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I was found lodgings in Kempshott Road, where countless policemen had lodged before, recalls Harold Taylor, one had even reached the realms of being HM Inspector of Constabulary.
It made a long journey into work each day, and as far as I was concerned was not that marvellous. However I had hopes that it would not be for long. The system of working was not entirely straightforward.
We were on a 48 hour week which meant that one worked 7 days before one got a day off, therefore your day off each week progressed by a day until you reached a weekend, then you took both Saturday and Sunday off.
Harold, originally from Chichester, joined the police force in 1948, having previously been in the Merchant Navy during the Second World War. He continues...
If I remember correctly in those days there was no provision for Bank Holidays. I must have arrived in Horsham around June. At the end of July the Goodwood Race Meeting is held, for which the force did most of the policing.
This year apparently something new was going to be tried with the increasing use of radio within the police. Whether it had come down from Headquarters, or whether it was just the initiative of the local Inspector, I don't know.
I was asked if I would join a group concerned with radio control of the race meeting policing administration, and agreed.
The local Inspector had been a Merchant Navy man and I suspected that it was part of his scheme so that the ex-armed forces did not have all the limelight. Such plans are doomed to go wrong. I went down with chicken pox and was shunned by everyone.
This put me out of commission for the race meeting and for practically everything else because the isolation restrictions on such illnesses were still quite severe.
I did not want to be a burden on my landlady as she had grandchildren visiting, so I asked the doctor if I could use public transport to go home to Chichester, but he was not keen. So I stayed where I was with the prospect of about three weeks holiday.
It so happens that all the personnel who took part in the communication practice at Goodwood were taken en bloc to form the new Crime Room staff at Police Headquarters, and all in time were promoted, so perhaps fate took a hand.
I had not had a lot of time to make any hard ties with any of those in the division so spent a lot of my time amusing myself. Part of this took the form of going about with another lodger who was a local milkman and had lodged there for something like twenty years.
After lunch each day we would go off to a nearby pub called the Rising Sun and drink and play Russian billiards. We would continue to play after the pub closed as the landlord was prepared to serve tea or coffee.
When we had had enough of this game we would go to the ground of the local squire, who was Chairman of the local magistrates, and there would play cricket till teatime. That summer as I recall it was a glorious hot and sunny one.
Round about the time I joined the Police my girlfriend's parents had moved to a village outside Horsham called Rudgwick, so when she wished to visit them she had to pass through the town. I am sure I did not miss the opportunity to visit her and them as the occasion presented itself.
Eventually I returned to work and the boring business of daily patrol and occasional reporting went on. There was the odd occasion of sport and I recall I was roped in for the cricket team, a game I am not a lot of good at, although I usually manage to take a few wickets, but do very little scoring.
On one occasion there was a five or seven-a-side football match, which was played at Fittleworth that year, and I believe the last year it was held. I was roped in as goalie for Horsham, because the fellow they would have had was playing for Crawley, who were also submitting a team.
Goal is not a position I ever play, but as all the others were representatives for the county or other sides, I did not have a lot of choice. They thought they were good enough for me not to have a lot of bother.
I was not very conversant with the rules of this particular game, but the scoring was 2 points for a goal and 1 for corner.
I gained some status by saving some difficult goals and got our team through to the final, where I was later placed in disgrace because I cleared a goal by tipping it round to a corner. Whether we lost by that odd point I do not remember, but never having played in that type of contest I think I can be excused, although they did not think so.
Subsequently I became more interested in photography. One of our Sergeants was a keen man in this field and supplied a lot of stuff for the local paper, much to the chagrin of a local girl I had become acquainted with, who had the contract to the local paper.
This freelancing hampered her income. This girl had also got the contract to Crawley Borough Council for the full photographic record of the building of the New Town. I was able to practice my ability in her darkroom in developing my own films and creating enlargements.
I was planning to marry at Chichester in the November and invited Sergeant Scotcher, who had been transferred there, to the wedding. He supplied a large number of photos of the event.
Harold Taylor West Sussex, 2001
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