26 September 2004
Week Eleven
I try, as far as possible to be reasonably positive in these blogs but I am afraid that this week, I will find it very difficult to be upbeat and I can only offer my apologies in advance should anyone feel down after this week’s edition.
It is fair to say I have felt thoroughly sorry for myself this week and it has been by far the worst week yet for me. I knew it would be tough and weeks 10, 11 and 12 are well renowned for being pretty dire so I thought I had prepared myself well for it but it just reached the point this week where everyone, without exception, is absolutely cream crackered. We were doing role plays in the SEE village on Thursday evening in preparation for the next major obstacle sent to test us, the SEEs on Tuesday, and I have honestly never in my life seen so many people, so tired, all at the same time. After “Bing Bong, start exercise, start exercise”, people were stumbling in, barely remembering their name, doing diabolical investigations and wondering what the hell they had arrested the second person in the room for – myself included. It wasn’t encouraging but as I say, it has been a tough week!
Like many things though, the worry of how the hell we are going to get through all the things we have on at the moment is actually far harder than actually doing them. I have wondered for the last two weeks how I will actually get through the week but you just do. And actually, in reflection, whilst unpleasant, it was probably nothing like as bad as I thought it would be.
We started the week with a bit more traffic and received the paperwork for written test no. 3, a witness statement. These take quite a while, so we had until Thursday morning to complete them and hand them in. We also had several White Notes to do, however, before the end of the week; preparation for the handcuffing test; a process book and VDRS (Vehicle Defect Rectification Scheme); and a class test to complete so many of us were hard pushed to get everything done. As I say though, I got there in the end and I am confident that my witness statement is good enough for another pass.
The handcuffing exam ended up being nothing to worry about at all. I think if the evil OST lady hadn’t told us for the last two weeks that she would fail us all, we wouldn’t have got in to such a state at all. As it turns out, bless the evil wench, she isn’t even qualified to invigilate the exam anyway, so we had four top male OST trainers (which, not meaning to be sexist, but seems to make a massive difference to the quality of training we receive as it really seems as though the women trainers feel like they have got something to prove) and it actually ended up being the most enjoyable OST lesson by far just because they were professional teachers and actually used the lesson to teach us rather than exercise a power of authority. After three hours of handcuffing, my wrists were incredibly sore (it hurts like hell, as I think I have mentioned before) and all but one in the class passed. He can take it again in week 13 when I am certain he will pass with flying colours so that was a massive relief for most of us.
We had mock court this week as well which we were all looking forward to, as long as it wasn’t us up there! It was conducted in front of a real magistrate, who took it very seriously, and believe me, took no crap from anyone! It was a hugely useful insight in to what it might be like in there and the kinds of tactics defence lawyers will use to attack us. I wasn’t up there but the three people who did appear before His Worship did incredibly well, I thought. Especially Tim, who had very foolishly handed in his first ever attempt at an IRB which was, to put it kindly, a bloody disgrace. He knew it couldn’t be defended but I have to say, he has no worries about coming across as honest and managed to maintain his dignity fully defending such a poor piece of evidence. It highlighted as well the importance of making thorough and detailed notes. If there are any holes at all, they will be found and this could amount to people not getting punished for the crimes they commit. I certainly don’t want to be responsible for that.
We met the Sergeant and one of the trainers who will be conducting our street duties training on Monday of this week. Basically, what happens is after I finish training at Hendon (hoorah), I have one week off and then, those of us, of which I believe there are about 12, who are going to Wandsworth borough begin a ten week street duties course, all based from Tooting Police Station. Essentially, this means patrolling the street in pairs with someone more experienced and dealing with whatever comes your way. The Sergeant seems like a really approachable, easy going kind of guy so I am looking forward to this. We have a provisional street duty rota and as it stands, I am actually off around Christmas Day and on New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day. It is subject to change but it is looking very promising at the moment. I felt very positive after the meeting as it was a useful reminder that this thing is real and I am not just here to get through the training but I did feel slightly anxious about one thing. For some reason, I hadn’t given any thought whatsoever to how I would get home from a night shift when public transport isn’t running. I guess having lived in London for years without a car, I didn’t consider it would be an issue but of course, I haven’t needed to get home from Clapham at 3am in the morning for a whole week before, so why would it have been. It seems that without a car, this will be very difficult and as there is no way in the world I can afford to buy a car, I am a bit stuck. I still don’t quite know what I will do yet but I will come up with something.
