrations were setting the others off too. After half a minute I couldn’t hear the rain.”

“ ‘That doesn’t sound very safe,’ the idiot who’d banged on the hive said.”

“ ‘It’s the standard method of moving a few hives of bees, and it is perfectly safe if only folk who know what they are doing have any dealings with them. I’ve not long since moved up here and I’m taking them to Harrington where I have site for them.’ I shewed them my driving licence and they let me go. I left the trailer at their new home and drove home to get some sleep. When I awoke in the late afternoon the weather was sunny again, and I went to sort the bees out. The hives were quiet as I moved them to their stands and when I removed the foam closures it was business as usual. All I had to do to finish the job was return the trailer.

“Beth and I bought a house near Keswick a few months later with enough land to put the bees on, so I moved them in the early summer. Later that summer the bigger of those two coppers came into the surgery. He told the receptionist that he was in a lot of pain. ‘Hello, Officer, what can I do for you?’ I asked. From his swollen face he looked like he probably had an abscess. I saw recognition flood his face in the few seconds before he fled. I’m not sure what he thought I’d do to him, but clearly he was not a pleasant person, for he must have been thinking what he would have done had our situations been reversed. Still maybe he learnt something from the experience, but somehow I doubt it.”

“ Cracking good tale, Tony. I love it when the little guy wins for a change. It doesn’t happen anywhere near often enough. Ok, Lads, it’s a pleasant eve, so I’ll start pulling pints if you fetch the dominoes out.”

“Put these on my slate,(6) Pete,” Pat instructed. “If you play dominoes, Tony, I’ll partner you. And if there’s any food left over, Pete, I’ll have a mouthful or two.

“I heard that, Pat,” said Gladys. “There’s more than a mouthful or two, so if anyone else wants some just say so. I’d rather it were eaten than have to pack it away in the fridge.” Several said they’d have some, so Gladys said, “I’ll put it all on a couple of big serving plates and leave it on your tables for you. The ladies and I are going inside for a bit more warmth and a brandy or two. I’ll put a couple of logs on the fires in the taproom because you’ve only got another three-quarters of an hour of daylight and doubtless you’ll be playing till midnight.”

1 Catcht, dialectal caught.
2 IRA, the Irish Republican Army. A terrorist/resistance group, which depends on your politics, that operated after the partition of Ireland till the peace process was established. There are still splinter groups that have not accepted the peace.
3 Plod, pejorative term for the police. Mr. Plod was a fictional bumbling police officer in the Noddy series of children’s books by Enid Blyton.
4 Yarning, telling yarns. Yarns, tales.
5 Chippy, vernacular for a fish and chip shop. A take away establishment, most of which are open late at night when the pubs close to take advantage of the trade.
6 Slate, account, tab. Pat is saying he’ll pay for the round.