The former Worcester city policemen were great pranksters and it paid to be always on guard and have a sense of humour.

Few of us owned cars soon after the war and generally came on duty on our bikes. Occasionally, you found on coming off duty that some joker had tied your wheel very securely to the cycle rack.

Memos purporting to be from some senior officer were sometimes left where everyone could have a crafty look. On one famous occasion the whole section were up in arms. The memo ordered that everyone was to watch a certain bobby do point duty on the River Bridge as his actions in waving the traffic through was to be emulated by the other constables.

The officers were furious, as the bobby waved his arms about and then the penny dropped and everyone had a good laugh. One new recruit was examining the inside of the Cathedral at night for the first time, a very eerie duty at first with all those people watching you from their stone beds. Suddenly he was disturbed by a strange white shape flitting about near him. "Sarg" he shouted, 'I know its you, I've drawn my truncheon. If you don't come out from that sheet I'm going to belt you!

The sergeant dropped the sheet very hurriedly before he tasted the wooden medicine stick.

JOE WALTER,

Worcester.