This leads me on to what really got me so down this week. We got paid, if you can call it that, on Wednesday and this sunk me in to quite a deep depression as I ended up getting taxed £120 more than everyone else due to some time apparently when I was working for Lloyds TSB when I had been under taxed. It couldn’t have been deducted from me at a worse time and with nearly £800 going out each month for a mortgage before I even contemplate bills, student loans etc., taking home just over £1200 this month was a big problem. I know it is my own stupid fault for leaving a higher salaried and, frankly, far easier job for this one and 99.9% of the time, I wouldn’t go back to an office job for all the money in the world, as I found it very unchallenging and slightly dull but on Wednesday, boy, on Wednesday, I wondered what on earth I was doing. I had a good old cry and tried to console myself that when I am Commissioner of the Met, I will look back and laugh at the days I was struggling to afford to live but it didn’t really help. In truth, I have just felt sorry for myself all week. A lot of it is the tiredness really. I would do anything for a day off. I would snog Shane MacGowan for a day off I think.
On the plus side, we had the much dreaded Week 11 KEE on Friday. It is renowned for a large number of failures as people sometimes slack off a bit due to no KEE in week 10 and get hit with a whopping bout of traffic. The exam went fine for me and, again, whilst I don’t think I am heading for a binder entry, I am confident of another pass, so I am very pleased that went well.
It is surprising, once you know the various bits of traffic legislation how many offences are broken every day. I waited for half an hour today for a bus and whilst stood there (sadly) found myself checking if people were wearing their seatbelts. To my astonishment, just less than half of the cars that went passed contained people, some with children, not wearing seatbelts, not to mention the chap with no seatbelt on himself or his kids in the back and driving whilst using his mobile phone. I am amazed at how many people are so brainless, it being a law which is in place entirely for people’s own protection, but there you go! Anyway, after reporting a car to Lewisham police on Friday night for Wilful Obstruction of the Highway AND parking in a pelican controlled area, I realised, I should probably get a life and focus more on my shopping and getting hammered than the various offences being broken on the road!
So, the week is over, and for that I am thankful. Just two more really tough ones to go and then things will very much calm down. I am getting to the point now where I have very nearly passed enough of everything for it to not matter if I fail all the remaining exams which will be a massive relief. Obviously, for my own pride, I intend to fail as few as possible but it will be a weight of my mind when it won’t matter if I fail one at all.
Next week, we have our next written exam, a process book and VDRS, the next two SEEs and of course, another KEE. Oh, how we all hate SEEs. A fail is definitely on the cards with these I would think as I don’t feel at all prepared for them and they could be on so many things again. I would love a nice drink drive one as I am 100% ready for the breath test and arresting with the prescribed words and a robbery would go down well as well. We’ll see, I can but do my best. Once the SEEs are over, in fact, next week doesn’t look too bad at all and we are moving away from traffic now and on to domestic violence and assaults of various kinds so I think it will be an interesting area of legislation.
Oh, incidentally, I have just watched ‘The Secret Policeman’ this weekend as I had never watched it before. For those of you who aren’t familiar with this, a BBC journalist went undercover for about a year, until he was caught, going through all the training and street duties etc. with Greater Manchester Police. His primary purpose was to try to expose racism within the police basically and he succeeded quite well with one or two pretty disgusting individuals in his class. There were references to Hendon in the video as well, which surprised and annoyed me, as I can honestly say, in eleven weeks of training, I have not heard a single racist or sexist comment or seen any prejudices being displayed in any way. I mean that sincerely and whilst I am not naive enough to think I won’t witness it to some extent on borough, I really am proud to say, my experiences of the Met so far are very positive on that front and whatever they are doing, I believe it to be working.
Anyway, on that note, I am off to do my favourite thing in the world, munch on crispy Peking Duck Pancakes from M & S, that should cheer me up!
Take care all and I am one step closer to being able to be sociable again which is a huge bonus. Oh Red, Red Wine, how I miss you as well.
Until next week, folks…
