31 October 2004
Week Sixteen
It’s been a bit of a week of lasts in a way. I am feeling very strange about it all at the moment as in a way, I can not wait to see the back of Hendon, the barracks and a couple of people here but in another way there are some people I am going to miss a lot that I would have loved to spend more time with in different, and far less stressful, circumstances. It has been a difficult environment to get to know people properly in as I know I have found it difficult to be myself and I am sure I am not the only one. I feel like we haven’t seen each other’s best sides in a way and have seen more than we would have cared to display normally of each other’s bad sides. Still, that all said, overall, I can’t wait to get out of Hendon so I am pleased I have just two weeks to get through.
So, we had our last ever parade (hoorah) so no more evil drill instructors for me (apart from all the pesky Class Captain’s meetings in my lunch and break times about passing out parade but hopefully I will be able to tolerate them slightly better knowing that that too is coming to an end). We had our last ever OST lesson which is good and our last ever 0700 HRS start (well, at Hendon anyway). So, I can very much see the light at the end of the tunnel now and when we got our warrant cards all made up, I could really feel the day getting very close to me being a real police lady! (My warrant card is very very cool by the way)
As it gets closer, I, of course, also remain terrified that in just three weeks from now, I am going to have an awful lot of responsibility on my hands and I am very nervous about the first few weeks of real policing but I am told the confidence of talking to people and dealing with scrotes does come very quickly.
So, this week, well, let’s start with Black Monday. It turned out quite rosy in the end. I was dreading it really but I did really well in our final SEEs which to be fair were dreamy situations and I feel we were let off very lightly. We had a lost / stolen vehicle with a child in the back so we had to combine what we knew about how to deal with lost / stolen vehicles and Missing Persons. This one I got 91% in. The second one was a really straight forward case of Indecent Exposure where apart from having to say the word ‘penis’ a lot (which is not nice, I prefer to use only the terms ‘willy’ and ‘front bottom’ for men and women’s respective private parts), it went very well and I ended up getting 100% which was pretty good really. We had a very nasty written exam which I haven’t got the results back from yet but I think I did enough to pass which is all I am interested in. We also got another written work back from last week and I got a 1 along with nearly everyone in the class so our staff were very pleased with us.
Just a quick word on the staff. E (that’s us) and F class have been exceptionally fortunate with our staff. They really couldn’t have been better and the two sergeants particularly are diamonds. I will miss them heaps, they are both the sort of skippers you’d give anything to have out on the street and work under. I really hope the Sergeants in the real world are as great.
What else, so yes, Tuesday, we did our Public Order training up at Gravesend which was quite good. It was very hard work and there was a lot of running around and very few breaks but it was quite interesting. We had some practice at dealing with a planned incident as we escorted lots of football fans from a makeshift tube station to the ground to the screams of ‘Let’s go f$%*ing mental, let’s go f$%*ing mental, la la la la, oi, la la la la, oi’ where a few of the people in the mix got out knives and the like and we had to jump in and arrest them, that was pretty cool actually.
The rest of the week was mainly still focusing on Public Order and preparing for our final exam. Oh, and we had the class photograph as well all dressed up in our tunics which was good but my little Erskine (my buddy who was sadly recoursed) was missing from it and that was all wrong and quite sad.
We are on to the last two weeks now and the best thing about next week is that by the end of Tuesday, I have NO MORE EXAMS. That will be such a weight off my mind and hopefully we can all get together after that and have a laugh for the last few days together. I really hope we don’t lose anyone else from the class now before the end. There are two on dodgy ground but hopefully they will be OK.
We are going on Operation Narrowboat on Wednesday which I am really looking forward to. Basically we get sent out to borough for a day, I will be going to Greenwich, and shadow a police officer and do whatever we need to do to assist really. If nothing else, it will be a good insight in to how it actually feels to walk around in public with the uniform on before I start doing that for real on November 22nd.
We are back up to Gravesend again as well for Firearms Awareness training so that will be interesting and there will be lots more drill practice preparing for the passing out parade in under two weeks now! In fact, on paper, next week looks like it could be quite an interesting one so let’s hope it pans out that way.
Well, I am nearly back out in the real world and back living in my little pad which I can’t wait for. I can also get back in to what Arsenal are up to properly as well now (although my first visit to Highbury for 4 months this Saturday against The Saints left me feeling a little flat) and most of all get p*ssed with my mates without having to get up at some ungodly hour.
OK, I better go revise for our final exam, I hope this instalment finds you all well.
(Nearly) PC Woody xxx
